China’s exports and imports each set monthly records in April, further cementing the country as the world’s leading trading nation as Beijing prepares to welcome President Trump for a summit next week with Xi Jinping, China’s leader.

中国4月份的出口和进口双双创下单月历史新高，进一步巩固了其作为全球最大贸易国的地位。与此同时，北京正准备在下周迎接特朗普总统，他将与中国领导人习近平举行峰会。

China also ran a trade surplus — the excess of exports over imports — of $84.8 billion last month, according to data released on Saturday by the General Administration of Customs. However, that surplus did not set a record. The war in Iran and closure of the Strait of Hormuz pushed up the cost of imported oil and natural gas, causing China’s overall imports to increase slightly faster than exports.

根据中国海关总署周六公布的数据，中国4月份的贸易顺差（即出口超过进口的部分）达到848亿美元。不过，这一数字并未刷新纪录。由于伊朗战争以及霍尔木兹海峡关闭推高了石油和天然气的进口成本，导致中国整体进口增速略快于出口。

The surplus in April keeps China on track for a third year of roughly trillion-dollar trade surpluses. China posted a $1.19 trillion trade surplus last year, easily breaking the world record of $992 billion that it had set the year before.

4月份的贸易顺差使中国有望连续第三年实现万亿美元左右的贸易顺差。去年，中国的贸易顺差为1.19万亿美元，轻松打破了它在前一年创下的9920亿美元的世界纪录。

Mr. Trump is expected to press Mr. Xi to buy more American goods during their scheduled summit, part of his long-running effort to narrow China’s longtime trade surplus with the United States. But two recent court decisions overturning Mr. Trump’s tariffs on imports have eroded some of his leverage.

预计特朗普将在与习近平的峰会上敦促中国购买更多美国商品，这是他长期以来为缩小中国对美巨额贸易顺差所做的努力之一。但最近两项推翻特朗普关税政策的法院裁决削弱了他的一部分谈判筹码。

China’s exports to the United States jumped 11.3 percent last month compared to its shipments in April of last year, when President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs produced a slump in imports from China.

中国上月对美出口同比增长11.3%，而去年4月正值特朗普实施“解放日”关税，导致美国自中国的进口大幅下滑。

The country’s imports from the United States rose only 9 percent in April this year. As a result, its trade surplus with the United States widened by 13 percent.

今年4月，中国自美进口仅增长9%，致使对美贸易顺差扩大了13%。

China has long used state-run purchasing collectives in big categories like farm goods and commercial aircraft to manage its trade with the United States, ensuring it sells three to five times as much as it buys. Mr. Trump and his advisers have criticized that imbalance.

长期以来，中国一直通过国家统筹的集体采购体系管理与美国之间的大宗商品贸易，例如农产品和商用飞机，以确保其对美出口额达到进口额的三到五倍。特朗普及其顾问一直批评这种失衡局面。

Semiconductor exports doubled last month compared with April of last year. Chinese manufacturers cashed in on the artificial intelligence data center boom even though they cannot yet produce some of the fastest kinds of chips.

与去年4月相比，上个月的半导体出口翻了一番。尽管中国尚无法生产某些最先进的芯片，但中国制造商仍受益于人工智能数据中心的建设热潮。

Overall exports of electronics and machinery were up 20 percent in April from a year earlier.

4月份机电产品的整体出口同比增长20%。

China acts in many ways as a shock absorber in global oil markets. Beijing buys more oil for its vast reserves when the price is low, then cuts back purchases when prices are high, as they were last month.

在相当程度上，中国在全球石油市场扮演着“缓冲器”角色：油价低时大量购入以充实巨额储备，油价高时则削减采购——就像上个月那样。

With oil prices spiking upward this spring, the tonnage of China’s oil imports dropped last month to its lowest level since July 2022, when Shanghai’s two-month Covid lockdown reduced demand. The lockdown hurt many of China’s oil-dependent industries.

随着今年春季油价大幅攀升，中国上月石油进口量降至2022年7月以来的最低水平——当时上海因持续两个月的新冠封锁导致需求下降，许多依赖石油的行业受到打击。

Because prices rose faster last month than the tonnage declined, China’s overall bill for crude oil imports rose 13 percent from a year earlier. Rising oil prices helped drive China’s overall imports up 25.3 percent in April from a year ago, to a record $274.6 billion. Its exports surged 14.1 percent last month from a year earlier, to a record $359.4 billion.

不过，由于油价上涨幅度超过进口量下降幅度，中国4月原油进口总支出同比仍增长13%。油价上涨推动中国4月整体进口同比增长25.3%，达到创纪录的2746亿美元。出口同比增长14.1%，达到3594亿美元，同样创下历史新高。

China has been particularly successful this year in exporting electric cars as well as renewable energy products like wind turbines and solar panels. Exports of electric vehicles were up 52.8 percent last month from a year earlier.

今年中国在电动汽车以及风力发电机组、太阳能电池板等可再生能源产品的出口方面尤为成功。电动汽车出口较上年同期增长52.8%。

中国在风力发电机组等可再生能源技术的制造、应用和出口方面处于世界领先地位。

China has been running large, and widening, trade surpluses over the past several years with most of the rest of the world. It has trade deficits with only a handful of countries, including those like Brazil and Australia which have very large commodity exports.

过去几年，中国与全球大多数国家保持着庞大且不断扩大的贸易顺差。仅对少数国家存在贸易逆差，主要是巴西、澳大利亚等大宗商品出口大国。

The European Union and many developing countries now find themselves with rapidly growing trade deficits with China. Practically all of them have run their own trade surpluses with the United States to fund their deficits with China, sometimes repackaging goods from China and shipping them on to the United States to do so.

如今，欧盟以及许多发展中国家都面临对华贸易逆差迅速扩大的局面。几乎所有这些国家都依靠对美国的贸易顺差来弥补对中国的逆差，有时甚至会把从中国进口的商品重新包装后再转运至美国。

China’s huge trade surpluses are not necessarily a sign of economic strength. They partly reflect very weak spending by Chinese households on imports and domestic goods alike after five years of sliding housing prices wiped out much of the savings of the middle class. This has prompted many families to scrimp on purchases like new cars, leaving Chinese automakers with more cars to export.

不过，中国的巨额贸易顺差未必代表经济强劲。这在一定程度上反映了中国家庭消费的严重疲软——长达五年的房价下跌侵蚀了中产阶级的大部分储蓄，无论是进口商品还是国内商品，中国家庭的消费明显受抑。许多家庭因此紧缩开支，减少购车等消费，使得中国汽车制造商不得不将更多汽车转向出口。

“The Chinese economy still demonstrates resilience in trade and industrial supply chains,” said Zhu Tian, an economics professor at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, after the release of the trade data.

贸易数据公布后，上海中欧国际工商学院经济学教授朱天表示：“中国经济在贸易和工业供应链方面仍然展现出韧性。”

But weak domestic spending and a leveling off in the trade surplus, he said, “suggest that economic growth will continue to face significant challenges for the rest of the year.”

但他同时指出，内需疲软以及贸易顺差增长趋于平稳“表明今年余下时间经济增长将继续面临重大挑战。”