The auditorium at Alibaba’s headquarters was packed with attendees, leaning against the wall and squeezing onto the stairs. Hundreds of Chinese small-business owners listened raptly as a stream of representatives from Alibaba, the Chinese online shopping giant, stepped onstage to reassure them of China’s resilience in the face of America’s eye-watering tariffs.

阿里巴巴总部的礼堂里挤满了出席会议的人，他们有的靠墙而立，有的挤坐在阶梯上。数百名中国小企业主全神贯注地听着中国电商巨头阿里巴巴的代表们讲话，代表们先后登台向与会者保证，中国在美国令人瞠目结舌的关税面前仍然具有韧性。

“Since the beginning of April,” said Wang Shan, a digital marketing executive, “we’ve been researching and discussing, in this kind of policy environment, in such a rapidly changing situation, what should our methods and attitude be?”

阿里数字营销高管王珊说，“我们从今年4月初起就一直在研究和讨论，在这种政策环境下，在变化这么快的情况下，我们的应对之策和态度应该是什么？”

“Everyone’s consensus is that business still has to go out,” she continued. “We think that what it tests in the end is our own ability.”

“大家的共识是，生意还是要做下去，”她继续说道。“我们认为最终考验的是我们自身的能力。”

The battlefield mind-set has become the norm for a vast number of Chinese people engaged in the business of online selling to the United States. The threat they face from the tariffs is immense: The United States is China’s biggest export market for online trade, making up more than one-third of sales, according to official Chinese data. That includes individual Americans who rely on Shein for cheap swimwear or Temu for $2 garlic presses, as well as small-business owners who use platforms like DHGate or Alibaba to buy bulk goods to resell.

这种战场思维模式已成为在网上向美国销售商品的大量中国商人的常态。他们面临着巨大的关税威胁：美国是中国线上贸易的最大出口市场，官方数据显示，中国线上贸易销售额的三分之一以上来自美国。这其中包括美国个人消费者从Shein平台购买的廉价泳衣，或从Temu购买的2美元的压蒜器，也包括美国小企业主从敦煌网或阿里巴巴等平台批量采购后转售给消费者的商品。

The Alibaba conference, in the company’s home city of Hangzhou, in eastern China, offered a glimpse into how the country became such a behemoth in online shopping in the first place. And it suggested how the sector might weather the crisis.

这场在阿里巴巴总部杭州举行的会议让人们得以一窥中国是如何成为电商领域巨头的。会议还显示了该行业可能会怎样度过目前这场危机。

China’s success at e-commerce has become a central part of the saga of the country’s broader economic rise. Few people better symbolize the country’s rags-to-riches story than Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, whose journey from English teacher to online-shopping entrepreneur eventually made him one of the world’s richest men.

中国在电商领域的成功已成为其经济腾飞传奇的一个核心篇章。很少有人比阿里巴巴创始人马云更能代表这个国家在短时间里从赤贫到巨富的历程，马云曾是一名英语教师，后来成了一名电商企业家，最终跻身于世界巨富之列。

广州一家为Shein服务的服装厂，摄于本月。

That journey was made possible in part by the vast ecosystem that China has built to support its export machine. It spans not only factories, marketers and shipping companies, but also drop-shipping suppliers, who handle sourcing and delivery on behalf of sellers; live-streamers, who hawk their products, carnival-style, on short video apps; and private tutors dedicated to helping the country’s countless small-business owners sell internationally.

得以实现这种人生转变的部分原因是，中国为支撑本国的出口机器构建了庞大的生态系统。该系统不仅包括工厂、营销商和物流企业，也包括代发供应商，它们代表卖家进行采购和配送；还有在短视频应用上做直播，用狂欢方式兜售产品的主播；以及专门帮助中国的无数小企业主走向国际市场的私人指导。

The Chinese government has in recent years also made expanding online international sales a priority, offering companies tax breaks and encouraging universities to introduce related majors. Hangzhou is dotted with gleaming towers offering discounted office space to e-commerce entrepreneurs.

中国政府近年来也将跨境电商业务作为优先事项，为企业提供税收减免，鼓励高校开设相关专业。杭州到处可见明亮的高楼大厦，其中不少都为电商创业者提供租金优惠的办公空间。

Now with the tariffs, support from the government and companies is ramping up even more. Officials in Hangzhou have promised to help companies pivoting to non-American markets with legal paperwork. Employees from Amazon, which has built a center in Hangzhou to provide training to people selling on its platform, were hosting a session last week on the tariffs for their own merchants.

现在，面对美国的关税威胁，政府和企业对电商的支持力度也在进一步加大。杭州的官员们已承诺帮助企业转向美国以外的市场，为它们提供相关的法律文书支持。亚马逊以前在杭州就有一个培训中心，为在其平台上销售商品的人提供培训，上周，亚马逊的员工也为自己的商户办了一次有关关税问题的培训。

At the Alibaba conference, which was open to anyone interested in learning about selling abroad, company employees reassured attendees that they would help them take care of customs procedures. Online platforms have also promised tens of millions of dollars to help exporters advertise domestically instead.

所有想了解海外销售的人都可参加阿里巴巴的会议，公司员工向参会者保证，公司将协助他们办理海关手续。此外，网络电商平台也已承诺提供千亿资金，帮助出口商开拓国内市场。

As a result, the mood of many businesspeople at Alibaba’s headquarters was concerned but undeterred.

因此，前来阿里巴巴总部开会的许多商人虽然有所担忧，但并未却步。

Qiu Leisi, 36, who plans to open an online store selling plus-size clothing to retailers in the United States and Europe, said she would simply pass the expense of the tariffs on to her customers.

36岁的邱蕾丝（音）打算开设一家向欧美零售商销售大码服装的网店。她说，她会把关税的成本转嫁给客户。

“American business owners should see that the unfairness is coming from their own people,” she said, sitting in a coffee shop outside the Alibaba auditorium. (In a sign of how much interest the conference had drawn, the baristas cited a 50-minute wait for drinks.)

“美国的企业主应该看到，这种不公平来自他们国内的做法，”她在阿里巴巴礼堂外的一家咖啡店里说道。（从咖啡店的繁忙程度可见阿里巴巴的这次会议吸引了多大的关注，咖啡师说，顾客下单后要等50分钟才能拿到饮料。）

Ms. Qiu did not worry that Americans might balk at the higher costs. Her parents ran a hardware factory where one-third of business came from the United States, but they had offloaded some of their unsold inventory to India at a slight discount.

邱女士并不担心美国人可能会因成本更高而望而却步。她的父母经营着一家五金厂，以前三分之一的业务来自美国，但他们已把部分卖不出去的库存以略低的价格卖到了印度。

“They’ll give concessions to people who are friendly to us,” Ms. Qiu said of her parents. “Even if we lose America, there are many other countries that will step up.”

“他们将给那些对我们友好的人优惠，”邱女士谈到自己的父母时说。“即使我们失去美国市场，还有很多其他国家将成为替代。”

去年一个购物节期间北京的一个送货点。

Indeed, a key part of China’s strategy is to channel its exports to other countries. Even before the latest tariffs, as U.S.-China tensions grew, Chinese entrepreneurs had been focusing on expanding in Southeast Asia and Europe.

事实上，中国战略布局的一个关键部分正是将出口渠道延伸到其他国家。即使在美国最近的这些关税生效之前，由于美国与中国的关系越来越紧张，中国的企业家们已将注意力转向开拓东南亚和欧洲市场。

But that transition can only be done so quickly, especially for people whose customers are primarily American.

但这种转向的速度不可能一蹴而就，尤其是对那些主要以美国客户为主的中国企业来说。

That includes Shawn Zhao, whose company, HyperSKU, helps foreign small-business owners source goods like yoga mats from Chinese factories. About half of his business comes from the United States, and he had spent the last few weeks revising cost estimates for his clients there, as the tariffs climbed ever higher.

肖恩·赵（音）的公司HyperSKU就是其中之一，他的公司帮助外国的小企业主从中国工厂采购商品，比如瑜伽垫。他业务的大约一半来自美国，随着关税不断提高，过去几周他一直在修改提供给美国客户的成本估算。

To adapt, he has slashed his advertising budget for the United States and is focusing more on Europe.

为了应对关税，他已大幅削减了在美国做广告的预算，并将更多的精力放在了欧洲市场。

He has also has been focusing on personalized products that he hopes shoppers will think are worth the premium, such as engraved earrings, or lockets with their pets’ photos. That was where China’s supply chain was irreplaceable, he said, because it could deliver highly specific goods, in small batches, better than any other country.

他还把注意力转向个性化的商品，希望消费者愿意为这类溢价商品埋单，比如刻了名字的耳环，或镶了宠物照片的项链。他说，这些商品最好地体现了中国供应链在小批量定制化生产方面的不可替代性。

Still, he expected at least a 20 percent drop in revenue.

尽管如此，他预计今年的收入至少会减少20%。

“There are some things in the market that are beyond your control, like political factors,” Mr. Zhao said over lunch in one of Hangzhou’s many high-end malls that showcase its status as China’s high-tech capital. “You can only try to assess, under the worst-case scenario, can the company keep going? Make sure you have a clear accounting.”

“市场上的有些东西是你无法控制的，比如政治因素，”正在杭州一家高端商场吃午餐的赵先生说道，这个商场本身就是杭州作为中国高科技之都地位的展现。“你只能试着评估一下，公司能否在最坏的情况下继续运营，确保心中有一笔明白账。”

The optimism at the Alibaba conference may run up against other realities, too.

阿里巴巴大会上的乐观情绪或许还将遭遇其他现实挑战。

Some sellers suggested getting around the tariffs by redirecting goods through a third country. But under pressure from the Trump administration, some countries have promised to crack down on the practice.

一些卖家提出将货物通过第三国转运美国的办法来规避关税。但在特朗普政府的压力下，一些国家已承诺打击这种做法。

上海的洋山港，摄于今年2月。

Several people also said that looking overseas was less a choice than a necessity. China’s domestic market is hypercompetitive, and because of a slowing economy, people are reluctant to spend. That is a reason the government itself has been so eager to push overseas e-commerce, too.

一些人也说，放眼海外与其说是一种选择，不如说是一种必需。中国的国内市场竞争异常激烈，而且由于经济放缓，人们不愿消费。这也是中国政府正在如此热衷于推动跨境电商的原因之一。

“The market is only so big, and the merchants are so saturated, so our share of the pie is getting smaller and smaller,” said Fu Sicong, a 27-year-old wearing hip square-frame glasses, who with two friends runs an online shop selling car decorations. After his domestic business had fallen by about 20 percent in the last year, he decided to try Europe and the United States, where the profit margins are generally higher. “Even if we can’t do it well, we still have to do it.”

“市场就这么大，商家已经饱和，所以我们的市场份额正在变得越来越小，”27岁的傅思聪（音）戴着时髦的方框眼镜，他和两个朋友一起经营一家销售汽车饰品网店。国内业务去年下降了约20%后，他决定尝试利润率普遍更高的欧洲和美国市场。“就算做不好，也得做。”

More than the government subsidies, or the e-commerce companies’ reassurances, it was that resolve — to do business no matter what — that seemed to be fueling many entrepreneurs’ confidence.

真正支撑创业者信心的不是政府的补贴或电商平台的保证，而是这种无论如何都要坚持做下去的决心。

Inside an office building called Building Dreams, in one of Hangzhou’s many industrial parks dedicated specifically to cross-border e-commerce, Li Tongzi, 30, brushed off the fact that his sales of bracelets and fortunetelling accessories to the United States had evaporated. He would double down on the Chinese market, despite the narrowing profits.

杭州有许多跨境电商产业园区，筑梦之星写字楼位于其中一个园区，在这里，30岁的李桐梓（音）对自己销往美国的手链和算命饰品的销量大减毫不在意。尽管国内市场的利润率低，他仍将加倍押注中国市场。

“It’s just a matter of whether you make more money or less,” he said. “Even if we only earn 10 cents, we dare to do it.”

“这只是个赚钱多少的问题，”他说。“哪怕只赚一毛钱，我们也敢做。”