消费低迷与通缩压力相互交织，构成另一重大挑战。房价下跌导致居民财富缩水，消费意愿降至疫情以来最低水平，汽车和家电等大宗商品销售明显走弱。自2023年起，广泛的需求不足推动物价持续下行，中国正经历数十年来最长的通缩期。政府将过度竞争称为「内卷」，并将遏制破坏性价格战列为重点，但一旦通缩形成预期，扭转难度极大。与此同时，人口持续萎缩——2025年出生人口仅793万，为1949年以来最低，劳动年龄人口占比从十年前的70%以上降至约61%，老龄化加速对长期增长潜力构成深远影响。
出口成为近年来中国经济少有的亮点。尽管美国对华关税一度高达145%，中国透过扩大对欧洲和东南亚新兴市场的出货，2025年贸易顺差创下1.2万亿美元的历史纪录，净出口贡献了约三分之一的GDP增长。电动车、太阳能板和工业机械等高附加值产品出口增长强劲，但过度依赖出口存在风险——越来越多国家对中国商品激增实施反制措施，欧盟也在考虑新的应对方案。青年失业率居高不下、就业结构性错配以及自动化加速推进，进一步加剧了经济转型的压力。
China's economy faces a confluence of structural headwinds that have prompted the government to lower its 2026 growth target to 4.5%–5%, the least ambitious since 1991. The property sector, once accounting for up to a quarter of GDP, has been mired in a prolonged downturn since a 2020 regulatory crackdown on developer borrowing and subsequent pandemic disruptions. Nationwide home prices have fallen roughly 30% from their 2021 peak, trapping homeowners in negative equity and leaving developers burdened with unsold inventory and mounting defaults. Government interventions including mortgage rate cuts and eased purchase restrictions have provided only fleeting relief, and the sector's GDP share is projected to drop below 15% by 2030 as Beijing pivots toward high-tech manufacturing and green industries.
Depressed consumer spending and persistent deflation represent another critical challenge. Eroded household wealth from falling property values has pushed consumer confidence to its lowest since the pandemic, weakening demand for big-ticket items and driving down prices across goods and services since 2023. The government has identified destructive price wars—termed 'involution'—as a top concern, but reversing entrenched deflationary expectations remains notoriously difficult. Compounding these pressures, China's population is shrinking at a historic pace, with births falling to 7.93 million in 2025, the lowest since 1949, and the working-age share declining from over 70% a decade ago to about 61%, raising fundamental questions about long-term labor supply, consumer demand, and growth potential.
Exports have emerged as a rare bright spot, with China's trade surplus reaching a record $1.2 trillion in 2025 as manufacturers moved up the value chain into electric vehicles, solar panels, and industrial machinery. Net exports contributed roughly a third of GDP growth that year, offsetting domestic weakness. However, this reliance on external demand carries significant risks: an increasing number of countries are pushing back against surging Chinese imports, the European Union is weighing countermeasures, and the export contribution to growth already fell sharply in early 2026. Meanwhile, elevated youth unemployment, a structural mismatch between graduates' white-collar aspirations and manufacturing-dominated job openings, and rapid automation are further complicating China's economic transition as it seeks to sustain an average 4.17% annual growth rate needed to achieve its 2035 development goals.