China’s slowing growth, bilateral tensions top American business concerns in 2026
Survey by American Chamber of Commerce in China finds that expectations for Sino-US ties have ‘improved significantly’
Concerns about China’s slowing economic growth and “strained” Beijing-Washington relations rank as the top two concerns among members of the American Chamber of Commerce in China this year, according to a chamber survey released on Friday.
The growth concern was raised by 64 per cent of the 368 respondents, making it the leading issue, the annual China Business Climate Survey found.
Fifty-two per cent of respondents reported being profitable or very profitable last year, 6 percentage points more than in 2024, with the service sector – where 61 per cent of companies said they were profitable – registering the strongest gains.
Chinese tariffs on US imports – fallout from the trade war escalation of last year – also ranked among the main issues of concern for American businesses.
Growth expectations for the technology and research-and-development (R&D) sector had weakened, the survey showed, and worries about US-China technological decoupling remained the “primary obstacle to corporate innovation” among American companies in China, it said.
Although the survey found that chamber members’ expectations for China-US ties had “improved significantly”, with 79 per cent of respondents expressing a positive or neutral outlook for this year, “rising tensions” in bilateral relations, which were mentioned by 58 per cent of respondents, ranked as the second-largest business challenge.
“US-China relations and the ability of our two governments to have dialogue really do impact business and business growth,” Michael Hart, the chamber’s president, told a news conference in Beijing on Friday.