China's official April manufacturing PMI export-orders subindex printed 50.3 — the first reading above the expansion threshold since April 2024 and the cleanest forward-trade signal Beijing has produced since the Section 301 cycle reopened. [1][2] The headline official PMI came in at 50.3, beating the 50.1 Reuters consensus, while the private RatingDog/S&P Global manufacturing PMI hit 52.2, its strongest since December 2020. [1][3]

The paper's Friday standard on the headline PMI treats the package as the trade-data backdrop to the May 14-15 Trump-Xi summit in Beijing. [4] This brief takes the subindex on its own. Two-year contractions on export orders typically clear 50 only on a sustained external-demand inflection — pulled-forward orders ahead of a tariff event, a yuan move, or both. The April print arrives the week the summit calendar locks. [1][4]

Caveats: the private RatingDog survey's own export-orders gauge stayed in contraction at 47.3, the sixteenth straight month below 50, indicating the official-private divergence runs through the trade subindex itself. [3] The non-manufacturing PMI fell into contraction at 49.4, with services and construction both shrinking. [1] The single number flipping is the export-orders subindex on the official survey — the gauge Beijing uses in the press kit a U.S. delegation will read in two weeks. The artifact is sequencing, not recovery.

-- DAVID CHEN, Beijing