China’s slowing growth, bilateral tensions top American business concerns in 2026

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 around two-thirds 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.

Growth expectations for the technology and research-and-development sector have weakened, the survey showed, and worries about US-China technological decoupling remain 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 have “improved significantly”, with 79 per cent of respondents expressing a positive or neutral outlook for this year, “strained” bilateral relations, which were mentioned by more than half of the respondents, ranked as the second-largest business challenge.