US businesses in China are less optimistic about conditions in the country than at any point in the last quarter-century, a survey has found.
Only 41 percent of US businesses are optimistic about the five-year business outlook in China, according to the survey released on Wednesday by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.
The figure, down from 47 percent in 2024, is the lowest since AmCham Shanghai began releasing its annual business report in 1999.
Just 45 percent of respondents said they expected revenues to increase in 2025, AmCham Shanghai said, which would be a record low if realised.
Only 12 percent ranked China as their headquarters’ top investment destination, also the lowest in the survey’s history, according to the business chamber.
Businesses cited US-China tensions and broader geopolitical pressures as the biggest challenges to operating.
Nearly half of respondents called for the removal of all US tariffs on Chinese goods, with 42 percent supporting the scrapping of Chinese tariffs on US products, according to AmCham Shanghai.
Despite the worsening sentiment, businesses also reported positive developments over the past year.
More than 70 percent of respondents said they were profitable in 2024, up from a record low of 66 percent in 2023. And nearly half of respondents said the regulatory environment in China was transparent, a 13-percentage point jump from the previous year.
“Government efforts to improve the regulatory environment have been noticed by members, but they are overshadowed by US-China trade tensions,” AmCham Shanghai chair Jeffrey Lehman said in a statement.
“We urge both governments to create a stable and transparent framework that is conducive to cross-border trade and investment.”
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, said foreign investors had established some 1.24 million enterprises in China, with investments totalling nearly $3 trillion.
“Foreign-invested enterprises have cast a vote of confidence in China’s economic prospects through their actions,” Liu told Al Jazeera.
“The Chinese government has also recently introduced new measures to encourage foreign investment, demonstrating its sincerity and determination to promote high-level opening up. We welcome companies from all countries, including the United States, to participate in China’s modernisation and achieve greater success and better development through integration into the process of high-quality development.”
The latest gauge of business sentiment comes as China’s slowing economy is facing various challenges ranging from US President Donald Trump’s trade war to weak consumption and a years-long property downturn.
On Wednesday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said consumer prices fell in August at their fastest rate in six months, the latest sign of anaemic demand in the world’s second-largest economy.
Carsten Holz, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said the survey showed that the uncoupling of the US and Chinese economies was “well under way”.
“The results mirror the findings of a May 2025 European Chamber of Commerce in China report that business optimism of European firms in China has never been as low as it currently is,” Holz told Al Jazeera.
“These findings are in line with China’s policy of achieving self-sufficiency across all sectors of its economy.”
