For eSignGlobal, a digital signature services provider from Hangzhou, the US-China trade tensions present an opportunity to expand globally, as it uses the conflict to its advantage.

“Chinese state-owned enterprises and private enterprises are growing cautious about using US services, opening up opportunities for our company,” said Eric Jin, founder and CEO.

He said the company’s growth would be fuelled by two main factors. First, rising data security concerns amid geopolitical tensions had forced Chinese firms to stop relying on US e-signature solutions and turn to domestic alternatives. Second, a growing number of Chinese firms expanding overseas had widened eSignGlobal’s client base.

Chinese companies were in the early stages of their global expansion journey, with considerable growth potential ahead, according to an HSBC report published on May 19.

Eric Jin, founder and CEO of eSignGlobal, said the company’s revenue had more than tripled so far this year. Photo: Handout

Revenue at ESignGlobal, which has more than 3,000 partners including Alibaba Cloud and serves 6.1 million businesses and 120 million individual users, had more than tripled year to date from a year earlier, according to Jin. Alibaba Cloud is the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group Holding, which also owns the Post.

After setting up offices in Hong Kong in 2023 and Singapore in 2024 to serve markets in Southeast Asia, the company planned to form a sales team in Japan by the end of this year, Jin said. “We are also considering expanding to South America, Europe and the Middle East,” he added.

Going global pays off, according to the report. Mainland-listed companies in HSBC’s proprietary going global index, such as carmaker Great Wall Motor and textile firm Huali Group, delivered stronger earnings growth than major Chinese benchmarks such as the CSI 300 and CSI 500 indexes, both in the first quarter of 2025 and in 2024, the report said.

Last year, overseas revenue accounted for 11.7 per cent of total sales for companies in the CSI 300 Index, up 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier, according to the report.

The information technology sector had the highest proportion of international revenue at 31.4 per cent last year, while the overseas revenue contribution of consumer discretionary firms showed the most significant improvement among all sectors, rising 2.2 percentage points to 27.1 per cent.

Hangzhou-based electric-vehicle maker Leapmotor exemplifies the go-global trend.

Michael Wu, co-president of Leapmotor, expects at least 10 per cent of its EV deliveries to come from outside China in 2025, up from 4 per cent last year.

Leapmotor, which has tied up with Dutch car giant Stellantis for its overseas sales and production, expects global sales to reach between 500,000 and 600,000 units this year, up from 293,724 in 2024. The Hong Kong-listed company reported revenue of 32.16 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) last year, with overseas revenue contributing 3 per cent.

While the US and China earlier this month reached a 90-day temporary truce in the tariff war, the punitive measures did some damage to Chinese exports. According to official data, exports to the US plunged more than 21 per cent last month from a year earlier.

In April, the higher US tariffs on US$18 billion of Chinese imports, including EVs, batteries, and semiconductors, triggered a decline in the market shares of Chinese export-reliant firms.

The negotiations resulted in Washington lowering duties on Chinese imports to 30 per cent from 145 per cent, and Beijing cutting tariffs on US goods to 10 per cent from 125 per cent.

“We would need a more permanent resolution to conclusively say that US-China trade issues are behind us,” said Kelvin Leung, Greater China divisional deputy president of CPA Australia.

Firms in the early stages of global expansion “may lack the scale and resources of larger multinationals but tend to be more agile, allowing them to react faster to policy shifts and market changes”, he added.

Report citation:

《South China Morning Post》：How Chinese firms are using US-China tensions to fuel global growth

Report reprint：

《vietnambiz》：Biến thách thức thành cơ hội, doanh nghiệp Trung Quốc tận dụng xung đột với Mỹ để vươn ra thế giới

《vietnamfinance》：Biến thách thức thành cơ hội, doanh nghiệp Trung Quốc tận dụng xung đột với Mỹ để vươn ra thế giới

《tinnhanhchungkhoan》：Doanh nghiệp Trung Quốc: Từ phòng thủ sang 'tấn công' toàn cầu