Jerry Grey: I've been on the Guangdong Foreign Affairs website because I actually believed that the Canton Fair, starting this week in Guangzhou would be a disaster - it's not what I expected.

Clearly there's a residual overlap, people booked this fair before they knew what Trump would be doing to China's trade but nevertheless, I'd have thought that many people would cancel - it's absolutely not what they're doing.

Zhongshan-based company Vatti at the Canton Fair. (Photo by Wen Bo) 

But first of all, let's look at what my adopted city, Zhongshan, which is only about 80 kilometres away from the Canton Fair is doing. This year, 289 Zhongshan enterprises are represented at the fair, the largest number ever.

And, along with other cities in Guangdong, Zhongshan has recently rolled out several new sets of policy measures.

The measures are related to technology and innovations and the main purpose is to boost business opportunities as well as attract top talent.

The city will provide a maximum subsidy of 10 million yuan for national and provincial major innovation platforms, and a maximum subsidy of 2 million yuan for newly-recognized provincial new-type R&D institutions in the optoelectronics and optics sectors.

But it gets better, when people worry that China isn't doing enough they really need to look at what is on offer even in the smaller cities, because a maximum subsidy of 30 million yuan will be granted to optoelectronics and optics companies that introduce innovative research teams on a trial basis.

And, if you're a returned Chinese wanting to start businesses in these fields here, a maximum start-up fund of 2 million yuan will be available, with venue support of 500 square meters for up to 4 years.

The workshop of Guangdong SIRUI Optical Co. (File photo by Wen Bo)

That's the policy in the optical field but there's even more good news - Zhongshan released another policy to further promote the development of the specialized, refined, differential and innovative (SRDI) enterprises. What does that mean?

You may get between 3 and 10 million, for setting up SRDI research centres with national qualification here. I could go on, in fact, I will, there are 15 more policies aimed at stabilising foreign trade and promoting growth to, every aspect of Zhongshan's industries have been considered and So, clearly, there's a lot going on that we're not reading about in Western media.

I'm seeing a lot of reports about how China is struggling, but the statistics here make me question whether they are exaggerating.

China's trade overall in the first quarter of this year has exceeded expectations, part of that would have been because of uncertainty in Trump's policies, getting orders onto ships before announcements were made. Now, we're looking at a totally different scenario, buyers aren't reducing their orders, they're simply holding them up until they have some certainty - not just about whether or not they can get them into the USA, but much more likely about whether Trump will change his mind again, or hedging their bets with deliveries to third parties who will add their cost and the those additional costs, if products ever get into the USA, will be passed to the poor consumers.

Guangdong's numbers alone are incredible, they've exported more and they've imported more - copper, coal and crude oil are all massively increased but guess which country is not getting a share of that!  

My adopted hometown Zhongshan City, achieved a total import and export volume of 44.95 billion yuan from January to February this year, representing a year-on-year growth of 7.9%. Among them, the export volume reached 39.75 billion yuan, ranking fifth in the province. Last year, Zhongshan's foreign trade import and export volume exceeded 280 billion yuan, also setting a new historical record. Among them, the export volume to Latin American countries soared by 32.4% year-on-year.

In the first quarter, China's imports and exports with the countries and regions involved in Belt and Road Initiative reached a new high for the same period in history, with a growth rate 0.9 percentage points higher than the overall average. Among them, ASEAN remained China's largest trading partner, with imports and exports increasing by 7.1% year-on-year, and its share of China's total foreign trade rose to 16.6%. Imports and exports with the five Central Asian countries increased by 6.9%. This is what diversification looks like.

Zhongshan Port. (File photo by Wen Bo)

It isn't going to be an easy transition handling Trump's tariffs but China's policies provide stability, certainty and predictability in an unpredictable world. I'd say that China, Guangdong and Zhongshan are all in a tough spot right now, but well placed to handle whatever this global uncertainty throws at them.