Economists from banks including UBS AG and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. recently expressed skepticism about China's export data after the customs administration reported an unexpected 14.1 percent export gain in December. The General Administration of Customs defended the data last month, saying all statistics are based on actual customs declarations, and the Ministry of Commerce said the jump was caused by exporters who hurried shipments before a waiver of inspection fees expired at the end of the month.

The U.S.'s bilateral trade deficit with China, which peaked in 2012, could remain a flashpoint of tension between the two countries, Prasad said.

“This trade imbalance is not representative of the amount of goods actually produced in China and exported to the U.S., but this perspective tends to get lost amidst the heated political rhetoric in the U.S,” said Prasad.

According to O'Neill, the trade figures underscore the need to draw China further into the global financial and trading architecture that the U.S. helped create.

“One way or another we have to get China more involved in the global organizations of today and the future despite some of their own reluctance,” O'Neill said, mentioning China's inclusion in the IMF's Special Drawing Rights currency basket. “To not have China more symbolically and more importantly actually central to all these things is just increasingly silly."

Eoin Treacy's view The continued growth of China as a major trading hub remains a substantial theme for the global economy and this is likely to remain the case regardless of the anxiety many Western commentators express at its rise. While China's domestic economy is still less significant than its export and property sectors this is slowly changing as central government policy targets it for growth.

When analysts pick through China's trade data they tend to highlight the percentage of goods that are imported only to be re-exported following minor alteration. This is seen as a way to play down China's economic ascent. However another way to interpret this data is that if the balance of such trade is increasing at a double digit rate then we can conclude that the global economy is returning to a stronger growth trajectory. The outperformance of the global industrial sector over the last eight months is also testament to this opinion. Additionally, industrial metals which have been largely rangebound over the last couple of years have steadied and zinc in particular exhibits a new pattern of medium-term demand dominance.

In the industrial metal mining sector a clear pattern of outperformance is evident in the iron-ore sector. BHP Billiton has been consolidating above 2000p since late December and a sustained move below that level would be required to question medium-term scope for additional upside. Rio Tinto has a similar overall pattern and rallied well today. Having broken its two-year downtrend, Vale SA will need to continue to hold above $19 if recovery potential is to continue to be given the benefit of the doubt. Fortescue Metals and Ferrexpo have both been consolidating above their respective 200-day MAs for the last two months and sustained moves below them would be required to question medium-term potential for additional upside.

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald highlights the fact that BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and to a lesser extent Fortescue Metals have built up sizeable tax credits in Australia which may have contributed to their recent strength. Here is a section:

On Wednesday the Herald reported that the mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton have built up a combined arsenal of $1.7 billion in tax credits that can be offset against future mining tax liabilities. Tax specialists say the credits have been built up through the mining tax's ''starting base allowance'', which has been criticised by some as being too generous for miners.

Public perceptions of the tax have been damaged by the Treasury's failure to accurately forecast its revenue. In last year's May budget the mining tax was forecast to reap $3.7 billion but, as Swan revealed last week, it only raised a fraction of that total in the first half of the financial year. The government only has itself to blame for this destructive political saga.