Abstract: On the basis of statistical description of the typical facts of China’s monthly import and export data relations during the period of 1990-2010, and making use of the unit root and cointegration verification techniques of endogenous structural break, this paper conducts an empirical analysis of the sustainability of China’s trade surplus. The results show that the between China’s import and export there exists a long-term equilibrium relationship in which changes are found in the intercept items and the slope items. The trade surplus has weak sustainability; due to the restrain of the long-term balanced relationship between the import and export, the deviation from equilibrium of export will be corrected in the next term. Therefore, policies aiming at adjusting the trade balance (external) should take full account of this feature.

Key words: trade surplus; strong sustainability; weak sustainability; endogenous mutation; exogenous mutation