Yeah, hard to tell just looking at that data. I don't know what currencies each one of the trade relationships is settled in. The differences in balance with the US there is also similar to what they spend on oil (~11%). If all other trade is settled in other currencies and all oil is bought with dollars(from countries other than the US), they would be about flat in terms of dollar reserve growth from trade. My understanding is that most of their dollar reserves originated from buying dollars w/ yuan in the years after 2009 to help keep the value of the yuan depressed for the sake of trade competitiveness. So that does seem to imply that investment balance is the factor tipping the balance here. Which is probably why the Chinese government has set stringent rules on currency controls for individuals.