China’s economic recovery is proving to be a halting affair.

Notwithstanding justifiable reservations about the reliability of the data (and thereby very real questions about the utility of using that data to draw conclusions), it’s still incumbent upon macro observers to document the trajectory of the world’s second largest economy.

On Tuesday, an unexpected plunge in imports raised fresh concerns. The 7.9% drop for April marked yet another in a series of confounding zigzags which are difficult to interpret if you’re trying to craft a coherent narrative. If you were depending on Chinese demand to drive your own exports, you’re probably disappointed.

The jump in exports is largely meaningless. China is still lapping the Shanghai lockdown comps.

On the imports side, it’s a commodities story. Prices played a role, but “in volume terms, oil imports slowed from +22% to -1%, iron ore dropped from +15% to +5% and coal normalized from +151% to +73%,” SocGen’s Michelle Lam noted, adding that copper was “the only key product that improved,” and even there, “improve” just meant a smaller decline.

The trade figures came on the heels of contractionary manufacturing PMI prints for April, juxtaposed with what, apparently, is still robust services activity.

Both the official and Caixin factory gauges were below the 50 demarcation line in April.

The takeaway, as SocGen’s Lam put it, is a “two-speed recovery.” Industrial activity “still faces headwinds from external demand and a slow recovery in property investment,” she added.

Ostensibly, this calls for more policy support, and that’s indeed what the Party has promised. The end result could be a weaker currency. “China’s reopening recovery has been uneven,” Commerzbank’s Tommy Wu remarked. “Consumption and services were strong in Q1 [but] the manufacturing sector has lost steam [and] it won’t be easy for confidence to recover quickly given that it was shaken by the zero-COVID policy and regulatory tightening on tech and real estate over the past three years,” he went on.

This will remain vexingly opaque going forward. As JPMorgan wrote early this week, “the so-called ‘China reopening’ theme… is somehow losing fundamental support.”