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As global silver markets endure one of the most violent price swings on record, a seemingly contradictory trend is rewriting the traditional narrative for the precious metal: Western investors are dumping, while Chinese buyers are scoop up metal at a pace not seen in eight years.
Comex data shows spot silver hit an all-time high of $121.62 per ounce on January 29, before plunging. In after-hours trading Friday, silver was quoted at $67.81, down more than 44% from its peak this year—officially entering a technical bear market. Yet data released Friday by Chinese customs painted a strikingly different picture: In the first two months of the year, China imported more than 790 tonnes of silver, the highest for the period in eight years. February alone accounted for 470 tonnes, a record for that month.
Plunging prices and soaring imports—the stark contrast defines silver’s “China moment.”
The immediate driver behind the import surge is a rare divergence between domestic and international prices.
Stanley Cheung, managing director of AC Precious Metals Refinery Ltd., noted that in the first two months of the year, large silver bars traded in Hong Kong commanded a premium of as much as $8 per ounce over the London benchmark—a sharp reversal from the usual discount. “The arbitrage window was wide open,” Cheung said. “Traders could lock in substantial profits simply by moving silver into China.”
Behind the price gap lies a structural surge in Chinese demand. Song Jiangzhen, a researcher at the Guangdong Southern Gold Market Academy, said that with gold hovering near $5,000 per ounce, retail investors have flocked to silver, which trades at roughly one-seventieth of gold’s price. “Investment bars ranging from 20 grams to one kilogram are everywhere in the Shuibei market,” Song said. “Many merchants have tripled their silver inventories, which we estimate now total around 300 tonnes.”
China’s demand burst is being driven by two distinct forces.
The solar industry—the largest industrial consumer of silver, with more than 80% of global solar manufacturing capacity based in China—has been front-loading production ahead of an April 1 deadline for the removal of export tax rebates. Rhona O’Connell, head of market analysis for EMEA and Asia at StoneX Group Inc., described the solar manufacturing sector as “going gangbusters.”
Retail investors are the second force. With gold at record highs, silver has emerged as a cheaper alternative. Song noted that retail investors tend to chase rallies: “All it takes is another price surge, and the crowd will come back.”
The combination has drained domestic exchange inventories, reinforcing bullish sentiment.
China’s concentrated demand is quietly reshaping the underlying structure of the global silver market.
In a January report, Goldman Sachs analysts Lina Thomas and Daan Struyven warned that China’s new export controls—requiring official approval for outbound silver shipments—could exacerbate local shortages and global dislocations. “Thinner inventories have created conditions for squeezes, where rallies accelerate as investor flows absorb remaining metal in the London vaults and reverse sharply when tightness eases,” they wrote.
The price turbulence, they argued, is not being driven by a global shortage but by localized supply bottlenecks distorting the market. “If participants secure their own stockpiles rather than share buffers globally, the system would shift from an integrated framework to one prone to sharp localized price swings,” the analysts said.
Daniel Ghali, senior commodity strategist at TD Securities Inc., offered a more measured view. Record inflows of silver into London following last year’s historic squeeze, combined with outflows from global ETFs, have so far allowed the London market to absorb Chinese demand without significant dislocation. Still, he noted that visible inventories tracked by major exchanges from New York to Shanghai are either falling or sitting well below long-term averages, leaving the broader system in a tight balance.
By late March, China’s silver market showed signs of cooling. Yuan Zheng, an analyst at the Shanghai trading arm of Henan Jinli Gold and Lead Group, said solar-driven demand had eased as the rebate deadline approached, and domestic premiums had narrowed. “In the near term, we’ve moved from tight supply to a slight oversupply,” he said.
But that may not mark the end of the “China moment.” The deeper question is whether the global silver market is undergoing an irreversible structural shift as the world’s largest consumer shifts from just-in-time purchasing to stockpiling. Goldman’s conclusion carried a cautionary tone: “This shift from a pooled global system to isolated regional inventories would create an inefficient structure—transforming a smooth, integrated market into one prone to sharp, localized price swings.”
For silver markets, the spring of 2026 may well prove a turning point—a bear market defined by halved prices unfolding alongside a surge in Chinese imports. This is not a market anomaly, but perhaps the prelude to a fundamental restructuring of the global silver system.
