People attend a Mahjong event in Los Angeles, California on September 15, 2026. Photo: VCG

In a county-level city in East China, American creativity is matched tile by tile by Chinese manufacturing, putting sets of mahjong into the hands of American players.

As a traditional mahjong manufacturing hub, Taixing has witnessed factories redesign tiles and expand exports in recent years amid a surge in mahjong's popularity in the world. 

Taixing Yongxing Stationery and Sports Entertainment Products Co began exporting mahjong to the US in 2016, when a client from Hong Kong came looking for acrylic tiles.

"Small sets were rare at the time and few factories were making them, so the client turned to Taixing. Those first tiles were sold to Chinatown in the US, and the orders never stopped," Chang Zui, founder of the company, told the Global Times on Monday.

Surging exports

That early order reflected a pattern that has only deepened: US buyers come to Taixing because the factories there can make what they imagine. "Built on bespoke, made-to-order production, our company has long worked one-on-one with overseas clients who arrive with nothing more than a rough idea of the design they want," Chang said.
Artificial intelligence is making the process a lot easier and smoother, as it generates a design based on a client's idea. Once the design is nailed down, the company assesses the overall structure before taking it into trial molding and prototyping. "Over the past two years, we've watched American mahjong suddenly take off - this year alone, we've done more than 400 samples," Chang said.

What keeps those clients coming back is the manufacturing itself. Mahjong manufacturers like Yongxing run the full chain in house, from board sourcing, pasting and cutting to drum polishing, manual sorting, laser engraving, UV printing and packaging. 

The result is a business that has grown far beyond its origins. China Customs statistics for tariff code 95049040, covering "mahjong and similar tabletop game products," show that exports under this category totaled $499 million in the first nine months of this year.

In addition, a report released by the Union of Trade & World Markets in July said that the global market for automatic mahjong tables has surpassed $2.8 billion in 2026, with exports of Chinese-made machines projected to reach $1.73 billion - a 12.8 percent increase year-on-year.

Half a world away from the factories turning out those machines, demand is being fueled by Americans hunting for somewhere to play. Interest in mahjong is rising in the US, with searches for mahjong clubs soaring 4,467 percent in 2025, and searches for "mahjong store" and "mahjong club" reaching an all-time high in August 2026, according to data from US business review platform Yelp, cited by CNN in September.

Taixing Senju Culture and Entertainment Products Co is a mahjong exporter that mainly targets the US market, with products focused on original designs and customized orders.

"Some American customers actively seek designs featuring Chinese cultural elements, such as lion dances, Chinese knots, dragons, plum blossoms and bamboo. Product design, material selection and quality control are among the areas in which the company is seeking to differentiate itself," Wang Hao, founder of the company, told the Global Times on Monday.

More than tiles

The mahjong trade is a small but telling thread in the wider fabric of China-US economic ties. Despite tariff pressures and political frictions, consumer-level commerce has remained resilient, with niche cultural products emerging as unexpected bright spots.

"Goods like mahjong sets show that China-US trade is not only about chips and containers but also about lifestyle and culture," Bao Jianyun, dean and professor of the Department of International Politics at the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times. 

"Strong people-to-people ties between China and the US and stable bilateral trade relations are creating new opportunities for mahjong exports," Bao said.
The recovery of China-US trade continued in September, with bilateral trade rising 4.1 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2026 to reach 3.18 trillion yuan ($475.2 billion), according to the latest data from China's General Administration of Customs. 

The turnaround from a contraction earlier this year pointed to the resilience of commercial ties between the world's two largest economies, as renewed efforts to stabilize bilateral relations offer a more favorable outlook for trade, experts said.

China and the US held their eighth round of economic and trade consultations from September 20 to 23 in New York and Washington, reaching agreements aimed at stabilizing bilateral economic relations, according to China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

Under a reciprocal tariff reduction arrangement, the two sides agreed to lower tariffs on approximately $30 billion worth of imports from each other, with about 90 percent of the covered products to benefit from most-favored-nation rates once the necessary domestic procedures are completed.

"As China's economy rises rapidly, it is only natural that products carrying Chinese culture such as mahjong are winning fans overseas. The next step, I expect, is that more goods bearing Chinese elements, from traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese technology to the Chinese way of life, will find favor with foreign consumers," Bao said.

The expert noted that Taixing's cluster, combining heritage craftsmanship, full-chain manufacturing and rapid design iteration, shows how Chinese suppliers are moving up the value chain from contract manufacturing toward branding and direct access to overseas consumers.

"Building a moat comes down to one thing: differentiation. New patterns, new styles, new materials will define commercial success. The market is bigger than people think," Wang said.

Zhao Ruonan contributed to the story.