The rapid expansion of China’s trade surplus since the mid-eighties and picking up until the onset of 2008-09 global financial crisis has been a key development in the world economy. While growing trade surplus of China has been viewed with cynicism borne out of an undervalued Yuan and for having being a member of WTO since 2001, many others argue that China’s trade surplus reflect changes in China’s economic and trade structure and associated shifts in its role within regional and global production chains. We address this issue by analyzing: (i) China’s growing and changing trade structure as well as changing structure of trade surplus with the rest of the world, USA, Europe, Japan and rest of Asia, (ii) China’s revealed comparative advantage (RCA) with the rest of the world, and (iii) how China’s trade policies resulted into a shift in China’s trade structure. We find that, not only China has made significant inroads in the world trade since its admission to WTO, but also there has been a noticeable shift in China’s trade structure with specialization in high-end technology industries wherein China’s exports aided by a well calibrated FDI policy.