So something happened in 2022 that led "hot money" (errors, or outflows outside of the banking system) to stop flowing out of China ... (I think I have an answer to the puzzle obviously ... but it is a rather technical one)

(the answer is that China's changed how it calculates the BoP in 2022, and now it de facto adjusts the goods balance based on an "internal" survey so as to eliminate errors/ the statistical discrepancy)

one side effect of this is that more formal outflows via the state banks lead to a bigger reported current account surplus -- that is why the CA surplus as reported went from ~$200-250b in the 4qs to q2 24 to ~650b in the 4qs to q325