Leaders from the world's top two economies reached a tentative truce to their fierce trade war at a meeting in late October.

Overseas shipments have served as a key economic lifeline in China during the challenges of recent years, with a prolonged debt crisis in the country's vast property sector and sluggish domestic spending weighing on growth.

Exports climbed 5.9 percent year-on-year in November, the General Administration of Customs said.

That reversed a slight decline recorded a month earlier and came in above a Bloomberg forecast of four percent growth.

The jump also came despite a continued downturn in shipments to the United States, which totalled $33.8 billion in November, the data showed.

That figure was down 28.6 percent from the $47.3 billion recorded in the same month last year.

In a further sign of weakness in domestic consumption, imports rose 1.9 percent in November from the previous month. That was slower than the three percent increase predicted by Bloomberg.

"The rebound of export growth in November helps to mitigate the weak domestic demand," Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said in a note.

"The economic momentum slowed in the fourth quarter partly driven by the continued weakness in the property sector," he said.