China and South Africa are the most important economies in Asia and Africa respectively. Despite their geographical distance, both countries are emerging market countries with very close trade relations. Although in 2012, the import and export volume of goods from South Africa and China reached 24.72 billion us dollars, a decrease of 6.9 percent compared with 2011, China is still South Africa's largest trading partner, as well as its largest export market and largest source of import. However, with the continuous expansion of trade volume between China and South Africa, the trade between the two countries shows some characteristics. Some of these features are by South African protect domestic enterprises, to strictly limit the import products, and each year the antidumping investigation against Chinese products, parts because of the irrationality of China to South Africa trade structure of the product itself, but there's little doubt that most of these features in bilateral trade is not conducive to the development of trade between the two countries, such as overall trade imbalance, the two countries if no heed to these characteristics, trade between the two countries will be affected. This paper analyzes the current situation and characteristics of china-south Africa trade, studies its causes and development prospects, which has important theoretical value and practical significance for developing china-south Africa trade and ensuring the economic development of the two countries.