Shipping Shipping out of China taking longer than usual?

Has anyone noticed since June started that packages shipping out of China have been taking longer? Not on behalf of the companies, but after the company itself ships, China Post is dragging their feet. I encountered one other person who had their doll shipped via Express and it's been sitting for a month waiting for a flight out of China at all (I've asked China Post directly and that's what they claimed). I have two packages in the same boat. I get why Airmail gets delayed and lower priority but according to China Post both Air Mail and Express has the same wait time for flights..so why is anyone paying for Express anyway? And it doesn't just seem to be dolls, I frequent a lot of shipping forums because I do so much international business and it just seems strange how bizarely long everything from China is taking. By contrast, Japan Post had an Express mail package to the U.S. within two days, so it's not the fault of the destination country. It's the origin country and I can't figure out what may be stalling this to this disagree. This is highly unusual when paying for Express mail.
So, question one is is anyone else noticing this problem from China Post?
And two, be forewarned it may not be worth paying for Express mail right now from Chinese companies until they sort out whatever is going on.

 

I always assumed the tariffs would affect customs and any fees due on our part, not necessarily the shipping speed to leave the country especially for individual mail like this as opposed to large commercial shipments. But I know nothing in that realm of things. It would explain why it's mail from China specifically having this problem. Just rather upsetting to pay 3x the cost of airmail to get Express just to have packages not even leaving the country after a month. Hopefully we'll see things speed up soon

 

Based on reports I've seen shipping from China to other countries is naturally slow unless you're in specific countries that get a lot of mail traffic otherwise they have to wait for there to be enough mail to justify a shipment. But as I am in the U.S. I can only speak to my direct experience thus far.
I can also say it only seems to be China (I'm getting my Japanese airmail and Express mail packages in the usual time frames) and I'd be shocked if where you are in the US has anything to do with it. Much more likely is where in China it was shipping from. Shanghai has always been a lot faster than Guangzhou for example. I get a package being held in customs depending on which ISC it processes through once it hits the US, but that's after it's made it the US. My issue and the issue of those above and on the forums I follow is that mail isn't even leaving China in a normal time frame. Once the package hits your destination country it's up to your country how fast it arrives. But the reports I'm seeing have packages waiting to leave China for weeks. One of the reports I just found too was a package that's been sitting in China since May that was destined for the US and still hasn't made it here. That one sounds like a fluke in the system, but the overall trend is still pointing that mail is grossly slowed from China due to fewer flights and thus forcing major backups for mail.

Edit: As Amet said above, Hong Kong is another exception to the rule. Things coming form Hong Kong rarely seem to have issues.
Edit 2: To clarify my point, I've had the one-off-package get stuck in years past too. I should make it clear I order so much international mail I average 5 a month. When I say I've noticed a trend recently, I mean overall compared to the norm. NONE of my packages have made it to me from China in the past 2 months because they've been stuck in the origin country.

 

One of two of my packages from China Post arrived to me. Funny enough it was the package that was mailed SECOND. China Post has no explanation for this other than their shipping methods are too complicated for me to understand (their words not mine). The other package still hasn't left China. As of next week I can officially file a missing package claim with China Post. Deeply upsetting that it's coming to that though.