China＇s Trade Acceleration and the Deepening of an East Asian Regional Production Network

China＇s recent surge in trade has been associated with its deepening but contrasting trade relations with its two groups of key trading partners. On the one hand, China＇ s trade surpluses with the USA and the EU have risen rapidly, reaching US$144bn and US$91bn in 2006, respectively. On the other hand, China is importing heavily from its Asian neighbors. This diverging pattern of trade relations between China and its main trading partners reflects the continuous expansion and intensification of a complex cross-border production network in Asia, particularly for consumer electronics. In the process of deepening manufacturing sharing, China serves as an essential export platform for firms headquartered in the more advanced economies. These firms export intermediate goods from the relatively more advanced Asian economies to their affiliates in China where these inputs are assembled and then shipped to key export markets, including primarily the USA and the EU. One apparent outcome of the growing processing and assembly trade is the increased interdependency among Asian economies, which are now more dependent on each other than ever. It has also led to substantial structural changes and technological upgrading in China＇ s traded goods.     

Development in China＇s Foreign Trade： 2003-2012

China＇s foreign trade has entered a new stage, marked by some profound changes since 2003. After 5 years ＇consecutive high growth, China＇s foreign trade experienced a significant slowdown in growth following the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. The purpose of this article is to present a review of the development in China＇s foreign trade over the past l O years, and to explore important changes that have taken place during this period of time. A majorfinding of the presentpaper is that the traditional forces driving the high export growth in China, that is, low-cost labor, low-cost resources and low-cost money, have been disappearing. The policy implication is that over the next l O-15 years, the most important conditions for sustaining high export growth will be promoting the development and export of private enterprises in traditional heaw industries and high-technology industries, and relying on technological progress and high produc6vity to propel export expansion.     

Does Experience Facilitate Entry nto New Export Destinations？

Using a large panel dataset that covers 116 countries and 5013products over the period 1998-2010, this study evaluates the effects of export experience on the geographic expansion of China ＂s exports. The results suggest that past export experience in geographically close and culturally similar markets plays a crucial role in.facilitating new market entry, and the positive spillover effects are more pronounced for incumbent and successful products. The results also indicate that spillovers from export experience are market-specific and product- specific, and they are limited to within the same product class and the same market, with little cross-group effects. Finally, there is no strong evidence that export experience is more important for differentiated products than for homogeneous products, and the positive spillover effects are remarkable for both categories of products.     

Rebalancing Growth in China：A Three-Handed Approach

I. Introduction On 21 July 2005 China began the process of rebalancing its economy. The new exchange rate rule will, over time, reduce the incentive to invest in the export sector. This is the right move for China because there are increasing signs that the economy has proceeded too far?2006 The Authors Journal compilation ?2006 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences into manufacturing for export markets, to the point that the country’s capital sto…     

An Inquiry into the Determinants of the Exports of China and India

Regression analysis is used to tease out the relative significance of influences on the supply and demand for the exports of China and India. On the supply side, the value-added tax in China has discouraged export supply. The elimination of the rebate on those taxes will discourage exports. Higher wages discourage exports, but the share of exports by foreign invested enterprise is a positive influence, as is a higher share of value added in output and greater experience in exporting. On the demand side, exports depend in part on aggregate income levels in importing countries. Relative wages have been more important than exchange rates in determining the demands for Chinese and Indian exports. This evidence does not support the pressures for a devaluation of the RMB. There is also evidence of the positive significance of the accustomization of purchasers to buying Chinese exports.     

2003年以来中国的宏观经济形势分析

The Chinese economy has emerged from deflation and entered a new stage of economic growth in late 2002 and early 2003. The sudden pick up of the economy has led to a worsening of structural imbalance and inflation is rising. The Chinese government has to find a fine trade-off between growth and inflation. While the central bank needs to tighten its monetary policy, the government may need to use a more expansionary fiscal policy to offset the contracting effect created by the tightened monetary policy. The structural imbalance and partial overheating remind us that China‘s economic reform still has a long way to go. The Chinese government must speed up its reform process. While the long-term prospect for China‘s economic rise is promising, it may be necessary for the Chinese people to prepare themselves for a harder time ahead.     

People＇s Mobility and Guanxi Networks： A Case Study

The increase in the movement of people from rural to urban areas since the mid-1980s represents the largest labor migration ever experienced in China. Because migration is a process of selection, it is imperative that the major dynamics determining the selection are studied. What are the critical characteristics of migrants that help them to realize their mobility from rural areas to urban areas？ While educational attainment, gender, age, marital status and personal skills are important variables in the selection process, the present paper examines how social networks （guanxi connections） play a significant role in the process of migration selection in China. A case study from one of the northern villages in rural China is used to explore how social networks have shaped and given meaning to migration. The present paper elaborates on how people＇s social mobility has coincided with and been reinforced by people＇s physical mobility.     

Regionalism and East Asian economic integration

The wave of economic globalization moves to all the countries in the world to be integrated with multilateralism and by promotion of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization （GATT/WTO）. Meanwhile, the growth of regional economic integration has been one of the major developments in international economic relations, and undoubtedly regionalism is a part of the global economic environment. The objective of the paper is to review the trends and highlight the prospects for enhancing economic integration in East Asia. This paper has argued that the emerging East Asian economies have achieved sustained economic development and poverty reduction through domestic structural, institutional and governance reforms as well as through market-driven integration with the global and regional markets. Though this process was temporarily interrupted by the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998, the economies have pursued further liberalization and reforms, deepened economic integration through trade, FDI and finance, and regained dynamic growth. The author argues that the reasonable choice for Eastern Asian countries is to deepen their economic integration and the optimal strategy is fostering economic integration with institutional cooperation.     

Why Are Chinese Exports Not So Special？

Applying a commonly used index for export sophistication in a cross-country study, Rodrik finds that the technological content of Chinese exports over the past decade has been so high that it cannot be explained simply by the economic fundamentals of a low-income country abundant with unskilled labor. Question has been raised for the empirical robustness of the index. I am also doubtful with Rodrik＇ s analysis but develop my argument from a different perspective. This paper briefly reviews Rodrik＇s methodology and identifies other factors his empirical results potentially hinge on. Based on this, it elaborates on China＇ s unique processing trade regime, the uneven distribution of its exports across Chinese regions and the limitation of HS codes in terms of identifying differentiated products, in an attempt to show that these factors also contribute to higher estimations of China＇s export sophistication level. Finally, it organizes trade data to reveal the trade patterns that are indeed consistent with the country＇s comparative advantage.     

Analysis of China＇s Foreign Trade Growth and Discussion of Related Policies

China’s foreign trade experienced three consecutive years of super-speed growth in 2002-2004, even though the country was stricken by the SARS epidemic in 2003 and power shortages in 2004. What has gone beyond expectations is that the exports trade still grew with momentum after the central government lowered the export rebate rates by an average of 3 percentage points, starting from January 2004. Such growth momentum is apparently associated with external demand and the performance of the domestic macroeconomy, and even more associated with a series of support policies. This paper tries to raise issues issues associated with these policies on the basis of an analysis of foreign trade performance in 2002-2004, in order to enhance understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of these policies, and to recommend a new line of thought for improving policy arrangements for the growth of import and export trade and for the harmonious development of the macroeconomy.     

What＇s So Special about China＇s Producer Services？ An Input-output Analysis

In the present study, five stylized facts about China ＂s producer services are established through international, intersectoral and intertemporal comparisons based on input --output tables. First, the overall service input ratio is the lowest in all the sample economies. Second, most producer services are supplied by the traditional labor-intensive sectors. Third, manufacturing is the biggest user of producer services, and service industry is the second, while the opposite is true for most of the other sample economies. Fourth, unlike other economies, China ＂s ＂R＆D＂ is characterized more by consumer services than producer services. Fifth, China has fairly lower service input ratios in almost all the industries. The backward and forward linkages coefficients are both smaller for ＂real estate activities＂ and ＂finance and insurance. ＂＂ Policy reform should focus not only on specific producer services but also on reducing obstacles that are inhibiting the balanced development of diverse producer services that will help China to optimize its economic structure.     

Do High-technology Exports Cause More Technology Spillover in China？

The volume of China’s high-technology exports has grown sharply since the implementation of its export promotion strategy "Revitalizing Trade through Science and Technology" in 1999.This paper investigates whether technology spillover effects are greater for hightechnology exports than for primary manufactured goods exports.We present a generalized multi-sector spillover model to identify both between spillover effects from exports towards non-exporters and within-spillover effects among export sectors.Using panel data for 31 provinces in China over the period from 1998 to 2005,we find that although high-technology export sectors have higher productivity compared with other sectors,this productivity advantage does not lead to technology spillover to both domestic sectors and other export sectors,and export technology spillover mainly derives from traditional export sectors rather than high-technology export sectors.As such findings can be largely attributed to the fact that China’s high-technology exports depend significantly on processing trade by foreign- invested firms,policy implications are discussed in relation to how to best promote the role of China’s high-technology exports during economic expansion.     

Is China＇s Dream to be the ＂World Factory＂ Realistic？

Recently some foreign media have all along been preaching that China has become a ＂world factory＂. It is a fact that ＂China-made＂ products have penetrated into every comer of the world. It seems that this kind of ＂preaching＂ is not a groundless rumor. But in fact, there is still a long way for China to become a real world factory. This paper firstly presents the definition and connotation of world factory, and then elaborates the establishment of world factory and problems existing in the process. In the end, the author gives some suggestions to the establishment of the world factory.     

Regional Environmental Performance and Its Determinants in China

A growing awareness of environmental quality hasplaced increasedpressure on China to improve environmental protection and regulations in the country. How have the regional economies in the country performed in terms of environmental efficiency？ The answer to this question is yet to be explored in the case of China. The objective of this paper is to present a quantitative analysis of environmental performance in China＇s regional economies and to examine the determinants of regional variation in performance. The findings are used to draw policy implications for environmental protection and are helpful in the discussion of China＇s future sustainable development.     

Defects in China＇s Independent Director System： A Case Study of Leshan Power Company

A system has been set up in China which provides for independent directors of listed companies. Whether these independent directors could play an effective role has, however, always been a matter for dispute. The recent case of Leshan Power shows that under the legal framework and share structure which currently exists in China, there is very narrowscope for independent directors to carry out their function. After discussing the main obstacles to implementation of independent directorship of China‘s listed companies, the authorpoints out several measures that must be taken in order to enhance the effectiveness of boards of directors. Finally this paper concludes that without the necessary conditions forindependent directors to actually have a functioning role to play, invitation of independent directors by listed companies will be a matter of form only.     

The impact of innovation on export behavior： An empirical analysis of Lao garment firms

Research on the role of innovation as important factor for creating and maintaining competitiveness of nations and firms has long been popularized among scholars and policy makers. The impact of innovation on exporting has been investigated in many countries. However, this issue has paucity of research in the Lao PDR. This study empirically investigates whether or not innovation performed by Lao garment firms determines their exporting behaviors. Utilizing the Probit and Tobit regression to analyze the data from the recent survey of industrial cluster development of Lao garment industry in 2007, the empirical results show that innovation as measured directly by “new product” and “new production process” have positive impact not only on export probability but also export intensity in the case of Lao garment firms. This implies that Lao garment finns who become the innovators have high probability to be exporters. Moreover, among exporters who are innovators outperform non-innovators in terms of export intensity. In addition, this study also finds that Lao garment exporters enjoy more competitive advantage due to lower labor cost. The findings from this study have important policy implications regarding how the government can support Lao garment firms to be innovators in order to sustain export performance.     

China, Asia, and the World Economy： The Implications of an Emerging Asian Core and Periphery

I. IntroductionThe effect of China’s rapid growth on other Asian economies is felt most directly through itsimpact on international trade and foreign investment. However, not only is the magnitude of this impact uncertain, even its direction is disputed. Some authors emphasize that China’s emergence as an economic power is applying intense competitive pressure to its neighbors. China’s immense reserves of cheap labor enable it to out-compete neighboring economies in the production of low-…     

Marketization of Environmental Resource Management

Environmental resource is a kind of resource forms that are employed in the production. Mankind, while knowing it constantly, is exploring the rational management mode, too. Since the seventies of the 20th century, the public management transformation leaded by marketization, including environmental resource management, has become an international trend gradually. The representative of environmental resource management marketization is the system of emissions trading which is a new environmental management measure that has widely developed, and its growth is closely connected with the market development level. Chinese EPA should pay attention to this tendency, cast off the government＇s direct control on the market of emissions permit, adjust the environmental management work properly and strengthen the management method, and gradually open the market of emissions permit in order to prepare for the marketization process of the environmental resources management.     

Smooth production and supply of live pigs in China：Fluctuations and adjustment

Although the pig-breeding industry in China has been developing rapidly, it has undergone an unsmooth process, which features periodical fluctuations of live pig production. First, this paper explains the meaning of smooth production and supply of live pigs, then this paper analyses the fluctuations of production and price of live pigs in China based on related data, and by use of Griliches＇ partial adjustment model construct short-term and long-term models for the production and supply of live pigs in China. Finally, this paper analyses the obstacles hindering the smooth production and supply of live pigs in China, and puts forward some strategies for the smooth production and supply of live pigs.