Study On China's Agricultural Economic And Trade Relations With Japan And Korea

China shares a long history of agricultural economic and trade exchange with its neighboring countries-Japan and Korea (J&K). Since the 1990s, China has strengthened agricultural exchange and cooperation with J&K in a lot of fields such as trade, investment, science and education and fishery etc. For China, the two countries are not only important agricultural export destinations, but also significant foreign investors in agriculture. After entering the 21st century, the agricultural economic and trade relationship is confronted with new circumstances, there are more trade disputes arising from expansion of agricultural trade, rapid increase in investment by Japanese and Korean agribusiness companies and more stringent import regulations for agricultural products. Therefore, it's extremely necessary to study China's agricultural economic and trade relations with J&K under such circumstances.Based on the principles of combining description analysis with positive analysis and qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis, by using historical research, contrast, induction, statistical index and econometric model analytic methods, the dissertation examines the history and existing state of China's agricultural economic and trade relationship with J&K, reveals the changing trends of this relationship, analyzes factors affecting the development of agricultural trade relations, and explores the prospect of China's agricultural trade with J&K. The main achievements are as follows:1. China's agricultural competition and complement with J&K. The similarities and differences in basic production condition, capital input, production structure, productivity, rural household income and food consumption determine the co-existence of China's agricultural competition and complement with J&K. The competition lies in strong product similarity of agricultural exports in three countries, and increasingly fierce competition in world processed agricultural products market; the complementary lies in agricultural resources, science and technology, and also in agricultural trade, various trade indexes show that, China has formed very close agricultural trade connections with J&K, and there are notable differences in comparative advantage of agricultural products between China and J&K, that is to say, China has very strong comparative advantage on labor-intensive products such as aquatic product and horticultural product, J&K have stronger comparative advantage on intermediate and processed products such as food, condiment and gum resin. 2. The growth and structural change of China's agricultural trade with J&K. The analysis shows that, (1) thanks to the expansion of labor-intensive product export, Chinese agricultural export to J&K has experienced very rapid growth; the factors pushing this export growth have changed before/after entering WTO, that is, during a certain period before joining WTO, both competitiveness effect and demand effect propel Chinese agricultural export to J&K, however, in the next stage, both competitiveness effect and demand effect propel Chinese agricultural export to Japan, only demand effect propels export to Korea; (2) aquatic and horticultural products are main categories exported to Japan, and aquatic, horticultural and grain products are main categories exported to Korea; as for aquatic products, prepared fish, crustaceans and molluscs are main products exported to Japan, while fresh/frozen fish, crustaceans and molluscs are main products to Korea; as for the export of fruits and meat products, the share of deeply-processed products is increasing steadily; as for vegetables, the prepared, fresh and frozen are main products exported to J&K, and the share of frozen vegetables is rising quickly; as for the import structure, aquatic products and miscellaneous products are the main groups imported from Japan by China, and the shares of these two groups are getting higher, while China primarily imports aquatic products and sugar from Korea, and aquatic products have already substituted sugar becoming the first big category; (3) although the terms of agricultural trade between China and J&K tend to become worse, the export quantum index is rising rapidly and steadily, which indicates the growth of export benefits is mainly dependent on the expansion of quantity.The analysis of agricultural materials trade shows that, China, Japan and Korea are not only important players in the world agricultural material products trade market, but also each other's vital trade partners; after joining WTO, the growth of Sino-Japan and Sino-Korea agricultural material trade is very fast, and China's trade deficit becomes large as well; as for the trade structure, China mainly exports agricultural machines, feed and fertilizers to and imports agricultural machines from Japan, mainly exports agricultural machines and feed to and import agricultural machines and agricultural film from Korea; the above trade pattern is primarily caused by technical gaps.3. The features, incentives and effects of agricultural FDI from J&K. The analysis shows that, (1) agricultural FDI concentrates in food and beverage manufacturing industry; there are obvious differences between Japan's and Korea's investment method; large and medium food companies and comprehensive business organizations are main investors; investment motives gradually shifts from resources-pursuing to market-developing; (2) the main incentives include: the lost of comparative advantage in Japan's and Korea's agriculture and the transfer of marginal industry, China's abundant labor resources and low wage levels, China's extremely preferential policies for agricultural investment bodies, and the increasingly close bilateral economic and trade ties; (3) agricultural FDI from J&K can significantly promote the growth of China's agricultural GDP, 1 percent increase in per capita agricultural FDI (foreign direct investment) will cause 0.051 percent increase in per capita agricultural GDP. It can also bring technical spill-over, industrial structure and policy adjustment effects; there do exist complementary relations between Japan's agricultural FDI in China and bilateral agricultural trade, that is, Japan's investment helps to promote the growth of China's agricultural imports from Japan. However, there is no Granger relation between FDI and agricultural exports to Japan both in the short and long run.4. International and country-specific factors affecting agricultural economic and trade relations. The analysis shows that, the implementation of the commitments according to "Agreement on Agriculture" helps to promote the rapid growth of China's labor-intensive agricultural exports to J&K; "SPS Agreement" and "TRIPS Agreement" will have negative effects on China's agricultural exports to J&K in the short run, but help improve the export structure and upgrade product quality in the medium and long run. From country-specific perspective, the important factors leading to the increasing expansion of agricultural exports to J&K are, China's advantage in agricultural production cost and price, and the enhancement of governments' efforts to promote agricultural export; meanwhile, the relatively low level of quality for China's agricultural products, poor public information services and processing industry and disorderly competition behavior between exporting enterprises, have become major obstacles to the growth of China's agricultural exports to J&K.5. The prospect of China's agricultural trade with J&K. The paper briefly discusses the impact of the new round of negotiations on agriculture, bilateral or regional trade liberalization on China's agricultural trade with J&K, and also explores the impact of the level of demand and supply, trade complementarity on China's agricultural materials trade with J&K. It indicates that, in the next period of time, the current trade patterns will remain relatively stable, but the establishment of FTA between China and Korea will have certain impact on bilateral agricultural trade.