“The Belt And Road” Regional Trade Agreement Quality And Intermediate Goods Trade Network Research

With the continuous evolution of the global division of labor system,the global value chain division of labor model has become the mainstream of international division of labor,which also makes the trade of intermediate goods gradually become the protagonist of global trade.However,with the international economic downturn in recent years and the rise of trade protectionism,the cooperation of countries in the global value chain has been hampered,and trade in intermediate goods has also been affected.How to promote the recovery of the global economy,especially the recovery of the global value chain division of labor system linked by intermediate goods,is a problem that needs to be solved in the current international economy.The Asia-Europe region,as the most active region in the global economy,also faces this problem.In this regard,China has launched the "The Belt and Road" initiative in a timely manner,with a view to contributing China’s policy to regional and global economic recovery.However,due to various factors,"The Belt and Road" initiative has not yet had substantial policy effects at this stage.It is currently only at the "initiative" stage and has limited impact on regional trade in intermediate goods.How to promote the "Belt and Road" initiative to a deeper level,how to strengthen the division of labor and cooperation among countries in the "Belt and Road" region,and how to promote the development of regional intermediate goods trade networks have become series of realistic issues for Chinese scholars.As a product of global economic integration,trade agreements can effectively complement the "Belt and Road" initiative in many aspects and are considered as an important opportunity to promote the development of regional trade in intermediate goods.This article combs the relevant theories of trade agreements and intermediate goods trade,and draws on previous theories and existing literature to analyze and summarize the influence mechanism of trade agreements and trade agreement quality on intermediate goods trade,and uses this as a theoretical basis for empirical evidence.Therefore,this article studies the impact of trade agreements on "The Belt and Road" regional intermediate goods trade from theoretical and empirical aspects,with a view to providing suggestions for the "The Belt and Road" initiative and regional intermediate goods trade.By analyzing the trade agreements signed by "The Belt and Road" region,it can be found that: 61 countries along "The Belt and Road" region have signed a total of 206 trade agreements,among which 105 have signed trade agreements within the countries along "The Belt and Road" region.Almost every country has signed at least one trade agreement with other countries in the region.Free trade agreement is the most signed form of trade agreement in the region,and South-South cooperation is the main form of regional cooperation.Generally speaking,the quality of intraregional trade agreements is low,the topics of the agreements are mainly border measures,and the coverage and implementation rate of the "WTO+" provisions are significantly higher than that of the "WTO-X" provisions.China’s current trade agreements are of relatively low quality,still lagging behind developed countries such as South Korea and Singapore,but slightly ahead of emerging economies such as India and Russia.Therefore,there is still great potential for cooperation among countries along One Belt And One Road region in terms of trade agreements.With the passage of time,the connections among all nodes in the "The Belt and Road" regional intermediate goods trade network are deepening,indicating that the intermediate goods trade links of regional countries are getting closer and closer.China,South Korea,Singapore and other countries are the most important nodes in the regional intermediate goods trade network and occupy an irreplaceable position in the network.Among them,China is the most important country in the region with its individual structural characteristics and core degree ranking the first.The analysis of the block model further analyzes the trade network,and the results show that the intermediate goods trade in the "The Belt and Road" region is mainly in East Asia,South Asia,Russia and countries in West Asia and the Middle East circulate,and there are needs for import and export trade of intermediate goods.Central Asian countries and Eastern European countries act as media in the network to transmit intermediate goods trade,while Central and Eastern European countries are the main beneficiary areas of the intermediate goods trade network.Further analysis of the trade networks of the primary industry,manufacturing industry and service industry can lead to similar conclusions as the total industry,but the different factor endowments also make different countries’ positions in different industrial trade networks to a certain extent.The empirical results based on the QAP method and the gravity model show that the signing of trade agreements has a significant role in promoting the strength of trade links in "The Belt and Road" regional intermediate goods trade network;as the number of trade agreements signed between the two countries increases,this promotion effect has increased.The impact of multilateral trade agreements on intermediate goods trade is higher than that of bilateral trade agreements,and the reason may be that multilateral trade agreements are more in line with the interests of most countries.The impact of free trade agreements is significantly higher than that of tariff union agreements and partial scope agreements;The higher the quality of the concluded trade agreement,the greater the impact on the intermediate goods trade network;the "WTO+" clause has a higher impact on trade intensity than the "WTO-X" clause,which is related to the greater differences in the economic development levels of countries in the region.The impact of the quality of the core agreement is stronger than the other three variables.The “Belt and Road” initiative should develop in the direction involving these 22 core clauses in the future.The above conclusions are valid for the general industry,the primary industry,manufacturing and service industries.In this regard,China should actively promote the development of trade agreements between countries in the region towards high-quality trade agreements,promote the "Belt and Road" initiative and trade agreements to complement each other,and provide strong guarantee for the "Belt and Road" regional intermediate goods trade and regional value chain division of labor cooperation.