Research On The Influence Of National Image On Trade Competitiveness

Under the background of global value chain specialization and factors flow,trade competitiveness has been endowed with new connotations and requirements.In the post-epidemic era,as the return of ideology,the identification competition has been strengthen,the economic and trade is prominent with the pan-politicization characteristic,national security and ideology tied with trade,national cultural values deeply affected the trade competitiveness which to some extent related to the national development and security.As an important carrier of information transmission and a component of soft power of national culture,national image is an important tool of national competition.Especially in the current digital information era globalization background,the important influence of national image has become increasingly prominent.How to give full play to the role of national image in improving the trade competition environment,optimizing the foreign trade structure,and promoting industrial transformation and upgrading has increasingly become the key to cultivating trade competitiveness.In this background,this dissertation based on the theory and empirical discusses the influence of national image on trade competitiveness including its mechanism and channel,which is not only conducive to the cultivation of trade competitiveness under the background of global value chain division,to the understanding of deep dynamic mechanism,but also provide new idea for trade structure transformation and upgrading.This dissertation is based on the related theory of national image,trade competitiveness,the global value chain division theory and factor flow theory,to analyzes the connotation of the national image and trade competitiveness to illustrate the concept of national image and category definition regarding trade competitiveness,and analyzes the influence of the national image on trade competitiveness mechanism from the theoretical point of view.On the other hand,studying the literature materials,drawing on the relatively mature measurement system of soft power and cultural identity,quantifying national image by using international poll data,to analysis the statistical characteristics of the image of major countries in the world;at the same time,this dissertation improves the inadequacy of existing trade competitiveness measures,under the framework of trade in value-added accounting,based on the theory of factor flow,the principle of "VA-EO" of trade competitiveness,the theoretical framework of the measurement of trade power,and the measurement method of industrial trade competitiveness index,the comprehensive trade competitiveness index subdivided into the industry level is measured,and the characteristic facts of the trade competitiveness of major countries in the world are analyzed.on this basis,a various empirical research methods is used to analyze the influence of national image on trade competitiveness.Furthermore,taking the Chinese government’s overseas release of national image films as a representative measure of China’s national image construction,the policy effect evaluation of the trade competitiveness effect of China’s national image is used as a robustness test of the core research conclusions in this dissertation,and it is also a comparative case study of the trade competitiveness effect of China’s national image.Finally,based on the core research conclusions and China’s actual conditions,it provides specific and operational policy suggestions for the coordinated development of China’s socialist cultural power and trade power construction,trade structure transformation and upgrading,and value chain trade competitiveness improvement.This dissertation defines the national image from two dimensions,namely "internal image identity of the country" and "external image perception of the country",the former refers to the overall cognition and attitude of the domestic people to the country,which is manifested in the public’s cultural identity of the country,and reflected in the centripetal force and cohesion of the nation;The latter refers to the overall impression and evaluation of a country by foreign people,which is reflected in the attractiveness and influence of a country to the outside world.Research finds,Between 2002-2017,The overall evaluation of China’s national external image perception was positive,significantly outperformed the United States,Russia,India and South Korea,but compared with Britain,France,Germany,Japan the gap was still wide;The perception of the external image of large countries such as China,Germany,and Russia is relatively stable on the whole,while the overall evaluation of the United States fluctuates greatly.In terms of internal image identity,from 2005 to2016,except for South Korea,the internal image identity of other countries showed a significant upward trend,among which the trend of country identity,national identity and social identity was relatively consistent,and most of them were obviously different from the external image perception of the country.This dissertation defines trade competitiveness as the ability of a country’s nationals to earn more sustainable trade gains in international markets than others.According to the calculation results,on the whole,the countries with the highest trade competitiveness have changed from diversification to more concentration;In terms of industries,the trade competitive advantage of the United States is mainly concentrated in the primary and tertiary industries,and the trade competitive advantage of Germany and China is in the secondary industry,of which Germany’s competitive advantage in high-end manufacturing is prominent,and China’s competitive advantage is mainly in low-end manufacturing;In terms of low-end manufacturing,China has replaced the industries that originally belonged to the United States,Japan and Canada to occupy the competitive advantage in trade,forming a trend of "competing for the championship" between China and the United States,however,despite China’s rapid growth,the United States still has the upper hand overall;In terms of high-end manufacturing,China’s trade competitiveness has also been qualitatively improved,forming a situation of "tripartite competition" among China,Germany and the United States;In terms of the service industry,whether it is a productive service industry or a life service industry,the United States has the trade competitive advantage of the entire service industry.The core findings of this dissertation are as follows: First,the improvement of national image helps to enhance trade competitiveness.The impact of national external image perception on national trade competitiveness shows a significant inverted "U" relationship,and every 1 unit of standard deviation of national external image perception will increase national trade competitiveness by 0.020 units of standard deviation;the perception of national external image has a greater role in promoting the trade competitiveness of developing countries or less developed countries,while the impact on the trade competitiveness of developed countries is an obvious inverted "U" shape of "first rising and then falling".The impact of national internal image identity on national trade competitiveness mainly presents a convex upward relationship in the left half of the inverted "U" curve,and every 1 unit standard deviation increase in national internal image identity will increase national trade competitiveness by 0.019 units of standard deviation;similarly,internal image identity has a greater effect on the trade competitiveness of countries with lower economic development levels.Focusing on the promotion effect of China’s national trade competitiveness,this dissertation shows that the promotion effect of China’s national image construction on China’s overall trade competitiveness is 2.1%.Second,the impact of national image on trade competitiveness varies by industry.The perception of the external image of the country has a significant positive impact on the trade competitiveness of the industry and the industry level,and the external image perception of the country increases by 1 unit standard deviation.It will increase the trade competitiveness of the industry by 0.098 units of standard deviation;the perception of the external image of the country has a significant role in promoting the trade competitiveness of the service industry and sub-industries,and the promotion effect on the trade competitiveness of the productive service industry is greater;the industry trade competitiveness effect of the input of industry service factors on the perception of the country’s external image has a threshold characteristic,with a threshold value of 56.13%.Every 1 unit of standard deviation of the country’s internal image identity will increase the trade competitiveness of the industry by 0.256 units of standard deviation;the impact of the internal image identity on the trade competitiveness of high-end manufacturing industry is greater than the impact on the trade competitiveness of low-end manufacturing,and the impact on the trade competitiveness of productive services is greater than the impact on the trade competitiveness of life services.Focusing on the promotion effect of industrial trade competitiveness of China’s national image,this dissertation shows that the promotion effect of industrial trade competitiveness of China’s national image is about 1.4%,in addition,considering the heterogeneity of treatment effects,the local average treatment effect of converters is about 5.5%.Third,the impact of national image on trade competitiveness is channeled through the specialization of global value chain and the agglomeration of high-level factors.Based on the core research conclusions and based on China’s actual conditions,this dissertation puts forward policy suggestions in three aspects from macro,meso to micro: First,actively shape the national image and help promote the strategy of a strong trade country.In essence,it is necessary to actively select national image strategic resources and means,take the initiative to construct and disseminate a good national image of the country,systematically create a national operating environment and supporting system with international competitiveness,and at the macro-level ensure that China,as a trading power in the new era,is an attractive and influential country in the international trade system and corresponding economic and trade cooperation.This dissertation suggests that China should take into account both external image perception and internal image identity,and focus on constructing and strengthening the country’s internal image identity,and cultivate the conscious dissemination of the national image from the inside out.Second,deepen the reform of industrial servitization and give play to the trade competitiveness promotion function of the national image.This dissertation suggests that China should provide basic guarantee for deepening the reform of industrial servitization by implementing institutional measures to promote the opening up of the service industry and service trade,further promote the transformation of agricultural servitization and the process of manufacturing servitization,and stimulate the national image promotion function to the trade competitiveness.Third,pay attention to value chain competition and the cultivation of advanced factors,and grasp the new opportunity of national image to reshape the global industrial chain.This dissertation suggests that from the micro level,China should focus on improving the national image to release the new momentum of domestic advanced factors cultivation,grasp the global chain’s medium and long-term development trends of knowledge,digitization and capitalization that brought by the changes of the global factor pattern,and create new opportunities to reshape the global value chain.