Research On International Trade Between China And APEC Member Countries And Regions

Since the 1990s,regional economic integration has become a major trend for global economic development.China seized the opportunity and joined Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation(APEC)in 1991.As a the most influential forum and platform for advancing economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region,APEC,after over 20 years of development,has achieved significant results of promoting regional economic development in terms of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation,and regional technological cooperation.APEC currently has 21 members,including China’s mainland,the US,Canada,Mexico,Chili,Peru,Russia,Australia,New Zealand,Papua New Guinea,Brunei,Hong Kong of China,Japan,South Korea,Singapore,Indonesia,Malaysia,the Philippines,Thailand,Vietnam and Taiwan of China.APEC has an extremely extensive organizational coverage,with members having disparate economic statuses,political regimes,customs and cultures.As the biggest developing member of APEC,China has been playing an important role as an contributor since its accession,sticking to the Gogor Goals by actively reducing tariff,eliminating non-tariff barriers,while pursuing domestic in-depth economic reforms.This paper first reviews the history of APEC,introducing basic concepts,including Gogor Goals and the Shanghai Consensus.Then an analysis of trade between China and APEC members from 1998 to 2015 is carried out,including changes in volumes of imports and exports,proportion of trade with APEC member in China’ s total trade volumes,China’s GDP,per capital GDP,population,tariffs and non-tariff barriers.Then difficulties and challenges facing APEC are looked at,including members diversity,conflict between operation models and regional integration,impact of FTAs and RTAs,and establishment of FTAAP.Besides,the paper also shed light on trade issues between China and APEC members,including competition in overlapping markets,impacts from TPP on APEC members and China.Based on the above analyses,this paper utilizes trade gravity model to conduct empirical analysis on factors impacting China’ s trade relations with APEC members in light of trade data between two parties from 1998 to 2015.The results show that,for China’ s export,economic scale,official language in target countries（regions）,willingness to sign regional trade deals facilitate trade to varied degrees;geological distance,per capital GDP pose inhibiting effects on trade volumes.From the perspective of China’ s import,other factors all have significant impacts other than official language in target countries（regions）,with however varied degrees of influences.In the end,inspirations are drawn based on status quo analysis and empirical studies:first is to create demand and initiate more cooperation;second is to expand the APEC agenda;third it to promote reforms of APEC and improve its influences;fourth is to participate in studies in TPP and FTAAP;fifth it to improve networks of FTAs and RTAs;sixth is to stick to regional economic and technological cooperation;seventh is to develop e-commerce and paperless trade.