Research On The Resource And Environmental Impact Of China's Trade With Countries Along The Belt And Road

The "Belt and Road" initiative(BRI)is a major measure for China to build an all-round opening-up pattern in the new era.However,as BRI continues to gather momentum,building a green and sustainable BRI has become a broad consensus in the international.community.Promoting green trade is important content and key path for building a green and sustainable BRI,while scientifically evaluating the impact on resources and the environment caused by trade is the prerequisite and basic work for promoting green trade.Based on this,this paper comprehensively utilizes a multi-regional input-output analysis model,LMDI decomposition model and structural path analysis model from the perspective of embodied flow including virtual water,embodied energy and virtual arable land to study the impact on resources and environment of trade between China and countries along the BR.Issues such as the transfer of embodied resources and environment,the driving factors of the change in the intensity of embodied flows,and the key paths through which embodied flows were shifted are discussed.Firstly,this paper quantitatively analyzes the transfer pattern of embodied flows and resources and environmental pressure transfer between China and the countries along the BR from integral level,country level and industrial level respectively using multi-region input-output model.It is found that(1)In trade with countries along the BR,China played as an embodie energy exporter,a value-added trade surplus country,and an importer of virtual water and virtual land.(2)The import intensity and export intensity of the embodied flow of trade decreased from2010 to 2014.(3)The overall trade between China and countries along the BR had improved the efficiency of resource allocation.The embodied flows mainly shifted from countries with low resource and environmental pressures to countries with high resource and environmental pressures.However,China's trade with a few countries along the BR trades reduced the efficiency of resource allocation.For example,India,Egypt,and Central Asia were net exporter of virtual water to China,which would inevitably aggravate the already shortage of water resources in these countries.Secondly,the LMDI decomposition method is used to analyze the driving factors and main driving sectors for the decline in trade sustainability.The results indicate that(1)technological effect was the main factor driving down the intensity of embodied flow.(2)In the trade between China and the countries along the "Belt and Road",there are slight differences in the driving factors of the decline in the intensity of various embodied flows.Both technical and structural effects drive down the intensity of virtual water and virtual arable land,but structural effects tend to increase the intensity of import embodied energy.(3)From the perspective of sectors,electricity,gas and water supply was the main driving sectors for the decline in embodied energy intensity,agriculture was responsible for the decline in the intensity of virtual water and virtual arable landFinally,the structural path decomposition method is adopted to identify the key paths and sectors through which China's embodied flows shifted to the BR countries and the key paths and sectors of water-energy-grain nexus.The analysis found that(1)The top 100 key paths of each embodied flow include paths with 0,1,2,and 3 production layers,and the transfer path of China's embodied energy export was more subtle than that of virtual water and virtual arable land.(2)The electricity,gas,and water supply was the key sectors for embodied energy transfer.Agriculture,electrical and machinery,other manufacturing,food and beverage,and textile and apparel industries were key sectors to achieve virtual water transfer.Agricultura,textile and clothing industry,and the food and beverage sector are the only three sectors of virtual land transfer.(3)The textile and apparel industry was a key sector that simultaneously causes the transfer of water,energy and land resources.Based on the conclusions drawn from above researches,this article proposes policy recommendations to optimize China's trade structure and promote green trade between China and countries along with the BR from the following aspects: First,strengthen sustainable supply chain cooperation with countries along the BR,make full use of the respective resource endowments of countries,and build a green and sustainable supply chain.Second,continue to develop clean energy and increase the proportion of non-fossil energy power generation.Third,upgrade the Chinese apparel industry,improve production quality and efficiency,optimize the industrial structure,and gradually eliminate backward production capacity.Fourth,regulate the trade structure and restrict exports from sectors with low added value and high resource consumption.