A Study On The Impact Of Cultural Distance On China’s Service Trade Exports

On January 1,2022,the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP)was officially entered into force,initiated by ASEAN in 2012 and formulated by 15 members including China,Japan,South Korea,Australia,New Zealand and 10 ASEAN countries.As a trade agreement covering three continents: Europe,Asia and Australia,the signing of RCEP is conducive to RCEP member countries to further reduce trade costs between countries and strengthen economic cooperation among member countries.Economic cooperation between countries is not only reflected in investment and infrastructure,but also in trade between countries,trade in goods,and trade in services.With th e development of global trade,service trade plays an increasingly important role in international trade.Compared with trade in goods,trade in services does not require transportation costs and does not need to worry about the loss of goods.Traditionally,the transaction cost of service trade is lower than that of goods trade,but service trade,as an intangible commodity containing human thought,is easily affected by the cultural distance between the two sides of the trade.Specific cultural factors su ch as specific national cultures,beliefs,folk customs and other cultural factors formed in the long-term historical development make consumers of various countries show different preferences in the consumption of service trade.The cultural distance between countries leads to the cost of communication and information acquisition in international trade,which in turn affects the conduct of trade in services.RCEP member countries are located on different continents and different cultural circles,and each country has formed its own unique social culture with long-term and stable social culture,such as religious beliefs,personal consciousness and social consensus,in the long-term historical development.Cultural distance as a non-institutional factor affecting international trade has long been proposed and verified by scholars,but there are few studies on the impact of cultural distance on trade in services,and even fewer studies on RCEP member countries.This paper takes RCEP member countries as the research object,measures the cultural distance between RCEP member countries based on Hofstede’s six-dimensional cultural theory,and uses the trade gravity model to explore the impact of cultural differences on China’s service trade exports from 2005 to 2021 based on the panel data of China’s service trade exports from 2005 to 2021.It is found that cultural distance has a significant negative impact on service trade exports between China and RCEP countries,but the degree and direction of cultural distance on service trade exchanges in six sub-categories of service trade are different.Based on the research,this paper puts forward suggestions for weakening cultural distance between countries,reducing transaction costs due to cultural distance by increasing cultural identity between countries,and promoting the expansion of trade between countries.