Trade Dependence,Regime Type And Similarity Of Diplomatic Positions Between Other Countries And China

In the process of making new ground in pursuing opening up on all fronts,accelerating to turn China into a trader of quality and implementing the Belt and Road Initiative,China’s foreign trade scale is expanding day by day and its international political influence is gradually increasing.The relationship between countries’ trade dependence on China and the similarity of countries’ diplomatic positions has become an important issue in academic circles.Many scholars believe that the increasing trade dependence of countries on China can effectively promote the close of diplomatic positions between countries.This study attempts to challenge this argument by taking the regime type of the trading partner countries country as the moderating variable to explore the interaction between the regime type of a country and the degree of dependence on trade with China on the distance between the two countries’ diplomatic positions.The panel data model of 191 countries participating in the UN General Assembly from 1992 to 2018 shows that there is no robust relationship between countries’ trade dependence on China and the similarity of their diplomatic positions.In addition,Western democratic countries and their trade dependence on China have a significant and robust interaction on the similarity of diplomatic positions,that is,compared with other countries,Western democratic countries are more inclined to take a diplomatic position closer to China at the same level of trade dependence.At the same time,the regime type and economic and trade agreement also have a positive interaction effect on the similarity of diplomatic stance.The results show that China’s political influence on foreign trade is significantly different with the regime type of the trading partner country.In order to show the action path of the above quantitative results,this paper selects two democratic countries,the Philippines and Germany,for in-depth analysis,and uses mechanism analysis method to sort out the situation of the two countries,so as to test the moderating effect of the regime type on the trade dependence on China and the similarity of diplomatic positions.Through the display of the factors’ action mechanism,this paper finds that,The increase of trade with China in democratic countries will play a corresponding role in their internal policy process,thus bringing the two countries’ diplomatic positions closer.At the same time,this paper also selected Vietnam,to demonstrate the opposite,in order to more effectively demonstrate the research conclusions of this paper.The results of this paper provide an important reference for our foreign economic policy.According to the conclusion of this paper,the diplomatic relations between China and western democratic countries are not mainly dominated by the regime type and ideology,but are influenced by the characteristics of Western democratic government and the degree of trade dependence on China.The increase of trade dependence will promote the improvement of diplomatic relations between China and Western democratic countries.Therefore,in the context of Sino-US strategic competition,facing the diplomatic means of the Biden administration,China should improve its diplomatic relations with western democratic countries through foreign trade and expand its political influence to cope with the US strategy against China.