Working Paper: NBER ID: w19853
Authors: Chunding Li; Jing Wang; John Whalley
Abstract: China has been increasingly active on the regional trade agreement front over since WTO Accession occurred in 2001. These agreements, unlike the US and EU cases, follow no template form of agreement but vary substantially one among the others and are in part an attempt to customize agreements to partner prior agreements. There are presently 12 concluded agreements, 6 under negotiation, and four others under consideration. These concluded are in the main with smaller countries. Those in prospect are with major trading areas (US, Japan, Korea, and India). All are driven in part by China's needs for export access to fuel continuing export lead growth, but other elements enter including using regional agreements to offset unwelcome elements of multilateral arrangements (such as the non-market economy labelling), and attempting to put in place via RTA building blocks an Asian trading hub. Outstanding issues not centrally addressed by these agreements include anti-dumping duties, and investment and competition issues.
Keywords: China; Regional Trade Agreements; Bilateral Trade Agreements; Economic Growth; Export Access
JEL Codes: F15; F60
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| WTO accession (F13) | domestic market-oriented reforms (E69) |
| domestic market-oriented reforms (E69) | foreign direct investment (FDI) (F23) |
| domestic market-oriented reforms (E69) | GDP growth (O49) |
| RTAs (R59) | export access (F10) |
| export access (F10) | GDP growth (O49) |
| RTAs (R59) | antidumping measures (F18) |
| RTAs (negotiations with larger economies) (F15) | trade dynamics (F14) |