China’s Export Trade In Cultural Goods With Countries Along The Belt And Road And Its Policy Choice

Since The Belt and Road Initiative was put forward in 2013,the Chinese government has been strengthening economic and trade exchanges with countries along the Belt and Road and actively promoting cultural exchanges.In 2016,the Chinese Ministry of Culture issued "The Belt and Road Cultural Development Action Plan(2016-2020)",which marks that China’s cultural trade development and cultural exchange with the countries along the Belt and Road is entering the period of effective cooperation and is going to "raise the level of opening up in the Chinese cultural field in an all-round way,uphold the concept of making cooperation with neighboring countries,countries along the Belt and Road and countries all around the globe,and build a common destiny of cultural blending ".The Chinese government has also upgraded the cultural industry to a national strategic level and actively supported the "going out" of Chinese culture.Strengthening cultural exchanges and integration with countries along the Belt and Road and realizing mutual benefit and win-win results of China’s export of cultural goods to countries along the Belt and Road have become the main trade target at present.Under the background,this thesis conducts the interpretation of the mechanism of mutual benefit and win-win results of China’s export of cultural goods to countries along the Belt and Road based on the existing research results:(1)the thesis establishes the mechanism of mutual benefit and win-win results of China’s export of cultural goods to countries along the Belt and Road from two aspects of supply and demand through using the firm heterogeneity trade theory to set up a theoretical framework and taking the heterogeneity of cultural goods and cultural goods trade characteristics as the foundation.First of all,the thesis constructs the influence mechanism of trade costs on the export growth pattern of Chinese cultural goods through using the three marginal analysis,so as to distinguish the export growth pattern of manufactured products and establish the mechanism for exporting countries to obtain the source of trade benefits from the perspective of supply.Secondly,based on the heterogeneity of cultural goods,the thesis proposes the influence mechanism of cultural product diversity on the welfare of importing countries’ consumers which is extracted from the existing trade theories,and establish the mechanism for importing countries to obtain the source of trade benefits from the perspective of demand.Finally,this thesis establishes the theoretical basis of Chinese cultural goods trade policy choice on the basis of trade mutual benefit and win-win mechanism.(2)the thesis makes the quantitative analysis and factual description of the current situation of China’s cultural goods export to countries along the Belt and Road from 2007 to 2018 from the perspective of total trade volume,and lays a data foundation for the subsequent empirical research.(3)the thesis adopts the three margin framework put forward by Hummels and Klenow(2005)to measure three margin characteristics of China’s export of cultural goods to countries along the Belt and Road,and empirically analyzes the impact of trade cost on the growth pattern of China’s export of cultural goods.(4)taking the extensive margin in the three margin,namely product diversity,as the pointcut,the thesis constructs aggregate cultural products exact import price index under the changing conditions of cultural products import diversity by the means of Feenstra(1994)and Broda and Weinstein(2006),and analyzes the contribution of the diversity of Chinese cultural goods to the welfare effect of consumers in importing countries.(5)the thesis analyzes the path of the trade policy choice of China’s cultural goods from the two aspects of objectives and measures based on the empirical studies on the mechanism of mutual benefit and win-win results,principles and basis of the cultural goods trade policy choice.Based on the goal of mutual benefit and win-win for both sides of trade,this thesis conducts empirical research in three aspects from the logical relationship of total trade volume-three margin-product diversity step by step.The main conclusions of this thesis are as follows:(1)China’s cultural goods export to countries along the Belt and Road is mainly based on labor-intensive and low value-added equipment and auxiliary materials,and cultural goods with rich content are disadvantage,which is not conducive to realizing the goal of building a powerful country in the field of culture.In addition,China’s export market of cultural goods is mainly concentrated in Southeast Asia,but there is a much smaller market in Europe,which indicates that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the future market.Moreover,speeding up the construction of "five focuses" and "five roads" is conducive to strengthening economic and trade exchanges with the European countries.The Belt and Road Initiative has laid a sound foundation for cooperation in enhancing China’s market position in the countries along the Belt and Road.(2)China’s export growth of cultural goods to countries along the Belt and Road mainly depends on the price margin,and the contribution of extensive margin is small.The export of equipment and auxiliary materials with high extensive margin and export price lower than the world average price is not conducive to the innovation of cultural goods.The export three margin of China’s cultural goods to different regions and specific countries is quite different.Therefore,differentiated export policies should be implemented for different regions and countries.The trade costs including geographical distance,cultural distance and economic freedom of importing country have significant influence on the export three margin.Other factors also have different influences on the export three margin.This shows that under the Initiative,cultural exchanges and cooperation can be enhanced and cultural differences can be reduced through people-to-people bonds,variable trade costs can be reduced through facilities connectivity,and fixed costs can be reduced through policy coordination and unimpeded trade,so that more Chinese cultural goods export enterprises can enter the markets of countries along the Belt and Road.(3)countries along the Belt and Road increase the diversity of imported products from China and world,which leads to the decrease of the aggregate cultural products exact import price index,the improvement of consumer welfare,and the increase of trade income of the countries along the Belt and Road.Based on the analysis of welfare changes in countries along the Belt and Road from the perspective of geographical origin,the thesis finds that China makes greater contribution to consumer welfare in Southeast Asian countries,but less contribution to consumer welfare in Central and Eastern European countries.This indicates that the improvement of consumer welfare in importing countries is related to the product diversity as well as the scale of cultural goods imported from China.It also provides empirical evidence for the importers to reduce trade cost to promote the optimization of export pattern of China’s cultural goods and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results in trade.Based on the above conclusions,this thesis analyzes the basis of China’s cultural goods trade policy choice,and puts forward the corresponding ways of policy choice and recommendations for future development,the Chinese government should make high level of legislation to guarantee cultural goods innovation,carry out multi-form cultural communication,exchange and cooperation,so as to achieve cultural identity between China and countries along the Belt and Road,and establish a good cultural foundation for building a community of common destiny for all mankind.