The Impact Of Cultural Distance On China’s Foreign Trade Exports To Countries Along The "Belt And Road"

Today,the world economic situation is complex and changeable.The new crown pneumonia epidemic and Sino-US trade frictions continue to affect global trade,making the global trade landscape undergoing profound changes.In order to occupy a place in the global trade structure,countries/regions around the world have paid attention to the development of trade and continuously improved relevant trade policies.At the same time,under the domestic background of overcapacity in some industries in my country and the urgent need to solve the problem of economic transformation,in 2013,President Xi Jinping first proposed the construction of the "Belt and Road",intensifying economic and trade cooperation between China and countries along the "Belt and Road",and accelerating my country’s surplus production capacity.Transfer and economic transformation and upgrading.With the “Belt and Road” initiative,my country’s economic and trade cooperation with countries along the “Belt and Road” has become increasingly frequent,and it has gradually become an important export market for my country.In 2019,China’s total trade in goods with 138 countries that signed the "Belt and Road" cooperation document reached US$1.90 trillion,accounting for 41.5% of China’s total trade in goods,of which exports were US$983.76 billion and imports were US$917.39 billion.In 2020,the total value of imports and exports between China and countries along the route reached9,369.6 billion yuan;of which,exports amounted to 5,426.3 billion yuan,an increase of17.24% over 2013.Under the background of rapid development of information technology and continuous improvement of infrastructure construction,the influence of traditional factors such as geography on international trade has gradually weakened,and the role of intangible factors such as cultural differences and cultural exchanges in international trade has become more and more obvious.The more scholars pay attention and research.Therefore,this paper uses the four dimensions of Hosftede culture and the KSI index to measure cultural distance,and analyzes the impact of cultural distance on China’s exports to countries along the “Belt and Road”,and the impact of cultural distance on primary products and industrial products;meanwhile,it uses sister cities,Friendship Associations,and Confucius Institutes are used as measurement indicators of cultural exchanges to analyze the moderating effect of cultural exchanges on cultural distance;finally,it analyzes the moderating effect of cultural exchanges on cultural distance under the sample of primary products and industrial finished products.The research results show that: First,cultural distance will hinder China’s foreign trade exports to countries along the “Belt and Road”;and cultural distance hinders primary products more than industrial products.Second,cultural exchanges will adjust the hindrance of cultural distance to foreign trade exports.Third,in the sample of primary products,the moderating effect of cultural exchanges is greater than that of manufactured products.