Research On The Scope And Depth Of Openness Policy On Trade In Services Of China

Compared with merchandise trade,there are intensive regulations and policies in trade in services.The new regulations of the current trade in services are developing very fast in the aspect of RTA and intertwined with the regulations of investment,intellectual property rights and competition policies.A complex network of RTAS also poses a serious problem for multiple governance.Different from the study on the effect of the liberalization of trade in services,the qualitative analysis of policy,the quantitative research of the policy based on the non-binding sources and the current research of the one-sided emphasis on the assessment of schedule of specific commitment,this study,based on the RTAS,has conducted a comprehensive quantitative evaluation of the openness policy and provided policy reference for China's further participation in regional trade in services.In the first place,this study clarifies the important influence of the policy towards trade in services as a special cost of trade,and uses the method of political economy to analyze the motivation of how the existing policies of trade in services can promote the extension of the RTAS,which laies a theoretical foundation for this dissertation.Then,based on the requirement of the binding character,objectivity,comparability and the dynamic development of the materials reflecting policy,this dissertation takes the RTAS as the research object to build an innovative quantitative evaluation framework which includes both agreement text and sector schedule.On the one hand,according to the regulations of the trade in services and the development of related issues,consulting the information of GATS,the KORUS FTA and APEC FTA database,this dissertation builds a three-level evaluation system which covers cross-border trade in services,investment,natural person movement,financial services,telecommunication services,electronic commerce,intellectual property rights and competition policy including 8 areas,176 provisions,536 detailed rules and regulations.The openness of the policy of the agreement text is reflected by 8 detailed indexes which include the covering scope of the regulations from the respect of the provisions and the covering depth from respect of the detailed regulations.For another,this dissertation perfects the method of assessing the openness depth of schedule by means of three indexes of A.C.,N.R.and A.Cov.which are built on the basis of Five Levels Frequency Analysis,and applies it to both the positive and negative lists comprehensively.It also fills in the scope index of sector openness reflected by the quantity of openness of service sectors and sub-sectors.By using the above mentioned assessment framework and indexes,this dissertation assesses and compares the 94 related agreement texts and schedules surrounding 12 RTAS of China in order to mainly reflect the coverage scope and depth of China's RTAS agreement texts and analyze the status quo and shortages of scope and depth of sector openness.Then,after standardizing the assessment result of the coverage scope,coverage depth and the depth of sector openness of 70 countries and territories,it forms a multiple openness policy index and uses empirical analysis.The Probit Binary Choice Model is used to test to what extent that the existing openness policy can influence the possibility of establishing RTAS for two economies and the other decisive elements as well.Thus this study offers the possible roadway and suggestions for China to further participate in RTAS.According to the results of quantitative evaluation and empirical analysis,this dissertation draws the following conclusions.Firstly,the coverage scope and depth of the regulations of China's RTAS agreement text are below average,which shows the passive dependence on the partner economy with highly open trade in services.Secondly,sector openness has very obvious characteristic of negative asymmetry.Thirdly,the higher the openness of the existing policy of trade in services is,the more likely it is for the two economies to establish RTAS.Under the current RTAS framework of China and its partners,there are three ways for China to further participate in RTAS,namely,promoting the South-South RTAS together with the the Belt and Road strategy;establishing the transregional South-North RTAS with high quality;constructing a self-centered radiant RTAS network via China,Japan and ROK FTA,the Asia-pacific FTA and RCEP negotiations.In this process,China should first fully understand the new regulations of international trade in services and actively accept them,actively participate in the formulation and revision of international standards and norms.We can have an experimental practice in FTZ and then gradually put the corresponding provisions and detailed regulations into RTAS.At the same time,we should try to establish a literally symmetric pattern of openness by upgrading the existing RTAS.We should consider the national economic development strategy and the reality to scientifically choose the contracting partner in order not to fall into the dilemma of multiple governance.We should also make full use of the high level BIT to focus on promoting the first openness of Mode 3 in trade in service and push China's service industry to improve investment environment.