Research On The Path Of Building A Trade Power And China's Selection

Ever since China joined the WTO,its foreign trade has been rapidly developing,successively establishing itself over the years as the world's top trade powerhouse,further proving China's superiority as a major trading nation.The Sino-US trade war has fully revealed the urgency for China to improve its stress tolerance in the trade market in the face of the US' severe repression on many trading and industry sectors.Therefore,there is still much to do before China can truly establish itself as a trade power.To serve this purpose,in the documents it released,the Party's Central Committee has repeatedly proposed the need to focus on promoting the construction of a trade power.In addition,research on the same topic has also been included into the shortlist for major bidding projects of National Social Science Fund in 2018,increasing its reputation and popularity in the most sophisticated fields of social sciences in China.Studies on promoting the construction of a trade power have been mainly focused on the paths to achieve it and its evolution,viz.,how the construction of trade power can be realized.In light of this,study on the endeavor to promote China as a major trade power should be conducted by summarizing the general rules of the paths and development of trade powers based on the classical theories of international trade,before combining it with the current conditions and context of China,so as to ultimately find the paths towards a trade power featuring Socialism with Chinese characteristics.Therefore,the connotation of and the paths to a trade power,as well as China's choice are studied in-depth in this paper,the contents of which can be summarized as follows.First,this paper clarifies the theoretical basis to turn China into a trader of quality.It expounds the theoretical perspectives of the connotations,paths,and strategies from the theories of classical international trade on the construction to turn China into a trader of quality from the late mercantilism,the classical trade theory,the neoclassical trade theory,the new trade theory,and the trade models with heterogeneous firms respectively.Moreover,the five major paths for building a trade power were analyzed selectively from the perspectives of history and logics,to promote the construction of a trade power in “three steps”.The “three-step” evolution of the five major paths are as follows.From the aspect of cultivating a trade entity,gradual adjustments of the government's intention are required,starting from interfering foreign trade for safety4 reasons,followed by reducing interference in foreign trade for cooperation reasons,tofinally maintaining fair world trade for the purpose of becoming a leader in the field.From the aspect of establishing a large-scale transnational company,efforts are to be made firstly by establishing resource development-oriented and horizontal transnational companies,followed by establishing manufacturing-oriented and vertical transnational companies,before eventually moving towards service-oriented and mixed transnational companies.From the perspective of elevating the global position in trade,ventures made to reach the core of the international division of labor should be made progressively,from entering the core of international labor specialization,followed by reaching the center of international labor differentiation,before finally arriving at the center of process-oriented international division of labor.Going deep into the core of international market system should be done gradually by starting from a periphery position to a semi-periphery one,followed successively to the semi-center,before eventually reaching the center.In terms of building trade platforms,steps to gradually expand the influence of exhibition platforms should include building comprehensive exhibition platforms,trade-oriented exhibition platforms,and then consumption-oriented exhibition platforms.Regional cooperation platforms are to be implemented from regional trade cooperation platforms to regional elements cooperation platform,and then regional policy cooperation platforms.As for optimizing trade structure,it should be done by reasonably adjusting the import and export structures,starting from stabilizing the export,then moving on to opening up for import trades,before finally trying to maintain the structure of export trading having a slightly larger proportion than import trade.To gradually increase the proportion of service trade,the transition of trade contents should be realized from primary commodities to products of the manufacturing industry,followed by the transition from commodity trading to service trading,before finally making the leap from service trading with narrower connotation to that with broader connotation.With respect to improving trade efficiency,improvements should be made starting from the trade conditions of the goods,followed by that of the income,before finally progressing towards the factors involved.To maintain proper dependence on foreign trade,improvements should be made starting from the dependence on exports,followed by that on imports,before finally lowering the dependence of foreign trade altogether.Third,an empirical analysis on the levels of trade power construction in the world's major trading countries is conducted.To begin with,according to the analysis of5 trade power construction path in the preceding part of the paper,a number of evaluationindicators are selected based on the five paths to be taken for the construction,and a scientific evaluation system for the construction level is constructed.Next,weights are attributed to the indicators in a combinative manner through the method of objective revision of subjectivity,and the multi-level gray evaluation model based on TOPISIS is adopted to evaluate the levels of construction of trade powers among the eight major trading countries of the world from 2010 to 2017,including Japan,the United States,France,Germany,the Netherlands,Russia,the United Kingdom,and China.Following this,the effectiveness of the evaluation index system is tested with RST and it was found that the redundancy and sensitivity have met the requirements.The empirical results show that the United States,China,and Germany are the top three countries in terms of the trade power construction level,with the United States retaining its throne as the top contender.Traditional countries of trade powers,including France,Japan,and the United Kingdom,display a significantly decline in level and are ranked slightly lower than China.Finally,comparative analysis was conducted to select the appropriate paths for China to promote its construction as a trade power.According to the evolution of the“three steps” for the paths to promoting the construction of a trade power,China's progress in the five major paths are currently in different development stages:with the paths of improving trade status and optimizing trade structure just getting to the second step,hence requiring acceleration;the paths of cultivating trade subjects and building trade platforms stabilized at the second step,hence requiring continuous promotion;the path of improving trade efficiency just getting to the third step,thus requiring steady advancement.For this reason,the cultivation of trade subjects should be proceeded from such aspects as establishing an independent network of transnational production and operation,following the strategy of integration of trade and investment,and cultivating the companies' capacity for independent innovation.Improvement of trade status should be accelerated by enhancing the construction of international discursive power,improving the capability for international resource allocation and creating world class famous brands.The construction of trade platforms should also be continually carried out from aspects including enhancing cooperation with developed economies,attempting to gain support from international economic organizations,and deepening the cooperation with developing countries.Moreover,the optimization of trade structure should also be sped up by increasing the proportion of trade in services,improving theexport of high-tech products,and exploring international diversified market.At last,trade efficiency should be steadily improved from aspects including improving trade environment,taking full use of international trade rules,and actively dealing with trade frictions.Only after completing the above can China be finally recognized as a trade power.The innovation of this paper is that: it innovates the research perspectives.The paper clarifies the theoretical basis to turn China into a trader of quality more comprehensively,improves the dynamic analysis on the path to turn China into a trader of quality from the ‘Three-Step' evolution process,and chooses a suitable path to turn China into a trader of quality hereby.Besides,it further improves the research methods.It sets up the performance assessment system of the construction to turn China into a trader of quality on the basis of the SMART criteria,and it applies the method to correct the subjectivity to the objectivity and weights the combination.Through the model that combines TOPSIS,the gray relational analysis,and the analytic hierarchy process,it comprehensively evaluates the construction to turn China into a trader of quality,and applies the RST method to check the validity of the performance assessment system.