The Regional Competition Pattern, Mechanism And Effect Of My Country's Urban Export Trade

As an important engine driving economic growth since the reform and opening up,export trade once played an extremely important role in China's economic aggregate at the beginning of this century.After the financial crisis in 2008,with China's economic development gradually entering the new normal,the relationship between supply and demand at home and abroad has undergone profound changes.In recent years,the "trade war" of the United States against China and the global COVID-19 pandemic have exerted a severe impact on the world trade market.At a time of accelerating changes unseen in a century,the central government has proposed a new plan called "dual circulation" to promote high-quality economic development.As an important part of external circulation,export trade is still the core element of China's economic development.In 2020,China will be the only major economy to achieve positive economic growth under the impact of the epidemic,providing a large amount of materials and abundant commodities to other countries,highlighting China's status as a manufacturing power.At the same time,the signing and implementation of the ChinaEU Agreement on Geographical Indications,the China-EU Investment Agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP)have shown to the world that China will open wider to the outside world and continue to deepen its integration with other countries' markets.Therefore,the analysis of the characteristics of Chinese cities' export trade in different markets is not only a summary of the history of opening to the outside world at the urban scale in the past,but also an important perspective to summarize the mechanism and effect of the competitive relationship between cities in export.Based on customs data and using analysis software including Stata,Pycharm and Arc GIS,this paper systematically analyzed the total volume,flow direction and structure of 270 cities from 31 provinces in China during 2000-2017 when they exported to the world,the United States,the European Union,the Association of Southeast Asian Nations,and Japan and South Korea.Then,the export similarity index(ESI)is used to represent the competitive relationship between cities in different markets,so as to construct the competitive relationship network.On the basis of the above,this paper investigates the internal mechanism and influence effect of inter-city export trade competition by integrating a variety of econometric models,and forms a logical framework from pattern(process)to mechanism and effect.The overall characteristics of China's urban export development are the obvious growth of total export,the strengthening of market decentralization and the improvement of structural diversity.As the "highlands" of China's export trade,the coastal cities with the core of Beijing,Tianjin and Hebei,the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta have always undertaken the heavy responsibility of leading the country in opening up.Their total export to the global market and export share to each market segment have been in the leading position in China for many years.With the indepth promotion of the "One Belt And One Road" initiative and the continuous operation of China-Europe freight trains,the export trade of some southwest and inland cities represented by Chongqing develops rapidly when facing the EU and ASEAN markets.However,in terms of the choice of target market and the rich degree of product structure,eastern cities still occupy obvious advantages.At the same time,the diversification trend of product structure of some eastern developed cities in exporting to the United States has weakened,indicating that the large-scale and centralization of their export trade has become increasingly apparent.No matter in the global market or the four market segments of the United States,the European Union,ASEAN,Japan and South Korea,the competitive relationship between Chinese cities in export has generally been on the rise from 2000 to 2017.The average export similarity index(AESI),constructed by the export similarity index,has a high value in the eastern and southern developed regions,and a low value in the western,northwestern and northeastern regions.This phenomenon indicates that the cities in the relatively developed eastern and southern regions face more significant export competition pressure from other cities in various trade markets than the cities in the western and northern regions.In the comparison of market segments,the intensity of competition between Chinese cities is the lowest in the Japanese and Korean markets,while the intensity of competition between Chinese cities is the highest in the American market.The intensity of competition among provincial capitals in eastern China is significantly higher than that in central and western China,and there are differences in competition patterns among provincial capitals in different markets.The competition between cities in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration has increased significantly.The export structure of Shanghai and Suzhou has a high degree of convergence,and the competition between them in each market is very significant.The competition between cities in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei has been at a low level for a long time.The competition between Beijing and Tianjin is relatively prominent,and the competition between other cities is relatively moderate.The competition among cities in the Pearl River Delta has been in a high position for a long time,and the competition among Guangzhou,Dongguan and Shenzhen is obvious.It is directly proportional to the total economic volume of cities and inversely proportional to the geographical distance between cities,which is the internal mechanism of inter-city competition in export trade.From the correlation analysis based on scatter diagram fitting to the causal inference based on panel Granger causality test model,this paper finally constructs the gravity model equation that can express the competitive relationship between cities,and forms a new idea for the study of urban networks,especially relational networks.The correlation analysis shows that there is a strong correlation between the economic aggregate of Chinese cities and the average competitive pressure from other cities in each trade market.Causal verification shows that economic aggregate is the Granger cause of export competitive pressure.The gravitational regression model based on the nonlinear least square method integrates the economic aggregate and geographical distance and realizes the mathematical expression of the export competition relationship between cities in different markets.From the comparison of market segments,the urban economic aggregate has a greater impact on the competition in the ASEAN market and the United States market,while the impact is less in the markets of Japan and South Korea and the European Union market.The distance between cities has a greater impact on their competitive relations in the markets of Japan and South Korea and the United States,while the impact is less in the markets of the European Union and the ASEAN.The competitive pressure that a city faces when exporting has obvious effect on the total volume,flow direction and structure of its export.Based on the panel Granger causality test and the lagging variable model of Almon method,this paper conducts an empirical econometric analysis on the impact of the change of export competitive pressure on the export of cities.In terms of total volume,the more developed cities along the eastern coast of China are faced with increased competitive pressure from other domestic cities when exporting,which tends to have a inhibiting effect on the growth of total volume of export,while many inland cities in the central and western regions are on the contrary.In terms of flow direction,no matter in which market,when most cities face increased competitive pressure from other cities in China,the diversification trend of their target market will be enhanced.In terms of structure,whether in the global market or the EU market,the increased competitive pressure faced by most cities in export will promote the diversification of their export product structure.Because the USA,ASEAN and Japan and South Korea markets fail to meet the passing conditions of the causality test,it is not possible to further analyze the effect of the competitive pressure on the export structure of the three markets.However,the variation trend of the scatter chart also shows that the increase of competitive pressure is accompanied by the diversification of the export structure.