The Effect Of Confucius Institutes On China’s Characteristic Agricultural Products Export

In recent years,the promotion of China economic strength leads to a strong demand for understanding China in the whole world.Under this background,as the most important carrier of Chinese language and cultural output,the Confucius Institute has been widely distributed all over the world.At the end of December 2016,China has established 511 Confucius institutes and 1073 Confucius classrooms in 140 countries and regions.The Confucius Institute has been a brilliant card of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.Confucius said,"Culture arise from diet";therefore,a nation’s characteristic agricultural products(ab.CAPs)also has a considerable cultural component,belonging to cultural products in a broad sense.Language and culture issues in international trade are a frontier research field in international economics,while the coverng issues deserve further studying in CAP trade field.At present,the development of Confucius Institute provides a good proxy variable for Chinese international promotion and Chinese cultural output.The economic effects of Confucius Institute are becoming a hot topic in the field of international economics.With the global distribution of Confucius institute,China’s CAPs export has achieved steady growth.With Chinese teaching overseas,the Confucius Institute has also carried out extensive activities to spread Chinese culture,in which some CAPs,such as Chinese tea and wine,are indispensable cultural elements.Chen Zongmao,chairman of China Tea Association,has claimed that the development of China’s tea industry can not do without the two wings:one is tea technology,the other is tea culture;among them,tea culture is a platform,through which more people would like drinking China’s tea.So,will Chinese language and culture "going out" represented by Confucius Institute promote China’s CAPs export by enhancing the host country’s consumer preferences for them?How to understand the influencing mechanism of Confucius institute on China’s CAPs export?How to better play the platform role of Confucius Institute?To answer these questions scientifically from the perspective of agricultural economics,has important theoretical and practical significance not only in enriching and expanding the covering research of "economic effects of Confucius Institute" and "China’s CAPs export" effectively,but also in developing Chinese characteristic agriculture and implementng the "Belt and Road Initiative".Among so many CAPs,tea is the most popular and typical Chinese element in Confucius Institute’s overseas cultural exchange,the spirit of Chinese tea culture coincides with the purpose of Confucius Institute best;therefore,based on the 2004-2015 panel data of 40 countries,this paper takes the extended gravity model to study the impact of Confucius Institute on China’s CAPs export theoretically and empirically,with tea as a primary case and liquor&medicinal herbs as aided cases of Chinese CAPs.For this purpose,based on such theories as transaction cost,language-and-trade relations,experience economics,platform economics and cultural stratification,this paper systematically analyze the influence mechanism of Confucius Institute on the China’s CAPs export;on this basis,five hypotheses are put forward from the perspective of the overall effect,the influencing mechanism,the comparison by different country groups and CAP categories;secondly,by drawing on existing research and combining with the cultural characteristics of CAPs trade,the covering trade gravity model is built to analyze empirically the impact of Confucius Institute on China’s tea export;thirdly,further verify the Confucius Institute’s impact on China’s other CAPs export with liquor and medicinal herbs as auxiliary cases;finally,summarize the empirical conclusions,compare the economic effect of Confucius Institute from two aspects of different tea categories and different CAP types and put forward the corresponding policy recommendations to better play the platform role of Confucius Institute.The theoretical and empirical studies of this dissertation fully confirm the platform role of Confucius Institute on China’s CAPs export.The main conclusions are:first,in the overall effect,the establishment of Confucius Institute significantly promotes China’s CAP export,in which,its promotion effect on liquor is the best.Second,in the aspect of mechanism,the expansion of cultural differences would enhance the active effect of Confucius Institute on tea export,but it would reduce its effect on liquor and medicinal herbs;for the export of these three CAPs,Confucius institute has a significant substitution effect on overseas Chinese factor.Third,by the comparison on different country groups,on the tea trade,the promotion effect of Confucius Institute in developed countries is significantly higher than that in developing countries;on the liquor trade,the effect in developed countries is significantly lower than that in developing countries;but on the medicinal herbs trade,there is no significance between both country groups.Fourth,by the comparison of different teas’ trade,the Confucius institute’s effect on black tea is greater than green tea;its effect on high-grade tea is greater than bulk tea.The empirical research also comes to such meaningful conclusion as "Chinese liquor in developed countries has the characteristics of low-grade goods",which indicates that some Chinese CAPs’ brand competitiveness are still at a disadvantage in developed countries.The originality of this dissertation lies in that:(1)the research topic is novel and meaningful;to study the effect of Confucius Institute on China’s CAPs from the perspective of agricultural economy,it is an effective way to expand "the economic effects of Confucius Institute" and"the factors affecting CAPs export".(2)This paper analyzes the influencing mechanism by using the multi-theories from the three functional dimensions of Confucius Institute;compared with the previous research,the theoretical explanation is more comprehensive and has the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary characteristics.(3)Considering the cultural trade features of CAPs export,the empirical modeling introduces some new variables,such as "Confucius Institute","cultural distance"and "overseas Chinese",which are omitted by previous studies;meanwhile,the selected range of samples is more extensive(involving 40 countries and regions),so that the empirical model and research conclusions could be more close to the reality of CAPs trade.(4)This paper compares the trade effect of Confucius Institute on the level of different tea catetories and CAP types,and means to explore the causes of differences in the CAP’s cultural dimension from the perspective of experience economy;this research perspective is novel,which helps to provide reference for China’s CAPs export promotion policy making.