A Comprehensive Analysis On The Economic Benefits Of Tea Foreign Trade In Modern China

Tea is one of the most important commodities of modern China's foreign trade. Therefore, the change of its export trend imposed tremendous impact on modern China's foreign trade and national economy. Based on general theory of foreign trade and materials available, this paper focuses on economy benefit of modern Chinese tea export with quantitative analysis. Generally speaking, economy benefit of foreign trade is divided into microcosmic and macroscopic levels. Comparatively, the evaluating system of foreign trade should be set out from micro and macro perspectives as well.The micro economy benefit means the immediate economy gain of tea export, appears on the trade condition and export competitive capability during the process of tea trade development; The macro economy benefit means tea trade's impact on social economy rise and optimization of its structure, which is the social economy benefit of tea export..Firstly, as to the micro economy benefit, this paper focuses on the analysis of the condition of tea foreign and its export competitive capability. The main measurements include:the change of annual export quantity, index of trade condition, possession of foreign market, index of trade competition, index of export dominance, and etc. In 19th century, tea dominated the development of Chinese foreign trade. Not until the late 1870s that tea export decreased seriously, lasting to 1940s. The commodity structure of modern China's foreign trade, as well as the price of export tea affect the index of tea trade condition directly. The index of tea trade dominance reveals decreasing trend during the second half of 19th century, while gradually increase since 1910s, hereafter, the trend appears unsteady. We can find out that in international tea market, English tea market and American green tea market is the world's major tea consumption and importer of modern Chinese tea, but also the main market.Because of the competition from India and Japan, Chinese tea exports to Britain and America decreased sharply in terms of quantity and value. According to the statistics, The competitiveness index of the Chinese tea export is relatively high, but this is not the whole picture of modern Chinese tea export, and it does not contradict the historical fact that the tea export wane.On the other hand, macro economic benefit analysis reflects the whole national economic benefit, and it should also be the combination of long-term with short-term benefits. From the perspective of the relationship between tea and economic growth, this paper focuses on the interaction between foreign trade of tea,economic growth, and the economic structure optimization. This interaction can be measured in terms of the indicators of reliance. The rise and fall of the proportion of tea export in foreign trade impact the role of tea in Chinese foreign trade balance.The quantitative analysis on correlation of modern Chinese tea production and foreign trade reveals the relations between the tea exports and domestic development of tea economy. Due to the recession of the tea, the status of tea tax in modern customs tax correspondingly change, its role was becoming smaller, and its status was becoming lower. The rise and fall of the tea foreign trade profoundly impacted the domestic commodity economy related industry.A comprehensive analysis on the economic benefits provides a good prospective for learning the role of the tea export in modern China and its historical status. This paper is a preliminary attempt to understand and evaluate the economic benefits of the tea foreign trade in modern China.