Impact On China's Trade And Investment Of Regional Trade Agreements

Since the 1990s, there has been the third wave of regional economic integration characterized as regional trade agreements. More and more countries are taking regional trade as important as, or even more important than multilateral trade. On this background, it is necessary and beneficiary for China to participate in the building of regional trade cooperation. China has signed regional trade agreements with ASEAN, Hongkong, Macau, Chile and some other countries or districts since 2000 which have delivered notable achievements.The paper studies the new features of China's regional trade cooperation. So firstly, the development of world regional trade and China's participation in it are introduced and then the contents of these agreements are briefly described. Secondly, the thoughts of traditional regional theories as well as the new ones are presented and the similarities and differences of which are summarized. Thirdly, the paper focuses on the achievements of China's regional trade cooperation in 21st century and figures out new features in the agreements China has signed, and then advances a comparison with some other developing countries on this issue. The impacts on trade and investment are analyzed since the establishment of regional trade cooperation with ASEAN, Hongkong, Macau and Chile. Finally, the problems of China's participation in the process of regional trade cooperation are summed up and the strategies should be implemented are also brought forwarded.