An Assessment On China’s Manufacturing Trade Interests Under Intra-Product Specialization

With the development of economic globalization, the international division level is deepening gradually and the product value chain shows feature of globalization and internationalization.The international division has developed from intra industry specialization to the process and section of products manufacturing,forming the intra-product specialization mode.The intra-product specialization break the original pattern of trade, causing redistribution of trade interests. Since China’s reform and opening-up,foreign trade has achieved rapid development.And our country is involving in intra-product specialization by the way of processing trade into global production networks. In this context, whether China’s manufacturing industry does get the trade benefits commensurate with the trade value?The assessment on the real trade interests of manufacturing industry will help us understand the question correctly.Firstly,this paper summarizes the related research on trade interests at home and abroad along the evolvement of international division,and focus on the literatures of trade interests under intra-product specialization. As traditional trade theory can not well explain trade benefits under intra-product specialization,so the article expands on the basis of traditional trade theory,and explains the theoretical system of Intra product trade benefit distribution from the source, changing factors, and the mechanism of distribution from four different market structures. We introduce the value-added indicator to evaluate the trade interests.By calculating division degree on intra-product specialization of manufacturing industry,the result shows that the index of vertical specialization of manufacturing industry is increasing, especially the electrical and optical equipmen industry is participating intra-product specialization deeper and deeper. By using international input-output tables,we establish a value-added accounting model.Then using WIOD database and calculating the static trade gains of China’s manufacturing industry,while conducting empirical analysis on dynamic trade interests,the results show: from the aspect of static manufacturing trade interests, China’s manufacturing industry does not obtain as much trade interests as superficial gains.From the technical categories,although the medium-high and high-tech manufacturing’s absolute value of trade interests is the highest, but its relative value of the real trade gains is lower. From the sub industry perspective,in terms of electrical and optical equipment manufacturing,while the trade in value added is maximum, but the relative value added is not high.For food,beverage and tobacco manufacturing,although the trade in value added is not outstanding, but the rate of value added is in the forefront, which shows our manufacturing sector more assumes is more labor intensive processing and assembly areas,and does not master the core technology.From the dynamic trade benefits point of view, under intra-product specialization, China’s manufacturing exports can promote economic growth, employment level and technological progress. Among them, the promotion of employment is the largest,the effect on productivity of labour is in the middle, and the promotion of technological advance is minimum.Finally, according to the results of theoretical analysis and empirical research on China’s manufacturing trade.We put forward some policy advice:developing comparative advantages,guiding industrial agglomeration,optimizing the market structure,increasing research investment, promoting the transformation and upgrading.