Research On The China-the Lancang-Mekong Countries' Infrastructure Connectivity Level And Its Trade Effects

With the gradual advancement of the Belt and Road National Strategy and the ChinaASEAN Free Trade Area entering the “Diamond Decade” development stage,on the basis of the remarkable achievements in the Greater Mekong Subregion(GMS)industrial cooperation construction,the cooperation mechanism was in 2015.The month was officially launched,and interconnection was one of the five priority development directions proposed by the mechanism.In May 2017,at the “Belt and Road” International Summit Forum,President Xi Jinping further proposed to actively promote the early years of infrastructure interconnection and construction.The five countries are not only an important part of the Central-South Economic Corridor in the six major economic corridors of the “Belt and Road”,but also a member of ASEAN.They have an important strategic position.Therefore,China's interconnection with its infrastructure is a Further industrial cooperation is of great significance.Based on the above reasons,this paper aims to analyze the trade effects of infrastructure interconnection and the interconnection dimension of different infrastructures with Chinathe Lancang-Mekong countries as research objects.First,this paper finds that infrastructure interconnection has a positive and negative impact on trade effects.The positive impact mainly brings about social and economic growth through scale trade effect and trade creation effect.Infrastructure and Unicom It can effectively reduce transaction costs and improve transaction efficiency.The negative impact is mainly due to its aggregation effect,which may lead to the transfer of high-quality resources and factors to developed regions,thus causing a negative spillover effect on underdeveloped regions.Then,based on the research method of grounded theory,this paper constructs an index evaluation system for infrastructure interconnection in China-the Lancang-Mekong countries,and summarizes four levels of transportation and communication,communication and information technology,energy and China Unicom,and software infrastructure.According to the indicators and the fourteen-level indicators,and based on the second-level indicator system,using the data from 2008 to 2017,the Principal Component Analysis method was used to measure the degree of infrastructure connectivity between China and the five countries.The study found that China-the Lancang-Mekong countries,The degree of infrastructure interconnection in the five countries can be divided into three stages,but the overall trend is on the rise.Finally,in order to calculate the trade effect of infrastructure interconnection,this paper selects the road infrastructure connectivity,railway infrastructure connectivity,aviation infrastructure connectivity,information and communication technology connectivity,and software infrastructure connectivity.The index,which incorporates the gravity model,studies the impact of different dimensions of infrastructure variables on the import and export trade of China-the Lancang-Mekong countries.The results show that the five indicators have positive effects on the import and export trade of China-the LancangMekong countries,among which The impact of road transport Unicom and software infrastructure connectivity is most pronounced.The Lancang-Mekong region is an important bridge for the Silk Road Economic Belt from China to Southeast Asia,South Asia and the Indian Ocean,and an important support for the construction of the “Belt and Road”.Under the urgent need for further cooperation,infrastructure interconnection has a positive effect on improving the transportation level between China and the five countries,saving transportation and promoting trade and investment facilitation between countries along the Mekong River.Therefore,calculating the level of infrastructure interconnection in China-the Lancang-Mekong countries and the effect of different infrastructure interconnections on the import and export trade between China-the Lancang-Mekong countries is of great significance for enhancing the level of subregional cooperation.