A Comparative Study On The Trade Competitiveness Of Creative Products Between China And ASEAN Countries

Over the years,China's GDP ranked second in the world,but according to?Global Competitiveness Report?,China's competitiveness in 2016 and 2017 ranked 28 and 25 respectively.Similarly,for trade,how can we assure that current measurement methods which are built on the basis of trade flow can accurately measure the trade competitiveness? What exactly trade competitiveness means? “Does competitive advantage theory isolate from or inherit from comparative advantage” is the academic debate over the years in China,what theory should be referred to guide China to pursue the position of a powerful trade country,and how? How the competitiveness measurement method developed when using the new theory to guide China's trade strategy.Applying answers of these questions to Creative industry,the article aimed to measure and compare the authentic trade competitiveness of creative good between China and ASEAN countries,and explored strategy to improve trade competiveness of creative good of China and ASEAN countries together.Comparative advantage can still guide the trade policy.Creative good is the material carrier containing the creative content,however,to what extend original contents are embodied in different creative products is different.The data source of creative products used for international trade study is UNCTAD database,which classified creative products into seven subsectors.And according to their overlap with core copyright industries defined by American International Intellectual Property Alliance,this article defined the audio-visual and publishing product as creative products rich in original content,while design,art craft products are labor intensive products with low original content.The CA index showed that China's creative products have the strong comparative advantage,however,it is largely contributed by the export of design product and art craft,in addition,China has the single export structure.ES index estimated that the overall technical content of Singapore's and Malaysia's creative product is far more than China's,and difficult to surpass in the short term.ESI index showed that Chinese design products is subject to fierce competition from Indonesia,the Philippines,Thailand,and Vietnam.All in all,China is a big creative good trade country,not a powerful creative good trade country,and it is still under strong pressure from other countries to complete.Guided by the theory of competitive advantage,the comprehensive competitiveness index system of creative products is built to directly measure the potential of trade competitiveness of creative goods though estimate the performance of elements at enterprise,industry and national levels that are conducive to stimulating innovation,so the system described the environment which is conducive to the generation,development of creative elements,and eventual enhance the trade income of creative goods.The result showed that overall performance of China is not as good as Singapore as the result of relative poor performance in aspects of human capital,cultural facilities,innovation capabilities,business capabilities,government policies,social environment and trading environment.However,in terms of capital resources,cultural resources,creative industries and supporting industries,China outperforms ASEAN countries.China,Indonesia,and Vietnam ranked lower than the comparative advantage in the “Diamond Model” indicator system.The commonality of the three countries is that the overall comparative advantage of creative products is driven by design and handicraft departments,although the CA index is high,the technical content is low.While Singapore has a lower comparative advantage,but the “Diamond Model” indicator system ranks first and the creative product has the high technical content.This paper believes that the “Diamond Model” index system can better reflect the profitability of a country's creative product trade.The strategy for enhancing the trade competitiveness of creative goods,turning the big creative good trade country into the powerful creative good trade country is: at the micro level,it should comprehensively cultivate advanced production factors that foster the creation of creative elements and facilitate the trade of creative products.Specific to the product sub-sector,paying attention to the export of design products and art crafts,with the aim to stabilize the status of China's big creative products trade country,but at the same time pay attention to increase the original content of China's design products and art craft,and gradually promote optimization and upgrading of related industries.On the one hand,take advantage of cultural resources and tourism resources to enhance the creative content of design products and art crafts;on the other hand,integrate the digital technology into design and art craft product,promoting the innovation of traditional creative products.For example,the development of digital publishing;the export structure of creative products between China and ASEAN countries is similar,facing the situation of unbalanced global trade development,in order to transform competition into cooperation,governments and enterprises must learn to leverage the policies and platforms of the Belt and Road,encourage creative enterprises to invest abroad,taking advantage of cultural resources of the ASEAN countries,with aim to promote the mutual benefit and win-win situation of the creative products trade between China and ASEAN countries.The innovations of this paper are: on the one hand,dispute between the theory of comparative advantage and the theory of competitive advantage became the main thread of the whole text.On the other hand,based on "improved" diamond model,an index system had been built to compare and analyze creative product trade competitiveness between China and ASEAN countries.