The Industrial Structure Upgrading Of China,Japan,Korea And The Leap Of "Middle Income Trap"

The countries and regions that successfully crossed the “middle income trap” in Asia were “Four Asian Tigers” and Japan.In 2002,China's income per capital was 1,136 US dollars,entering the middle-income stage.In 2015,the national income per capital was 8,039 US dollars.The World Bank's standard of high-income in 2014 was 12,735 US dollars,and there is still a long way for China to cross from middle-income to high-income.After China became the middle income countries,economic development faces more complicated and volatile situations.At the same time,it is an important period of economic and social transformation and development.How to upgrade the economic structure and improve the development to cross the “middle income trap” is a very important practical significance.This paper mainly focuses on the core issue--How China can learn from the experience of Japan and South Korea,find the optimal industrial upgrading path suitable for China's national conditions according to the spatial structure of products,and improving economic complexity to maintain sustainable economic growth and successfully cross the middle-income trap.Firstly,this paper reviews domestic and foreign literature on product space,industrial structure upgrading and middle-income trap.Then the product space theory system is introduced emphatically.Secondly,it analyzes the industrial upgrading paths of China,Japan and South Korea from the structural rationalization perspective,and this article also analyzes the experience of Japan and South Korea in successfully crossing the middle-income trap.Thirdly,the advancing of industrial upgrading perspective based on the data of China,Japan,Korea,the empirical study on the relationship between whether successfully cross the middle-income trap of China,Japan and South Korea and the economic complexity index(ECI)which is the core variable using probit and logit.The results of this study show that:(1)The structural rationalization process of China,Japan and Korea is based on the similarity of production capacity;(2)The three countries of China,Japan and Korea all contain three modes of industrial upgrading,HK mode,extended HK mode,extended HK mode with capacity accumulation;(3)The advancing of industrial upgrading of China,Japan and Korea increase the probability of crossing the middle income trap;(4)Capital andinfrastructure investment,opening up have promoted the leap of middle income trap;(5)Simply raising the number of laborers neglecting the quality of labor is not conducive to crossing the middle income trap.The innovation of the article lies in the study of industrial upgrading and middle-income traps from the new perspective of product space theory;the industrial upgrading study of China,Japan and Korea is from the two dimensions of structural rationalization and advancing of industrial upgrading,this is a new way of thinking.