Exploring China's Strategies in Expanding its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Networ

This paper discusses potential factors that lead China to engage in Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with certain partner countries. Previous literature has linked a country's interest in forming an FTA with a variety of internal, competitive, and emulative calculations. While multilateral trade arrangements, such as TPP and NAFTA, are suffering from skepticism and protectionist policies, China has taken positive steps to incorporate other countries in its FTA framework. My study explores whether China's likelihood of forming FTAs with certain countries is impacted by a group of factors, including bilateral trade relationship, natural resource abundance, openness to trade, political alignment in international affairs, and quality of governance. An analysis of available data sources shows that multiple factors can help explain China's tendency to form FTA partnership with certain countries. In addition, through a case study of the newly concluded China-Maldives FTA, this paper makes a preliminary attempt to explain how China integrates its FTA strategy into its broader geopolitical plan to assume global influence under new circumstances.