Research On China’s Construction Of RCEP Regional Value Chain In Manufacturing Industry

With the rapid development of global value chains,China relies on abundant and cheap labour resources to embed itself in global value chains by engaging in low-value-added links such as processing and assembly,which leads to problems such as route dependence and low-end lock-in.The COVID-19 epidemic and trade frictions between the United States and China have strengthened protectionism in developed countries,shaken up the system of industrial division of labor in global value chains and caused a series of supply chain security problems.At a time of great global economic uncertainty,the signing of the RCEP provides an opportunity to address the "low-end lock-in " and supply chain security issues that China faces when participating in global value chains.Therefore,it has become an important issue to study the realistic foundation and influencing factors for China to construct RCEP regional value chains in manufacturing and then to realize the reconstruction of regional value chains.This paper firstly makes a preliminary judgment on the situation of RCEP regional value chain of manufacturing through intermediate goods trade matrix,and finds that the global value chain presents block state,mainly forming three regional value chains: RCEP regional value chain,European regional value chain and North American regional value chain.By analyzing the distribution of intermediate trade in each country,it is obvious that the trade of intermediate goods in each country tends to be in its region.According to the proportion of intermediate goods trade of manufacturing industry subdivision in each region,it can be seen that each region is biased to the intermediate goods trade of manufacturing industry with different technical levels.The dependence of countries on regions is judged by measuring the integration of intermediate trade between countries and regions.Combining these indicators,the core countries of RCEP,Europe and North America are China,Germany and the United States,respectively.Secondly,this paper analyzes the realistic basis of building RCEP regional value chain in manufacturing.Countries in the RCEP region have a high participation index in global value chains,and they share a common desire to build regional value chains.RCEP countries occupy different positions in the value chain of different manufacturing sectors and can form a relatively complete value chain.By measuring the explicit comparative advantage index of each country’s manufacturing industry,it is concluded that the advantages of each country are concentrated in different manufacturing industries,and there are differentiated comparative advantages and division of labor complementarity within the region.At the same time,China has the ability to lead the RCEP regional value chain,and there is trade policy support within the region.Finally,this paper uses data from 60 major countries in the world and 12 major countries in the RCEP region for group regression,using the export GDP value added ratio,that is,the trade benefits to China,as the explanatory variable,to empirically examine the factors that influence the construction of manufacturing RCEP regional value chains in China.This paper finds that:(1)There is already a realistic basis for China to build the RCEP regional value chain.(2)The elevation of China’s position in the relative value chain can significantly increase China’s export domestic value added rate within the RCEP region.(3)China’s participation in the relative value chain and explicit comparative advantage have a significantly negative impact on China’s export domestic value added rate in the RCEP region,and the impact results of the relative explicit comparative advantage are inconsistent with the results of worldwide samples.Therefore,this paper proposes to consolidate China’s central position in the RCEP regional value chain and strengthen cooperation with Japanese and Korean high-tech industries.Accelerate scientific and technological innovation,improve the domestic value added of products and other countermeasures.