The implementation of China’s open development strategy has unveiled awave of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by Chinese companies, with globalimplications. Based on panel data from 146 developing countries from 2003 to 2017, weinvestigate the growth effects of China’s OFDI. We find that China’s OFDI has promotedsignificant economic growth in developing countries. Not only could China’s OFDI increaseGDP per capita of a country in a short time but raise the country’s long-run equilibriumvalue as well. In addition, the growth effects of China’s OFDI were more significant forcountries with weak governance, rich resource, and modest human capital, and were abovethe average level for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, African countries, and in thepost-crisis era. Our research helps unravel the global significance of Chinese companiesinvesting overseas and contributes to research on the growth effects of direct investmentbetween developing countries.
With the quasi-natural experiment of the launching of high-speed railwaysin Chinese cities, this paper empirically investigated the effects of the upgrade of thetransportation infrastructure on the site selection of polluting enterprises. We found thatalthough the launching of a high-speed railway generally has a negative impact on the sitingof polluting enterprises: (i) While there was a significant decrease in polluting enterprisesof a private and other nature, the reduction in overseas-funded and state-owned enterpriseswas insignificant; (ii) while the launching of a high-speed railway greatly restrained theentry of polluting enterprises in the eastern region, large cities and more developed cities,this was followed by the movement of more polluting enterprises to the central and westernregions, small and medium-sized cities and less developed cities; (iii) there was a significantdecrease in polluting enterprises in environmentally conscious cities after the launchingof a high-speed railway. This paper also found that infrastructure upgrade may influencethe siting of polluting enterprises through the following: Environmental cleanness, factorconcentration and spatial integration. Government authorities and market entities shouldbe fully aware of and attach great importance to how the transportation infrastructureinfluences the site selection of businesses, as this is of great significance for China’s regionaldevelopment planning, local business climate and investment planning, environmentalprotection, and other related policymaking initiatives.
Since 2018, China has enacted a string of policy initiatives to increaseimports. To quantify this import expansion strategy’s economic effects, we created a largenumerical general equilibrium model and quantitatively simulated the economic effectsof the reductions of tariff and non-tariff barriers on China and other economies. Oursimulation results show that overall, China’s import expansion strategy benefited both itselfand others and contributed to employment, welfare, and trade growth in China and the restof the world. In relative terms, however, China’s import expansion strategy benefited othercountries more than it did itself and contributed more to the growth of the world economy.Additionally, the import expansion strategy may effectively promote China’s trade balance,and the trade equilibrium effect driven by the reduction of non-tariff barriers is moresignificant than that of tariff barriers. Furthermore, regarding the self-benefiting effects ofimport expansion, the effects of nontariff measures are significantly greater than those oftariff measures, and this result has policy implications for China’s import expansion strategygoing forward.
Throughout its century-long history, the Communist Party of China (CPC) hasbeen striving to explore and implement an ownership system of the means of production.Upon its founding in 1921, the Party envisioned to create a sole ownership system after thevictory of the National Revolution. In war times, land issues dominated the agenda of theParty’s work on the ownership structure since most of its bases and liberated areas werein the countryside. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Chinaestablished a basic socialist economic system through “one industrialization and threetransformations,” i.e. socialist industrialization and the transformations of agriculture,artisanal production, and capitalist industry and commerce. This nascent socialist economicsystem was characterized by the sole public ownership of the means of production and ahighly centralized planned economy. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, the Partytook bold steps to explore and reform the socialist ownership system under the principle tokeep public ownership as the mainstay and allow diverse forms of ownership to develop sideby side. In the new era, the Party has redefined China’s basic socialist economic system bycreating a mixed ownership structure at two levels with public ownership as the mainstay.China’s increasing economic vitality and dynamism have witnessed the exploration andgrowth of this mixed ownership system.
Based on the existing research regarding China’s economic diplomacy, thisstudy creates a theoretical structure for economic diplomacy with Chinese characteristicsthat encompasses soft power, the two competitive concepts of justified ought and selfinterests, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By introducing soft power, this paperargues that the goal of economic diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new erais to achieve the conversion of hard power to soft power. Unlike the “carrot and stick”principle often followed by Western powers in their economic diplomacy with politicalstrings attached, the conversion between hard power and soft power in China’s economicdiplomacy hinges upon the two competitive concepts of justified ought and self interests,which is the basic principle that guides China’s economic diplomacy overall. We argue thatin creating an implementation mechanism for China’s economic diplomacy, policymakersmust consider China’s unique national condition as a large economy not yet rich in percapita terms, while drawing upon the experiences of other major nations.
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the CommunistParty of China (CPC) has separated China’s evolving principal social contradictions intofour different stages. Based on the assessment of principal social contradictions at differentpoints in time, the CPC enacted different economic policies. During 1949-1956, based onthe recognition of class struggle as China’s principal social contradiction, the Party focusedits economic policies on socialist transformation and established the foundation for thepublic sector of the economy. During 1956-1978, amid flip-flops in the Party’s assessmentof whether class struggle or backward productive forces were the principal contradiction,China’s economic development suffered some setbacks, but the vision for building anindustrial country remained unchanged, and resources were focused on developing majornational industrial projects. During 1978-2019, the Party focused on economic developmentand reform and opening up in pursuit of the realization of grand economic developmentgoals based on the assessment that China’s principal social contradiction was betweenpeople’s ever-growing material and cultural needs and China’s relatively backwardsocial productive forces. In 2017, the 19th CPC National Congress made the importantpolitical assessment that China’s principal social contradiction had transformed into thecontradiction between people’s ever-growing need for a better life and China’s unbalancedand inadequate development, and proposed new development concepts to lead the Chinesepeople on a new journey towards the second centennial goal. The most important experienceof the CPC’s economic work is analyzing and solving problems based on Marxist ideologyand methodology.