Special issue on foreign trade and investment in China’s continuing economic opening and the Belt and Road Initiative

• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Hugh Dang,Gaoju Yang,Julan Du
• Date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0106.12327

INTRODUCTION

Special issue on foreign trade and investment in

China’s continuing economic opening and the

Belt and Road Initiative

Julan Du

1

| Gaoju Yang

2

| Hugh Dang

3

1

Department of Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

2

School of Economics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

3

Research Division, Transnational Corporations Council of Studies, Ottawa, Canada

Correspondence

Hugh Dang, Transnational Corporations Council of Studies, 58 Rideau Heights Dr. Ottawa, ON K2E 7A6 Canada.

Email: hughd@tnc-online.org

The liberalization of trade and international investment can contribute to economic growth

and prosperity. China is no exception. Since its accession to the World Trade Organization

(WTO), its trade and economic development have been tremendously enhanced. China has

grown into the world’s largest trading nation and second largest economy. At present, even

amid the ongoing China–US trade dispute, the Chinese central leadership has expressed

strong commitment to a policy of an enhanced opening-up policy; that is, the continuation

of expanding market opening up, improving the framework of opening up, optimizing the

business environment, deepening multilateral and bilateral cooperation, and jointly building

the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). International trade and investment are expected to con-

tinue to be an important engine for China’s economic growth (Berger et al., 2018; Casanova,

Chen, Chen, & Xu, 2018).

Nevertheless, as its domestic economy is in the process of upgrading and transitioning to a

high-quality growth model, China’s foreign trade and investment are facing new challenges.

Improvements are necessary in various aspects, such as enhancement of the quality of its

exports. We anticipate that an enhanced opening-up policy will help China meet these chal-

lenges and will be an integral part of the transition toward a high-quality growth model. This

special issue collects a group of research papers that address various aspects of the opening up

of the Chinese economy, which can help us understand this ongoing process.

1|IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF CHINA’SEXPORTS

No doubt, the improvement in the quality of Chinese exports has been at the top of the agenda

for the Chinese Government in the promotion of an enhanced opening-up policy. What kinds

Received: 30 March 2020 Accepted: 9 April 2020

DOI: 10.1111/1468-0106.12327

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