Reform and opening up in the new era: China trade policy review

Abstract

This paper reviews the major changes in China's trade policies in the last few years. During this period, the adjustment of trade policies has developed in the following ways: first, the establishment of free trade zones, which emphasises the importance of advanced systems rather than preferential policies; second, putting forward the “Belt & Road” Initiative, which indicates China's new stage of development from “bringing in” to “going out”; third, holding import expos, which marks an era when China's foreign trade development has shifted from focusing on exports only to focusing on both exports and imports; fourth, reducing entry barriers of foreign capital, which demonstrates that the policy framework for FDI has gradually changed from a positive list to a negative list; fifth, promoting trade negotiations, which reflects that China has actively participated in bilateral, regional and multilateral trade talks; and finally, building up new experimental fields of reform and opening up, which shows evidence that a new generation of special economic zones is emerging.

Does the belt and road initiative stimulate Chinese exports? Evidence from micro data

“…Two other studies look at Chinese outward investment(Kang et al, 2018) and China's inward FDI(Luo and Zhi, 2019) using aggregate data.…”

“…This also connects out paper to the more general literature that studies how policy shocks, such as antidumping (Chandra & Long, 2013;Lu et al, 2013), export promotion programmes (Cadot et al, 2015) or trade agreements (Baier et al, 2018;Beverelli et al, 2015), can affect trading firms. Even though the BRI programme indicates a substantial policy change for China (Luo & Zhi, 2019), few studies have investigated its impact on firm's exports.…”

Towards Urban Sustainable Development: The Effect of New Type Urbanization on Energy Utilization Efficiency

“…Following the reform and opening up, China's economy has sustained a high rate of growth, creating a miracle of economic growth in the world [1,2]. However, there are problems of high energy consumption and rough growth behind China's rapidly growing economy, which has created a serious amount of environmental pollution and energy waste [3,4].…”

A quantitative evaluation of judicial justice in civil cases with Chinese free trade zone enterprises as the plaintiff

“…Stimulating economic vitality and achieving long-term economic growth has become an essential issue for China [ 1 ]. Given the dual pressures of the international and domestic economic environment, China hopes to accelerate economic growth and improve economic governance through the opening-up policy and attaches particular importance to constructing pilot free trade zones [ 2 ].…”

“…Currently, China's reform has entered a critical stage, and increasing attention is paid to high-level design. The construction of Chinese pilot free trade zones has shifted focus from preferential policies to advanced systems [ 2 ], which are committed to improving the efficiency of economic development by facilitating, promoting, and protecting investors and paying attention to the rule of law. For example, the central government put forward the vital principle that “the rule of law should be appropriately and orderly guiding, promoting, standardizing, and guaranteeing reform and opening up” [ 4 ] and temporarily adjusted the relevant provisions of important laws such as the Foreign Trade Law in pilot free trade zones to meet their development needs.…”