International trade in the 21st century is characterized by the emergence and development of Global Value Chains. With the reform and opening-up deepening, China has become an important participant and practitioner of global value chains, a staunch supporter and defender of the multilateral trading system, and a contributor to and beneficiary of economic globalization. This book provides an insightful analysis of the pathways for China to upgrade in global value chains based on the country's opening strategy from the perspectives of tariff, trade facilitation, foreign direct investment, outward direct investment, opening-up of the service industry, and servitization in the manufacturing industry. It also offers best practices for theoretical and empirical studies in global value chains with sophisticated and widely-used econometric methods.

International trade in the 21st century is characterized by the emergence and development of Global Value Chains. With the reform and opening-up deepening, China has become an important participant and practitioner of global value chains, a staunch supporter and defender of the multilateral trading system, and a contributor to and beneficiary of economic globalization. This book provides an insightful analysis of the pathways for China to upgrade in global value chains based on the country's opening strategy from the perspectives of tariff, trade facilitation, foreign direct investment, outward direct investment, opening-up of the service industry, and servitization in the manufacturing industry. It also offers best practices for theoretical and empirical studies in global value chains with sophisticated and widely-used econometric methods.

International trade in the 21st century is characterized by the emergence and development of Global Value Chains. With the reform and opening-up deepening, China has become an important participant and practitioner of global value chains, a staunch supporter and defender of the multilateral trading system, and a contributor to and beneficiary of economic globalization. This book provides an insightful analysis of the pathways for China to upgrade in global value chains based on the coutry's opening strategy from the perspectives of tariff, trade facilitation, foreign direct investment, outward direct investment, opening-up of the service industry, and servitization in the manufacturing industry. It also offers best practices for theoretical and empirical studies in global value chains with sophisticated and widely-used econometric methods.

In less than three decades, China has emerged as the world's largest exporting nation with more than $2 trillion exports annually. China's quick rise as a leading exporter in the world is an unprecedented miracle. There are many theories explaining this miracle. This book adopts the global value chain (GVC) approach to analyze the Chinese export miracle over the last four decades. It focuses on the tasks rather than the gross export value and emphasizes the organizations of modern trade rather than the national comparative advantage. The GVC approach systematically explains how, in less than four decades China has evolved from a closed economy to the world's No. 1 exporting nation; why China, a developing country, has exported more high-technology products than labor-intensive products to the US; and why almost half of the US trade deficit has originated from China.The book identifies three spillover effects of GVCs that originated from brands, technology and product innovation, and distribution and retail networks of GVCs lead firms. It argues that China's deep integration with GVCs has been a decisive factor for China's emergence as the world's No.1 exporting nation and the champion of high-technology exports. In addition, this book uses iPhone trade and the operation of Apple, the largest factory-less American manufacturer, to explain how current trade statistics exaggerate China's exports to and its trade surplus with the US on the one hand, and underestimate US exports on the other hand.By using the experience of the Chinese mobile phone industry, the book argues that the GVC strategy can be a short-cut for developing countries to achieve industrialization and enable firms of developing countries to enter high-technology sectors despite their intrinsic disadvantages. At this end, the book also discusses the future trajectory of China-centered GVCs under the shadow of the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic.

An accessible overview of political, economic, and strategic dimensions of global supply chains in a changing global political economy.

President Trump has raised the intriguing question of bringing the manufacturing of companies like Apple back from China to the U.S. This book, however, argues that in this age of the knowledge-based economy and increased globalization, that value creation and distribution based on knowledge and innovation activities are at the core of economic development. The double-edged sword of globalization has transformed China’s economic development in the past few decades. Although China has benefitted from globalization and is now the second largest economy in the world, having become a global manufacturing power and the biggest exporter of high-tech products, it continues to be highly dependent on foreign sources of capital and technology. This book will explore the core of the Chinese economy from the perspective of the Global Value Chain (GVC), combining analysis of inward investment, international trade, Science and Technology and Innovation (S&TI) and economic development. Specifically, it investigates China’s evolving role in GVCs with some innovative Chinese companies emerging in the global market and China’s ongoing efforts to become an innovation-driven economy. China’s impressive economic record and experience provides an impressive role model for other developing countries.

Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And trade conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.