中国稀土对外贸易格局演化及影响因素

Since the Sino-U.S. trade friction to the "cold war of science and technology", rare earth, the "lifeline of high technology", has increasingly become the key point of the international games. Under the circumstances, it is of great significance to clarify the trend of China's rare earth trade and its role in the international rare earth market, to generally optimize China's resource security pattern and maintain the independence of science and technology in the long term. This paper uses the data from 2008 to 2018, including China's rare earth import and export trade data, the relevant national social, economic and political indicators, and the UN voting data. Then it discusses the spatial pattern evolution, interdependence evolution and main influence mechanism of China's rare earth products foreign trade, with the help of interdependence index, geographical affinity, GIS space technology and negative binomial panel regression. The results show that: (1) China's rare earth trade fluctuates greatly, and the export volume is much larger than the import volume, showing an "up-down-up" trend as a whole. (2) China's import market is highly concentrated and the path-dependence effect is enhanced, while the export market is gradually diversified and the path dependence is weakened. China mainly exports middle stream and downstream products with high added value and imports upstream mineral products with low added value. (3) China has strengthened its dominant position in the global rare earth trade interdependence pattern. The interdependence relationship between China and its most friendly countries has been strengthened, while that between China and the United States, Canada, Australia and other differentiated countries has been weakened. (4) The characteristics of countries, subject attribute proximity between countries and China's trade policy and trade environment have an important impact on China's rare earth import and export trade.