联合国贸发会议的两位经济学家近日发表一篇分析文章表示，过去25年间，中国从占全球贸易不到1%的“边缘人”，迅速崛起为当仁不让的“贸易巨人”，出口外贸领域的杰出转变对于中国经济的发展和人民生活的改善功不可没，但中国在贸易领域的急速崛起也引来了一些关切和质疑，展望未来，中国的贸易出口也面临着新的挑战。
贸发会议的两位经济学家尼基塔与拉佐表示，虽然中国作为出口大国的崛起是在本世纪初，但其背后的起源还要追溯到1970年代末，当时，在全球贸易中所占分额尚不到1%的中国启动了一系列经济升级和改革措施，并将市场向世界开放。While the rise of China as an export powerhouse became evident at the beginning of this century, the story began earlier. Towards the end of the 1970s, China began a set of reforms to upgrade its economy and open up to the world. At that time, its share of global trade stood at less than 1%.1986年，为了确保商品能够进入海外市场，中国提出了加入《关税及贸易总协定》的申请。然而，加入协定的过程并非一帆风顺，直到15年后，中国才终于正式进入全球多边贸易体系。In 1986, to enhance and secure access to foreign markets for its growing exports, China applied to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). However, the accession process was derailed, and 15 years passed before China could formally connect to the multilateral trading system. During these years, its share of global trade gradually increased but China’s participation in the global economy remained well below its potential.贸发会议的两位经济学家表示，世纪之交，两大互相关联的事件，让中国走上了成为制造业强国的道路，其一是全球价值链的形成，其二则是中国加入世界贸易组织。生产制造的全球化让企业不断寻求低成本的合作伙伴，以便扩大生产规模。By the turn of the century, two intertwined events put China on the path towards becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of today: the emergence of global value chains (GVCs) and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).In the mid-1990s, advancements in transport logistics and information and communication technologies enabled the fragmentation of production across the globe. Soon thereafter, GVCs scoured the globe seeking reliable low-cost partners to allow them to scale up operations, but with mixed consequences on labour conditions and carbon dioxide emissions.而1995年成立的世贸组织则提供了更加规范的国际贸易管理环境和贸易争端解决机制，关税的减少，以及对于非关税贸易壁垒的使用限制，也大幅降低了跨境交易成本。At the same time, the newly formed WTO – founded in 1995 – provided a more structured regulatory environment for international trade, an international dispute settlement mechanism, as well as lower cross-border transaction costs resulting from lower tariffs and restraints on the use of some non-tariff barriers.由此，中国得以充分发挥其作为制造业强国的潜能，向世界各地出口的商品数量迅速猛增，到2010年，中国已经成为全球无可争议的“贸易冠军”。
China’s accession to the WTO in 2001 allowed GVCs to reliably tap into the country’s potential as a manufacturing powerhouse, enabling it to dramatically expand its exports to the rest of the world. From then on, history was written fast. By 2010, China was already the world’s undisputed export champion.
但贸发会议表示，中国贸易的飞速崛起，在让人仰慕的同时也引来了一些质疑，对于政府补贴、贸易配额、知识产权和汇率控制等领域的关切，始终是引发争论的焦点。The rise of this trade titan has been both admired and questioned. Concerns on the use of state subsidies, quotas, export measures, intellectual property rights and the management of its exchange rate have been a bone of contention.事实上，贸发会议指出，上述争议占到了世贸组织投诉的绝大多数，同时也是触发中美贸易争端的主要原因之一。In fact, many of these concerns form the bulk of complaints brought to the WTO and are behind the ongoing trade disagreements between the United States and China.虽然不时遭遇投诉，与美国和欧盟之间的关系也出现紧张——2021年3月，欧盟自1989年以来第一次对中国实施了制裁，但中国的出口仍然展现出强大的韧性，过去20年间，中国对于全球生产的重要性持续递增，覆盖精密仪器、工业机械、电脑和智能手机等各大行业。Nevertheless, China’s exports proved to be resilient not only to this constant stream of complaints but also to the trade tensions with the United States and souring relationship with the European Union – in March 2021 the EU issued its first sanctions against China since 1989.Indeed, China's importance to global production in most sectors, from precision instruments and industrial machinery to computers and smartphones, has constantly increased during the last two decades.新冠疫情更是进一步凸显出中国在全球经济中的基石作用，2020年初，疫情在中国蔓延期间，全球的生产都因为中国供应商的供货影响而出现减缓或是陷入停滞。The COVID-19 pandemic has further demonstrated the keystone role that China plays in the global economy. In early 2020, when COVID-19 infections were gathering pace across the country, production processes across the globe stalled or slowed because of disruptions faced by Chinese suppliers.与此同时，这份强大的韧性也让中国的出口能够迅速从疫情中恢复，即便是在全行业贸易额整体下滑的情况下，中国也能一枝独秀实现增长。2020年，中国在全球贸易中的比重进一步增加，已经接近15%。Moreover, high levels of export resilience have afforded China not only a swift export recovery from the pandemic, but also allowed for further gains across a variety of export sectors, even when those sectors have experienced overall decline. As a result, China's share of global trade increased further during 2020, to nearly 15%.贸发会议表示，中国贸易的强劲复苏令人钦佩，今年第一季度，中国出口额同比去年增长了近50%，达到7100亿美元，即便是与疫情发生前的2019年第一季度相比，也仍然增长了27%，相当于1500亿美元。
In 2021, China's trade recovery from the crisis has been impressive. In the first quarter of this year, its exports surged by almost 50% year-over-year, to about $710 billion.
Although such a large increase is partly due to the low base of last year, the result of the first quarter is still 27% higher (about $150 billion) than the first quarter of 2019, before COVID-19 hit China and then the global economy.
© Unsplash图片贸发会议表示，从短期来看，中国仍将继续成为全球主要出口国，但其在出口领域的支配地位可能已经接近峰值。这主要是由于以下三点原因：Overall, China is likely to remain the world’s leading exporter for the near future. However, its exports dominance in the global economy may be approaching its peak. There are a number of reasons for this.首先，中国经济日渐走向成熟，正更加依赖国内而非海外需求。近年来，出口在国内经济中的重要性已经迅速下降。这意味着未来中国的进口增速可能将快于出口，从而减少出口在全球经济中所占的分额。First, China's economy is maturing to be more reliant on domestic rather than foreign demand, as the prominence of exports in the Chinese economy has been rapidly declining in recent years. For global trade, this implies that Chinese imports are likely to increase faster than exports, thus eroding China’s exports’ share in the global economy.第二，中国的劳动力成本正在增加，使得其在部分行业，尤其是劳动力密集型行业的竞争力不如以往，最终将导致全球生产向成本更低的国家转移，越南等国家可能将削弱中国的市场地位。此外，自动化和机器人等劳动力替代技术，以及政府促进制造业重回本国的刺激措施，也使得更多企业愿意在发达国家开展本地生产。Second, increasing labour costs in China are eroding its global competitiveness, especially in labour-intensive production processes. This will eventually result in the relocation of global production to lower-cost countries. Highly competitive economies like Viet Nam will likely chip away trade from China.最后，经济全球化的阻力正在增强，紧张的地缘政治局势、政府政策的转变，消费者对经济发展的社会和环境成本，以及制造业全球化所引发的劳动条件恶劣以及二氧化碳排放等问题的日益关注，可能将扭转过去20年来的高度全球化趋势，引发经济“去全球化”，对于中国等主要出口国的影响可能将尤其严重。Finally, headwinds hitting the globalized economy are strengthening. Current geopolitical tensions and national policy shifts, which are increasingly considering social and environmental aspects of development, may reverse the hyperglobalization process of the past more than 20 years.A further escalation of tensions and a lack of global action to address social and environmental concerns could lead to a deglobalization process that will likely have stronger-than-average implications for major exporters such as China.
2025-07-10
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