中国自由贸易协定的伙伴选择——基于外交战略的实证分析

Partnership Choice of China’s Free Trade Agreements:An Empirical Analysis Based on Diplomatic Strategies

自由贸易区建设已成为中国的一项国家战略,如何选择自贸协定伙伴是其中的重要组成部分。然而,单纯从经济动机、国内政治和国际体系出发无法有力解释中国自贸协定的伙伴选择。中国的自贸协定实践包含了两种外交战略动机:一是对外释放信号。选择经济体量较小的发达经济体以可接受的方式释放经济开放与改革的信号,为获得完全市场经济地位而努力;选择可能对中国产生安全疑虑的周边国家,释放互利共赢与睦邻友好的信号,营造和平发展的周边环境。二是国际制度竞争。选择外交立场较为一致的国家签订自贸协定,通过开放市场巩固伙伴关系,为伙伴关系的竞争获取支持;重点关注美国和日本的自贸伙伴,以应对守成国制度规则的竞争。实证部分整理了中国签订自贸协定的面板数据,并通过计量模型对上述机制进行定量检验。这些发现补充和丰富了国际制度作为国家方略的相关研究,有助于理解与研判中国自由贸易区战略的发展。

The construction of free trade areas has become a national strategy of China, and choosing FTA partners plays an important role. Meanwhile, the partnership choice for China's FTA cannot be fully explained by economic motivations, domestic politics or international system. Based on a diplomatic perspective, the paper theorizes China's FTA practice and therein identifies two diplomatic motivations. The first is outward signaling. By choosing advanced economies with smaller economic scale, it is to release signals of economic reform and openness in an acceptable manner, aiming to gain full market economy status;by choosing neighboring countries that may have security concerns about China, it is to release signals of mutual benefits and good-neigh- borliness to enhance peaceful development. The second is international institution competition. By strengthening the partnership with countries of more affinitive diplomatic standpoint through open-market incentives, it is to gain support for partnership competition;by paying more attention to the U.S. and Japan's FTA partners, it is to cope with the rule competition from the incumbents. In the empirical section, I collect a panel dataset on China's signing of FTAs and test the above mechanism through econometric model. These findings supplement the study of international institutions as a statecraft. They also help us to understand and predict the trends in China's FTA strategy.