The Impact on the China's Participation of RCEP: Evidence from Gravity Model

In the context of deglobalization, international trade faces the growing uncertain circumstances. The general agreement in literature is that in Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP hereinafter) dominated by ASEAN, China plays an important role in the RCEP business negotiation, especially in the area of merchandise exports. In order to describe long-term main influences of business cooperation among China and other member countries in RCEP, we put the panel data of 16 countries of RCEP from 2001 to 2016 into gravity model to explain the role of China in RCEP and how RCEP will be influenced by the relationships between these countries. The results show that China, Japan and South Korea have more trade attraction among them and further improvement could be conducted among China, Australia and New Zealand. Moreover, the main factors affecting the trade flow of RCEP member countries are people's income level and the spatial distance.