IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eab/tradew/23320.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The People’s Republic of China’s High-Tech Exports : Myth and Reality

Author

Listed:
  • Yuqing Xing

    (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI))

Abstract

Trade statistics portray the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the largest exporter of high-tech products. In this paper I will argue that the PRC’s leading position in high-tech exports is a myth created by outdated trade statistics which are inconsistent with trade based on global supply chains. Current trade statistics mistakenly credit entire values of assembled high-tech products to the PRC, thus greatly inflating its exports. In 2009, the PRC’s value-added accounted for only about 3% of the total value attributed to its exports of iPhones and laptop personal computers. Moreover, 82% of the PRC’s high-tech exports were produced by foreign-invested firms, in particular Taipei,China-owned companies. In this paper I will argue that a value-added-based approach should be adopted to accurately measure high-tech exports. Furthermore, if assembly is the only source of the value-added generated by PRC workers, in terms of technological contribution these assembled high-tech exports are no different from labor-intensive products, and so they should be excluded from the high-tech classification.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuqing Xing, 2012. "The People’s Republic of China’s High-Tech Exports : Myth and Reality," Trade Working Papers 23320, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:eab:tradew:23320
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eaber.org/node/23320
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Xi & Funke, Michael, 2013. "The dynamics of catch-up and skill and technology upgrading in China," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 465-480.
    2. Tang, Yingkai & Zhang, Kevin H., 2016. "Absorptive capacity and benefits from FDI: Evidence from Chinese manufactured exports," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 423-429.
    3. repec:zbw:bofitp:2012_013 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Keywords

    High-tech exports; PRC; global supply chains; assembled high-tech products; trade statistics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eab:tradew:23320. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shiro Armstrong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaberau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.