The Global Financial Crisis and China’s Export in Belt and Road Countries: An Analysis Using Product-Level Data

Using SITC-3 product-level data from the CEPII-BACI database, we find that the share of imports from China by countries in the one-belt region slowed down significantly after the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008, which predates the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while there was no slowdown in the one-road region. Analysis using the difference-in-differences (DID) method reveals that the GFC inhibited China’s export to countries in the one-belt region and this effect has become stronger over time. This conclusion remains robust for other control groups over various time segment points and different product dimensions. Further analysis shows that the slowdown of China’s export expansion in landlocked countries, and in Europe, and the Middle East is the main contributing factor to the post-crisis slowdown in Chinese exports in the one-belt countries. Mechanism analysis shows that shrinkage in the geographical import networks of the one-belt countries, which has been aggravated by countries’ concentration of import sources and relative trade proximity with China, explains the slowdown in general. Heterogeneous analyses reveal that after the GFC, the share of imports from China fell least in primary and resource-based products, then in medium-tech and high-tech products, and fell most in low-tech products.