Needs Analysis for Business Chinese Education Based on Language Economics

Foreign language education can promote international trade, which, in turn, informs the planning of foreign language education. This study examines how bilateral trade between China and other countries promotes the development of Chinese language education from the perspective of policy planning. The research introduces the structural absorption hypothesis and utilizes trade data alongside indicators to construct regression models. These models analyze the trade between China and countries which possess economies with distinct characteristics and their corresponding demand for business Chinese talent (BCT): (1) Across countries with all three types of economies, the demand for BCT is consistently higher in the export sector compared to imports from China. (2) In the export trade, demand for BCT is stably absorbed into specific sectors: mineral products in resource-oriented economies, mineral products and low-end manufactured goods in resource-and-labor oriented economies, and high-end manufactured goods in capital-and-technology oriented economies. (3) In the import trade, resource-oriented and resource-and-labor oriented economies have a higher demand for BCT in high-end than in low-end manufactured goods. Conversely, capital-and-technology oriented economies demonstrate a stronger need for BCT in low-end than high-end manufactured goods. These findings offer theoretical guidance for the planning of business foreign language education (BFLE).