IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/adbiwp/0357.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Xing, Yuqing

    (Asian Development Bank Institute)

Abstract

Trade statistics portray the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the largest exporter of high-tech products. In this paper the author argues that the PRC’s leading position in high-tech exports is a myth created by outdated trade statistics, which are inconsistent with trade based on global supply chains.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. He suggests 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, so they should be excluded from the high-tech classification.

Suggested Citation

  • Xing, Yuqing, 2012. "The People’s Republic of China’s High-tech Exports: Myth and Reality," ADBI Working Papers 357, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0357
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.adbi.org/files/2012.04.25.wp357.prc.high.tech.exports.myth.reality.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xing, Yuqing, 2012. "Processing trade, exchange rates and China's bilateral trade balances," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 540-547.
    2. Jason Dedrick & Kenneth L. Kraemer & Greg Linden, 2010. "Who profits from innovation in global value chains? A study of the iPod and notebook PCs," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 81-116, February.
    3. Yuqing Xing & Neal Detert, 2010. "How iPhone Widens the US Trade Deficits with the PRC?," GRIPS Discussion Papers 10-21, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Guanghua Wan & Peter J. Morgan & Justin Yifu Lin & Guanghua Wan & Peter J. Morgan, 2016. "Factors Affecting the Outlook for Medium-term to Long-term Growth in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 24(5), pages 20-41, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    prc; high-tech; value added; iphone;

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F20 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - General

    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:ris:adbiwp:0357. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (ADB Institute). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/adbinjp.html .

    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.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.