Changes and Prospects of China-ASEAN Bilateral Economic and Trade Cooperation under the COVID-19 Epidemic

Abstract

Since the establishment of dialogue between China and ASEAN countries in 1991, bilateral relations have been good, and economic and trade cooperation has continued to climb. Especially after “the Belt and Road Initiative” was put forward in 2013, the scope of economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN has been continuously expanded, and the quality of cooperation has steadily improved. However, with the global outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, the bilateral economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN has changed to varying degrees. In this paper, the method of statistical inference is used to study. The results show that under the COVID-19 epidemic, China's direct investment in ASEAN has not been affected on the whole but has shown a significant increase in two consecutive years; From a national perspective, China's direct investment in the Philippines, Laos, and Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore's direct investment in China have also increased significantly for two consecutive years. Still, the direct investment in China from the Philippines, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Brunei has dropped significantly for two consecutive years. To better adapt to the normal development of the epidemic, continue to implement the Belt and Road Initiative, and realize the leap of high-quality cooperation between China and ASEAN, this paper puts forward the need to deepen the cooperation between China and ASEAN in the fields of health care, infrastructure construction, and digital economy.