Simulation analysis of the competitive status between China and Portuguese-speaking countries under the background of one belt and one road initiative

Abstract

The inter-country input–output table is good at presenting the complicated interdependent relation among various industrial sectors from a global perspective, with a clear embodiment of the number of resources one sector may gain from its upper-stream sectors on the global value chain. Therefore, relevant researches mainly take the advantage of depicting the topological structure of the economic system through the measurements on intermediate products as an indication of input and output relation, so as to shed lights on analyzing the rules of value flows and industrial structural features. In this paper, a new analytical framework of relatively competitive advantages of economies is established. It involves distinguishing functions of industrial sectors on the global value chain with bipartite graph theory and extracting inter-sector competitive relationships through resource allocation process. Furthermore, it introduces network-based quantitative indices to measure the competition status on the level of the industrial sector and country respectively, taking scarcity of industrial resources into consideration. Finally, it carries out scenario simulation to analyze impacts on China and five Portuguese-speaking countries’ competitive advantage and weakness by three kinds of scenarios and three cases. Results achieved from simulations on the trade show there is no mutual win-win for both China and PSCs, if relevant international trade policy had been formulated without consideration their market sizes and industrial layouts. However, we are positive and optimistic to find good solutions for both sides in the following studies.