Study on the Impact of 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative and Cultural Distance on China's Forest Products Trade

Abstract

Xu, C.; Li, X.F.; Shen, A., and Zhou, K., 2020. Study on the impact of 21st-century Maritime Silk Road initiative and cultural distance on China's forest products trade. In: Qiu, Y.; Zhu, H., and Fang, X. (eds.), Current Advancements in Marine and Coastal Research for Technological and Sociological Applications. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 107, pp. 403-407. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Strengthening maritime coopeation conforms to the development trend of the world. It is not only an inevitable choice for promoting more in-depth economic cooperation between countries, but also an important way for countries to promote regional peace and stability. Based on the panel data of forest products trade between China and 78 countries from 1995 to 2017, this study investigates the impact of the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (CMSR) initiative and cultural distance on China's forest product trade. The findings suggest that the CMSR initiative significantly increased China's total forest product trade and exports. The cultural distance has a U-shaped relationship with China's total forest product trade and exports. This implies that, as the cultural distance increases, China's forest product trade and exports both show a trend of decreasing first and then increasing.