ABSTRACT

This chapter utilizes detailed Chinese customs data at the product-country-year level to analyse the evolution of China’s trade with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It explores the “new normal” growth model affecting China-ASEAN trade structure, and its variation across products and ownership using the unique feature of data set, which identifies customs regime and foreign ownership at the product-country-year level. In 2014, in constant dollar ASEAN’s exports to (imports from) China reached 184 (141) billion US dollar, which is about 15 times those in 1997. At the sectoral level, since the late 1990s China’s trade with ASEAN has shifted away from agriculture and raw materials with low processing trade intensity, towards machinery sectors characterised by high processing trade shares. China’s exports have been dominated by the “Big Four”, namely the US, Hong Kong, Japan and ASEAN, whilst the US, Taiwan (China), Japan, ASEAN and Korea are China’s top import source countries.