Title: Negative impact of Sino-US trade friction on shipping demand of the Pacific route and its mitigation by interoperability with the Belt and Road Initiative

Authors: Feng Lian; Yuzhi Guo; Zhongzhen Yang

Addresses: Faculty of Maritime and Transportation, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China ' College of Transport Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, China ' Faculty of Maritime and Transportation, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China

Abstract: To clarify the impacts of Sino-US trade friction on the shipping demand of the Pacific route as well as on China's export trade, the bilateral distances in four dimensions are integrated into a single trade distance between two nations. And then, a bilateral trade gravity model is built by taking GDP, trade distance, and logistics performance as independent variables. China's exports to the USA as well as to the other partner countries are estimated in the cases with and without trade friction. The results show that trade friction will reduce China's export to the USA by 3.05% and container traffic on the Pacific route will decline correspondingly, while China's export to the other 19 counties will increase by 2.4% on average. It can be said that the negative impact of trade friction on China's export to the USA may be compensated by the export increase to other partner counties and China should strengthen its bilateral trade with the belt and road countries.

Keywords: Sino-US trade friction; trade distance; gravity model; Pacific shipping route; freight demand; Belt and Road Initiative; BRI.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTL.2022.123716

International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics, 2022 Vol.14 No.4, pp.326 - 347

Received: 26 Oct 2020
Accepted: 31 Jan 2021
Published online: 01 Jul 2022 *

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