Comprehensive Evaluation of Mainland of China’s Openness Since China Joined the WTO

Abstract

Economic globalization has become the trend of the 21st century. Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it has entered a stage of rapid integration into the globalization of the world economy. This paper constructs comprehensive indicators system about Chinese Mainland regional openness to the oversea market since China joined the WTO. We use the entropy method to calculate the score of the relevant evaluation index system, and then give empirical analysis by clustering method and space-time analysis to compare the characteristics and relationships of the opening up between different regions. We also analyzed the characteristics of the evolution and the interaction of economic opening up between adjacent regions. The results of the analysis show that the accession to the WTO has promoted the improvement of the economic opening up level in various regions of the Chinese mainland and upgraded the open type; those areas with good industrial base and open tradition have improved rapidly; but the 2008 financial crisis has had a huge impact on the openness of the Chinese Mainland regions. It also proved that the interactive effects between the coastal areas and its nearby inland regions existed. However, the differences between China's various regions are large, and the economic openness changes in the central and western regions are relatively small.