The role of migration in shaping China's economic relations with its main partners

Abstract

This chapter studies the key feature and trends of China’s international immigration and analyses its impact on the trade and FDI flows between China and its major partner countries. The main focus is to exam possible interaction between trade, FDI and migration flows and to assess the role of Chinese ethnic communities and migration in facilitating these economic exchanges. The impact of Chinese migration/ethnic communities on host economies, especially with regard to the labour market will also be briefly examined. This study consists of four sections. After this introduction, the second section provides a literature review on the interaction between migration, trade and FDI on the one hand and the impact of migrants or international entrepreneurs on the economic development of the host country on the other hand. The third section provides empirical evidence about the economic relations between China and its main partner regions, such as Europe and Africa. The migration from China to these regions will be studied, especially with regard to its changing characteristics during last decades. The interaction between Chinese migration and trade and FDI flows in these regions and their evolving features will be analysed at regional/key country level. The concluding section will iscuss about the main findings and their policy implication for host countries.