Publication Detail

From Import Substitution to WTO Accession: Government Intervention in the Chinese Automotive Market

UCD-ITS-RR-01-17

Research Report

Suggested Citation:
Feenstra, Robert C., Daniel Sperling, Lee Branstetter, Eric Harwit, Wen Hai (2001) From Import Substitution to WTO Accession: Government Intervention in the Chinese Automotive Market. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-01-17

This document contains results from our research program: From Import Substitution to WTO Accession: Government Intervention in the Chinese Automotive Market.

The major topics addressed in this report are as follows:
  • Section 1 provides a historical overview of the Chinese automobile industry, starting with its genesis under the Communist regime and proceeding through the present. This section draws heavily on the earlier work of one of the project's research team members, Professor Eric Harwit of the University of Hawaii, who is the author of the leading academic study of the Chinese industry in the 1980s and early 1990s.
  • Section 2 describes the results of the project's interviews of local managers and industry observers concerning the expected impact of the Chinese government's promised timetable of liberalizations of the auto industry. This section presents three scenarios for the evolution of the post-WTO Chinese automobile industry. It also draws heavily on an earlier paper by Professor Harwit.
  • Section 3 presents the project's statistical analysis to date, which has focused on modeling demand for imported automobiles in the People's Republic. The single largest change the Chinese government has committed to make with regard to the automobile industry after WTO accession is its promised reduction of barriers to imports. In conducting this analysis, the project is able to take advantage of extremely detailed trade data from the Chinese Customs Administration, which tracks trade by commodity category, year, and geographic location of the final import. This section will include a description of the project's modeling methodology as well as the quantitative data we have collected and used.
  • Section 4 presents a summary of the project's ongoing attempts to model the Chinese automobile industry more generally. It also provides a description of the research methodology and data we will use in the second phase of our project, the final conclusions of which will be disseminated in our final report. Finally,
  • Section 5 briefly addresses the environmental implications of our research to date. This section builds upon related research carried out by ITS-Davis researchers, headed by Professor Sperling, who have been working with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change to produce a study of GHG emissions from the transport sector of Shanghai, China.