The Key Driving Forces for Geo-Economic Relationships between China and ASEAN Countries

Shufang Wang, Xiao Xue, Axing Zhu and Yuejing Ge
Additional contact information
Shufang Wang: Research Center for Energy Economics, School of Business and Administration, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454000, China
Xiao Xue: College of Computer Science and Technology, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454000, China
Axing Zhu: Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Yuejing Ge: Geo-studies Center, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-20

Abstract: With the rise of China and the implementation of the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” strategy, research on geo-economics between China and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries has become increasingly important. Current studies mainly focus on influencing factors, while there is little consideration about how these influencing factors act on geo-economic relationships. Therefore, this paper explores the key driving forces for geo-economic relationships between China and ASEAN countries by use of the structural equation modeling based on Partial Lease Squares. There are three main findings: (1) Economic factors have the greatest impact on geo-economic relationships and the total path effect is 0.778. Geo-location, geopolitics and geo-culture act on geo-economic relationships directly and indirectly. Their total path effects are 0.731, 0.645 and 0.513, respectively. (2) Indirect effects of geo-location, geopolitics and geo-culture impacting geo-economic relationships are far greater than direct effects. Geo-culture, in particular, has a vital mediating effect on geo-economic relationships. (3) Economic drivers promote geo-economic relationships through market, industrial policy, technical, network and benefit-sharing mechanisms. Political drivers improve geo-economic relationships through cooperation, negotiation, coordination and institutional mechanisms. Cultural drivers enhance geo-economic relationships through transmission mechanism. Location drivers facilitate geo-economic relationships through selection mechanism. We provide new insights on the geo-economic relationships through quantitative analysis and enrich the existing literature by revealing the key driving forces and mechanisms for geo-economic relationships.

Keywords: geo-economic relationships; influencing factors; driving forces; China; ASEAN countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/12/2363/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/12/2363/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:12:p:2363-:d:123419

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().