Réflexions sur la politique économique chinoise en matière de commerce extérieur

摘要

Reflections on the political economy of Mainland China's foreign trade. According to certain Chinese policy makers «foreign trade is a weapon in the international political struggle». With this in mind, the author points out the relative importance of political and economic factors in Chinese foreign trade policies, economic considerations often being put aside particularly in China's dealings with developing countries. The question of the policy adopted in dealings with advanced countries is then raised, followed by an analysis of the changes that took place in the climate surrounding exchanges between China and the USSR (during the fifties), with Japan (during the sixties) and the problems which arose or may arise in trading with the USA. Since exchanges between China and the USSR are of a political nature, a deterioration has been noticeable in the terms of exchange as well as a reduction in the number of transactions, coinciding with the chill in political relations between the two countries. If there was no perceptible price discrimination on the part of the URSS before 1958, the situation changed rapidly after that time. The drop in trade between the two nations is evidently more attributable to political than to economic factors. Due to the difficulties encountered in relations with the Soviet Union, China was forced to give new impetus to foreign trade and turned to Japan. Since 1965, the latter has been China's principal trading partner. In the case of relations between these two countries, economic considerations seem to have priority, because little by little trade with Japan has become indispensable to China. As to trade between the USA and China, it is still too early to foresee what the course of development will be or to anticipate the volume of exchanges, there being no precise indications concerning the policy projected by the Chinese government. Where the two nations are concerned it seems essentially a political problem stemming from the desire to improve mutual relations. However, the opening of new commercial outlets in China would be of considerable economic interest to US firms although it is expected that competition from other Western countries will make it impossible for any one country to corner the Chinese market.