College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, PR China.
College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
Sci Total Environ. 2017 Dec 1;601-602:1238-1246. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.05.216. Epub 2017 Jun 9.
Since the economic reform, China has actively participated in the global market with rapid industrialization and gradually dominated the utilization and consumption of some critical materials, one of which is copper. China has reigned the global anthropogenic cycle of copper since 2004. We explore copper flows along with the international trade of China during 1975-2015, through life cycle lens, from ore to final products. Our main finding is that China has become more active in the copper-related trade, indicated by its great increase in trade volume and the number of trade partners. The physical volume of copper flows through trade increased over 119 times between 1975 and 2015, mainly because of more imported raw materials of copper and exported copper products. Generally, China is a net importer of copper, with increasing import dependence through the study period, whereas the degree of dependence slightly decreased from 2010 to 2015. The indicator of Export Support Rate took a decreasing percentage, which has fallen about 35% since 2010. It suggests China's changing position in the global resource and manufacturing market. In terms of trade price of different copper products, the price of imported copper concentrate was noticeably higher than that of exported one, revealing the poor copper resource endowment of China; while the different trend of copper semis in recent years signifies that China is in urgent need to improve its capability of producing high value-added semis. From international trade perspective, the copper resource of China presented stable supply as well as demand. The One Belt One Road strategy proposed by the state will further expand both the resource and market of copper.
自经济改革以来，中国通过快速工业化积极参与全球市场，并逐渐主导了一些关键材料的利用和消费，其中之一就是铜。自 2004 年以来，中国主导了全球人为铜循环。我们通过生命周期视角，探索了 1975 年至 2015 年期间中国与国际贸易相关的铜流，包括从矿石到最终产品的整个过程。我们的主要发现是，中国在铜相关贸易中变得更加活跃，表现为贸易量和贸易伙伴数量的大幅增加。1975 年至 2015 年期间，通过贸易的铜物流通量增加了 119 倍以上，这主要是因为进口的铜原材料和出口的铜产品增加了。总体而言，中国是铜的净进口国，在整个研究期间，进口依存度不断增加，而从 2010 年到 2015 年，依存度略有下降。出口支持率指标呈下降趋势，自 2010 年以来下降了约 35%。这表明中国在全球资源和制造业市场中的地位正在发生变化。就不同铜产品的贸易价格而言，进口铜精矿的价格明显高于出口价格，这表明中国铜资源匮乏；而近年来铜半成品的不同趋势表明，中国急需提高生产高附加值半成品的能力。从国际贸易角度来看，中国的铜资源供应和需求稳定。国家提出的“一带一路”战略将进一步扩大铜的资源和市场。
