互利共赢还是零和博弈：跨境电商平台出海如何影响东道国既有平台？

Abstract

In recent years, Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms represented by Temu and SHEIN have experienced rapid global expansion. Some argue that the swift rise of Chinese cross-border e-commerce brings "unfair" competition to existing e-commerce platforms in host countries. However, this paper finds that the relationship between Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms and incumbent platforms in host countries is not a zero-sum game. Due to their different affiliated suppliers, Chinese and foreign platforms offer distinct products with comparative advantages, enabling both parties to achieve "win-win cooperation" based on differentiated comparative advantages. This paper constructs a theoretical model demonstrating that Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms not only deliver products to host countries in which the latter lack comparative advantages, but also promote the development of incumbent e-commerce platforms in host countries through dual effects of "income spillover" and "information spillover", thereby achieving overall market expansion. Empirically, using massive e-commerce platform monitoring data covering 68 countries and regions across 434 cities, this paper finds that following the entry of Chinese platforms, incumbent e-commerce platforms in host countries experience significant improvements in website traffic, number of paying users, and user ratings, validating the theoretical model's predictions. This study reveals the unique attributes of cross-border trade in the platform economy, emphasizes the crucial role of leveraging comparative advantages in the "going global" process, and provides new theoretical interpretations and empirical evidence for the important proposition that "economic and trade relations are essentially mutually beneficial and win-win".