1. Introduction
The spread of COVID-19 has dealt a heavy blow to the global economy. Against the backdrop of the global economic downturn, in order to mitigate the impact of the epidemic on China’s economic development and stabilize its economic development, the Chinese government proposed, at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on 30 July 2020, to accelerate the formation of a new development pattern in which the domestic market plays the main role and the domestic and foreign markets promote each other. The new policies introduced under this model are called “dual cycle” policies. The “dual cycle” policy aims to make full use of domestic and foreign markets and resources to achieve sustainable development.
China’s foreign trade grew 1.9% year on year despite unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among them, cross-border e-commerce has achieved rapid development as an emerging industry. According to statistics, China’s cross-border e-commerce import and export in 2020 reached 231.244 billion dollars, up 31.1% year on year, among which exports reached 153.25 billion dollars, up 40.1%. China’s cross-border e-commerce is mainly export, and B2B export trade is an important part of China’s cross-border e-commerce trade, accounting for 60%. Thisindicates that China’s cross-border e-commerce B2B export trade becomes an important force in stabilizing foreign trade. The rapid development of China’s cross-border e-commerce B2B export trade cannot be separated from the support of the “dual circulation” policy.
At present, the “dual circulation” policy for cross-border e-commerce is divided into “domestic circulation” and “international circulation”. The policy of “domestic circulation” is conducive to the development of domestic cross-border industrial chain and the integration of domestic and foreign industrial chains. The “international circulation” policy realizes the rapid development of China’s cross-border e-commerce through overseas investment, construction of cross-border logistics, cross-border e-commerce bases and other ways.Based on this, it is of great practical significance to study the impact of the Chinese government’s behavioral decisions on cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises after proposing the “dual circulation” policy.
At present, the analysis of factors affecting the development of cross-border e-commerce is mainly divided into macro and micro environmental analysis. The analysis of macro-environmental factors mainly contains the analysis of the political environment, economic environment, technical environment, etc. Usually, scholars use macro data to analyze the development of cross-border points, mainly studying the shortcomings and development prospects of the cross-border e-commerce industry in the context of contemporary social economy and policy. The typicalresults are as follows: Yang and Ge [
1] elaborated on the development of cross-border e-commerce in China, and using the proportion of cross-border e-commerce in foreign trade data, explained that cross-border e-commerce would be an important part of future foreign trade. Xie [
2] believed that the development of cross-border e-commerce could not be separated from advanced information technology. He also proposed to apply blockchain technology to the cross-border e-commerce industry to build a cross-border cargo tracking system.In addition, taking the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries as an example, and using the panel data from 2000 to 2018 for econometric analysis, in the long run, He et al. [
3] found that there was a significant positive correlation between international logistics and cross-border e-commerce. Moreover, He et al. [
4] used principal component analysis and the gravity model to analyze the cross-border e-commerce data of several Southeast Asian countries and its impact on China’s cross-border e-commerce. They thought the development of cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia would benefit Chinese exports. Ma et al. [
5] analyzed the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2015 to 2018 and found that cross-border e-commerce was conducive to regional economic development. Ortiz et al. [
6] examined the main variables affecting the development of e-commerce in European countries from 2003 to 2017. They found that these influencing variables had the characteristics of horizontal correlation, and there was a long-term equilibrium relationship between variables. Dospinescu et al. [
7] explored those factors that affected the customer satisfaction of e-commerce in Romania and Moldova and found that there were differences in the factors that affected the customer satisfaction level of e-commerce in the two countries. Li [
8] analyzed the impact of China’s cross-border e-commerce on China’s economic development from multiple perspectivesand believed that the development of cross-border e-commerce could change the structure of China’s foreign trade, promote China’s industrial upgrading and stimulate the growth of international trade. Moreover, Yin et al. [
9] studied China’s export trade with one belt, one road countries andtheir gravity model was used in 2000 to 2018. The results showed that the development of cross-border e-commerce had a positive impact on export trade. Du et al. [
10] used the spatial subcorrelation, multidimensional gravity model and spatial Durbin model to analyze international trade and cross-border e-commerce in “One Belt and One Road” countries, and found that there was no spatial autocorrelation effect in cross-border e-commerce, so geographical distance was not an important reason for the development of cross-border e-commerce. Chen et al. [
11] analyzed the text content of “dual cycle” policy to establish its influence mechanism on the B2B export industry of cross-border e-commerce, and then built a system dynamics model to quantify the influence process. The modeling process and simulation results demonstrate that: (1) Infrastructure investment of cross-border e-commerce was most affected by policy lag, followed by government supervision and enterprise operation, while talent training of cross-border e-commerce and customs supervision were rarely affected by policy lag; (2) tax policy, customs clearance policy, and fiscal policy had greater effects on the promotion of cross-border e-commerce B2B exports, while the payment policy and talent policy had less impact on them; and (3) from the simulation results of policy combination, it could be seen that the regulatory environment (i.e., regulatory policies) was the most important factorto promote cross-border e-commerce B2B export trade, followed by financial support, customs environment, and business environment. Weng et al. [
12] studied the impact of Xiamen municipal government policies on small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce enterprises during the epidemic. Based on the study of policy effects, they put forward suggestions on how the government should improve cross-border e-commerce policies.
In addition, the micro-environmental factors mainly refer to the sum of factors that are closely related to the enterprise and directly affect the marketing capability and efficiency of the enterprise, mainly including cross-border e-commerce platforms, consumers, suppliers, and the internal environment of the enterprise. At present, the relevant literature on the analysis of cross-border e-commerce micro-environmental factors is as follows: According to the three major principles of cross-border export trade, such as main business, physical transaction and data availability, Sun and Wu [
13] constructed performance evaluation indicators including operating ability, solvency, profitability and growth, and used the analytic hierarchy process and grey theory to analyze several cross-border e-commerce enterprises. The research results showed thatoperational capacity and solvency have the greatest impact on the performance of cross-border e-commerce enterprises. Furthermore, Elia et al. [
14] studied the impact of digital technology on cross-border e-commerce in B2C business. They found that: (1) The application of digital technology could effectively promote the export business of cross-border e-commerce enterprises; (2) the impact of digital export on cross-border e-commerce enterprises was greater than that of traditional foreign trade enterprises. Ma and Liang [
15] explored the influencing factors of export performance of cross-border e-commerce enterprises. Their study found that, as the duration of enterprises increases, the exports of cross-border e-commerce enterprises on platforms would show an ‘inverted U-shaped’ trend that rises and declines. Zuo [
16] studied China’s export cross-border e-commerce ecosystem from the perspective of ecological chain and analyzed the relationship between China’s export cross-border e-commerce enterprises and the environment. Under the background of China’s economic reform and upgrading, Dai and Wang [
17] studied how tax policies affected the industry norms and logistics transportation of cross-border e-commerce, indicating that China’s tax policies were an important thrust in the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce. Xu [
18] believed that cross-border e-commerce business was a new trade mode that traditional foreign trade enterprises must face. This trade mode changed the operation mode of enterprises, provided them with a broader market and platform, and promotes their development. Sandhu et al. [
19] found that the cross-border e-commerce platform could help the digital entrepreneurship ecosystem and turn the challenges faced by digital entrepreneurship into advantages. Chen and Yang [
20] analyzed the data of 203 cross-border e-commerce enterprises and found that due to the homogenization of cross-border e-commerce platforms, the size of the network did not affect customers’ cross-border consumption intention. Chen and Yang [
21] studied the impact of government policies on enterprise performance and found that, as an innovative business model, the government could promote the growth of enterprise performance by supporting the development of cross-border e-commerce business. Wang et al. [
22] constructed three transnational logistics models, and their simulation results showed that cross-border e-commerce B2C could adjust product prices to maximize profits by considering cross-border logistics costs, tariffs and other factors. Bao et al. [
23] analyzed the influence of product quality, cost control, brand image and enterprise strength on consumers’ consumption intention by constructing the influence model of consumer product evaluation on purchase intention. Taherdoost and Madanchian [
24] analyzed customer satisfaction from the aspects of product performance, availability and quality, searched for the influencing factors of these three aspects, respectively, and proposed a plan to improve consumer satisfaction according to the research results. Goldman et al. [
25] studied a sample of 446 small B2C e-retailers in Europe using structural equation model and alternative model, and found that the deployment of digital marketing strategy had a positive effect on the performance of cross-border e-commerce business. Kaynak et al. [
26], Gomez-Herrea et al. [
27] and Valarezo et al. [
28] analyzed the factors influencing the development of cross-border e-commerce in Turkey, EU and Spain, and put forward valuable suggestions for cross-border e-commerce enterprises. Furthermore, in view of the financing dilemma of green innovation of manufacturers in the e-commerce supply chain, Liu and Peng [
29] built a strategy evolution game model between manufacturers and e-commerce platforms and described the dynamic evolution law of manufacturers choosing green innovation and platforms choosing green financing. Combined with numerical simulation, the factors affecting green innovation and green financing decisions were analyzed and strategic suggestions were also proposed. By introducing the theory of social co-governance into the field of e-commerce intellectual property protection, Li et al. [
30] built an evolutionary game model among the government, e-commerce platforms, and rights holders, and studies the conditions under the stakeholders form a stable equilibrium state under different constraints. Combined with numerical simulation, the influences of individual factors and factor combinations on the system stability were analyzed. The results showed that strictly controlling the action costs and response costs of all parties could enhance their willingness to actively deal with infringement issues; reasonable adjustment of the reward and punishment measures of government supervisory agencies could produce sufficient reverse shock and positive guidance to platform and operators; penalties should be imposed on government supervisory agencies that were not sufficiently supervised; government hasstrengthened the construction of the social environment for intellectual property protection, platforms have improved the social benefits of actively responding to infringement issues, and rights holders have increased the sense of acquisition. Also, it provided certain positive references and suggestions for the government to formulate relevant policies.
Through the above literature analysis, although many scholars studied the cross-border e-commerce industry from both macro and micro perspectives, very few scholars studied the impact of the “dual circulation” policy on cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises under the background of COVID-19. Based on this, by analyzing the policy environment factors, this paper analyzes the policy text of “dual circulation” to establish the influence mechanism of cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises by the “dual circulation” policy, and quantitatively analyzes the future development trends of cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises and government behavior choices. In addition, to quantitatively study the impact of the “dual circulation” policy on the development of cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises, this paper analyzes a series of policies related to the “dual circulation” policy proposed by the government, uses the LDA topic classification model to classify the policies, and analyzes the topic intensity and relevance of different types of policies to build a theoretical system of their impact on cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises. An evolutionary game model between the government and cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises is established to simulate the behavioral decision-making between the government and cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises after the “dual circulation” policy is proposed, and to obtain the impact of different decision-making behaviors of the government on cross-border e-commerce B2B export trading. Finally, according to the evolutionary game results, suggestions are made to promote the development of cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises. This paper can provide a reference for governments, formulating policies to support the development of cross-border e-commerce enterprises. In addition, the paper provides a reference value for the research on the impact of the “dual circulation” policy on other industries.
The paper is organized as follows:
Section 2 provides the framework of the full paper;
Section 3 classifies the “dual circulation” policy texts based on the LDA topic classification model;
Section 4 constructs the evolution model of B2B export enterprises and cross-border e-commerce and simulates the influence of government behavior on cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises;
Section 5 analyzes and discusses the simulation results; and
Section 6 summarizes the whole paper and puts forward some relevant policy suggestions.
5. Analysis and Discussion
This section further discusses the analysis of the simulation results and the limitations of the study.
5.1. Simulation Result
Based on the above simulation results, the following conclusions can be drawn:
(1) The influence intensity of “fiscal policy”, “taxation policy” and “customs clearance policy” is high, while the influence intensity of “payment policy” and “talent policy” is low.
(2) The topic correlation between “fiscal policy” and “talent policy” is the largest, and the correlation between “payment policy” and other policies is the lowest.
(3) Once the government appropriately increases subsidies, tax incentives, investment in cross-border e-commerce infrastructure construction, talent introduction and training, improvement of payment systems, and supervision, these actions can promote enterprises to participate in cross-border e-commerce B2B export trading.
(4) Government subsidies, tax incentives, and supervision have the greatest impact on whether enterprises participate in cross-border e-commerce B2B export trading, followed by government investment in cross-border e-commerce infrastructure, introduction and cultivation of cross-border e-commerce talents, and improvement of the payment system.
(5) The government’s appropriate increase in supervision will help promote enterprises to participate in cross-border e-commerce B2B export trading, while excessive supervision will occupy too much manpower and material resources of the government, which may be unable to give support in financial subsidies or cross-border e-commerce infrastructure construction, finallyreducing the enthusiasm of enterprises.
5.2. Limitations
There are still the following limitations in this paper that need further research:
(1) This paper only studies the evolutionary game relationship between the government and cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises under the background of the “dual circulation” policy. In the follow-up research, the game relationship between enterprises and the government in the remaining sub-sectors of the cross-border e-commerce industry, such as the impact of government actions on the cross-border e-commerce retail export industry, can be further explored.
(2) While considering the impact of government behavior on corporate behavior, the influence of upstream suppliers and downstream consumers of cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises on the decision-making behavior of enterprises is not considered, which can be further discussed in the future?
6. Conclusions
This paper uses the LDA topic classification model [
33] to classify the “dual circulation” policy documents, which are divided into five types and sorted in descending order of topic intensity: Fiscal policy, taxation policy, customs clearance policy, payment policy, and talent policies. These five types can promote enterprises to participate in cross-border e-commerce through government financial subsidies, investment in cross-border e-commerce infrastructure construction, introduction and cultivation of cross-border e-commerce talents, and improvement of payment systems. Then, an evolutionary game model [
34] between the government and enterprises is constructed, and MATLAB is used for simulation analysis.
Compared tothe existing literature, this paper has the following innovations, which are as follows:
(1) When current scholars study the impact of the “dual circulation” policy on cross-border e-commerce, they do not further consider the impact of the “dual circulation” policy on cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises, and most of them analyze the effect by constructing the statistical indicators system based on macroeconomic indicators. By quantifying and classifying the “dual circulation” policy texts, measuring and analyzing the topic intensity of different types of policies, this paper determines the impact process of the “dual circulation” policy on cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises, and finally establishes the relationship between the government and enterprises. The evolutionary game model in the experiments simulates the impact of the different decision-making behaviors of the government on the cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises under the background of the “dual circulation” policy.
(2) Compared toother studies, this paper specifically analyzes the types and implementation process of the “dual circulation” policy and quantifies the government’s supportive behavior, which can more intuitively analyze the impact of the government’s supportive behavior on enterprises. Its quantitative analysis process can provide a reference for future research on the impact of the “dual circulation” policy on companies in other industries.
In addition, based on the above simulation results, this paper puts forward policy suggestions to promote the development of cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises as follows:
- (1)
Implement fiscal policies to promote trade growth
From the simulation results of government and enterprise behavior analysis, it can be seen that the government’s financial subsidies can significantly promote enterprises to participate in cross-border e-commerce B2B export trading. Therefore, the Chinese government needs to keep increasing financial subsidies to step up the development of cross-border e-commerce B2B export trade. In terms of policy structure, the government should adjust the expenditure structure, actively raise funds, intensify special financial support for cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises, and promote the development of cross-border e-commerce B2B export industry clusters to stimulate the development of cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises.
- (2)
Improving the social service environment
From the above evolutionary game simulation results, it can be seen that the government can optimize the social service environment by intensifying investment in cross-border e-commerce infrastructure construction, introducing and cultivating cross-border e-commerce talents, and improving the payment system, thereby creating a beneficial business environment for enterprises. Through the above three measures, the government can accelerate the logistics and transportation of cross-border e-commerce, effectively promote the growth of cross-border e-commerce practitioners and the improvement of related talent reserves, and improve the security of cross-border payments, to eliminate possible development bottlenecks that the cross-border e-commerce B2B export enterprises may confront in the future. Therefore, the government should pay attention to the social service environment, strengthen the construction of cross-border e-commerce industrial parks, improve the infrastructure of cross-border logistics, reduce logistics costs, optimize the cross-border payment system, and focus on the training of professional application-oriented talents for cross-border e-commerce in China, to lay a solid foundation and create a sound environment for the long-term development of e-commerce B2B export in China.
- (3)
Optimize supervision measures
The government’s optimization of the regulatory measures for the cross-border e-commerce B2B industry can effectively improve the cross-border e-commerce market environment. A good market environment will help improve the enthusiasm of cross-border e-commerce B2B exporters and facilitate the development of enterprises [
35]. The government should further determine the access standards for cross-border e-commerce B2B export trade, appropriately raise its access threshold, and optimize the market service environment. The quality inspection department should strictly control the quality inspection of circulating goods, and strictly crack down on the production and sale of counterfeit goods. The government should improve and complete the corporate credit system in a timely manner to avoid the disclosure of consumers’ information and other violations of consumers’ rights. In addition, the government can innovate the supervision mode of cross-border e-commerce, use advanced information technology to electronically monitor cross-border e-commerce commodities, and record enterprises and commodities to achieve efficient supervision.