China-U.S. Trade Balance from the National Income Perspective

This paper calculates the China-U.S. trade balance from the national income perspective based on an input-output model that differentiates domestic and foreign-invested companies. The result shows that due to different degrees of dependence of both countries on foreign production factors such as foreign capital for the manufacturing of export goods,only 87.7% of the domestic value-added created by China’s exports to the U.S. in 2012 was China’s national income, whereas 96.2% of value-added in U.S. exports to China was U.S.national income. In the comparison of total export volume and export value-added, the home country’s national income created by exports can more realistically reflect a country’s gains from trade. In 2012, China’s trade surplus with the U.S. stood at 102.8 billion US dollars in national income terms, which is 61% and 22% smaller than the results in gross and value-added terms, respectively. The implication is that the traditional trade balance accounting method seriously exaggerates the China-U.S. trade imbalance.