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Since joining the WTO, China’s export of agricultural products has entered a period of rapid development. China’s agricultural export volume increased from 16.1 billion US dollars in 2001 to 84.35 billion US dollars in 2021, more than 5.24 times that of 2001. As a result, China has been at the forefront of the major agricultural exporters for an extended period. However, it is worth noting that the driving force supporting the long-term rapid growth of China’s agricultural exports is still quantity rather than quality. The quality of China’s agricultural exports remains at the low end, and there is even a risk of further sliding into the “low-quality trap”. In 2002, China’s agricultural exports lost more than $10 billion due to quality problems. The number of notifications of quality problems regarding agricultural products exported by China was as high as 1,430 from 2006 to 2015 according to the statistics of AQSIQ in China, and the annual loss in agricultural products exported by China due to quality problems was about 4-9 billion US dollars. Correspondingly, foreign consumers (especially consumers from developed countries) have begun to pay increasing attention to the safety, composition, and nutrition of agricultural products in recent years. The horizontal and vertical differences between different agricultural products have become an important consideration for consumers buying food (Grunert, 2005), and the competition for agricultural products in the international market has shifted from an initial price competition to a quality competition (Curzi and Pacca, 2015). Therefore, it is vital to promote the improved export quality of agricultural products from China quickly and effectively.
The Chinese government has issued a series of documents aiming to quickly promote the development of cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) since 2012, including Several Opinions on Developing Foreign Trade through E-commerce Platforms. China has also carried out nationwide service pilots of CBEC and put in place comprehensive pilot zones of CBEC. These policy documents and policy pilots (hereafter referred to as “industry policies of CBEC”) (see Table 1) not only greatly simplify the customs clearance procedures in the process of export trade through CBEC, but also sweep away the “congestion” in the process of export tax rebates, provide strong financial support services and strictly regulate the transaction behavior of CBEC entities. Under the positive stimulation of the above measures, China’s agricultural trade through CBEC has ushered in a rapid development trend. Relevant data from China Customs statistics show that the total foreign trade volume of agricultural products exported by China through CBEC reached $5.29 billion in 2019, up 19.2% from the previous year and accounting for 2.3% of the total foreign trade volume of agricultural products in China. Among these, export volume was $310 million, up 44.2% from the previous year. Big data from Alibaba also shows that the number of agricultural products on Alibaba’s international website is 1.11 million. With the help of the Alibaba International CBEC platform, the compound growth rate of China’s agricultural exports has exceeded triple digits for three consecutive years. At present, Chinese agricultural products are exported to nearly 100 countries (regions) around the world with the help of CBEC platforms. In this context, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to discuss the impact and internal mechanism of CBEC on the export quality of agricultural products exported by China.