communication in the 21st century essay

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Communication In The 21st Century

Communication is the key to social integration. Communication enables people to share ideas, express their feelings and contribute to discussions and debates. In most cases, language poses a significant barrier to communication between different cultures or communities. In the 21st century, the world has become a global community. This means that different cultural backgrounds are now readily integrating than ever before. This integration is brought about due to the need for world trade. Businesses have established branches in the various countries; people are migrating to other countries for settlement and people are intermarrying. To help break the language barrier and arrive at a common ground, people have to understand and comprehend the behavioural and reaction differences brought about by cultural differences.

Communication in the 21st-century overview

There is increased diversity in today’s workplace. Co-workers and employers have to cope with great diversity in age, cultural and gender. In the 21st century workplace, communication both verbal and non-verbal is at the foundation of everything we do. No matter how poor one might be in communication, it is easy to learn the skill of communication with the right training. To become a competent communicator, you have to embrace the diversity brought about by cultural differences. To become an overall communicator there are target certain areas that are crucial, and they include verbal and non-verbal cues and behaviours, behaviour patterns, confidence, conflict resolution, leadership, team building, the function and process of communication, criticism and constructive feedback and communicating more effectively with technology.

Communication in the 21st century has significantly changed as compared to communication in the 20th and 19th centuries. Keeping in touch with one another has been the trademark of the 21st century. In this century, there are various forms of communications that meant to connect people to each other. For example, text messaging is a phenomenon of the 21st century. Although texting does not involve face to face contact, healthy relationships have emerged just from texting. When used effectively, messaging can be a very crucial means of communicating and relaying information between people.

Changes in communication in the 21st century

With the global technology advancement, there is a great shift in communication in the 21st century. There has been the development of social media platforms where people engage in charts and exchange ideas and life experiences. These social media platforms have changed the world into a global community. When used effectively, they are a good way of communicating and relaying information between people.

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Communication in the 21st Century: Navigating the Digital Age

Table of contents, global connectivity and instantaneous communication, diverse modes of expression, the challenge of information overload, challenges in sustaining authentic relationships, conclusion: navigating the evolving landscape.

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21st Century Communication Technology Essay

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The changing communication technology and the presence of the internet have greatly impacted the way firms conduct business. It is now possible to conduct business using resources that are virtual in nature while still earning a reasonable revenue of profit and revenue from the operations with minimal investments. The communications technology has dramatically changed the way people in a company interact and communicate with each other for business as well as personal purposes.

The most common forms of technology that have been used over the period of time for communication in a company pertain to face to face communication, memos, letters, bulletin boards as well as financial reports. The selection of type of media is based on the purpose of the communication and the audience being targeted. Face to face communication is personal in nature and an immediate form of communication where a two way flow of ideas is possible.

On the other hand, communication media like bulletin boards and financial reports are drawn up for a certain audience targeting mass reach. In the 21st century however it is now possible to conduct business and communicate with the employees using innovative technologies like email, SMS, video conferencing and hand held devices like PDA’s and BlackBerry (Lengel & Daft, 1988) The use of this technology can also help the company increase two way communication in the management making way for an efficient flow of ideas. Strategic implementation of the media can help in connecting with the lower management and performing any conflict resolution that would otherwise go untreated leading to increase in employee dissatisfaction (‘Whispering Class Must Be Heard’, 2008)

A firm that works on the tax returns for clients needs to communicate with the clients and their staff in an efficient and immediate manner for resolving any issues that may come up during the drawing of papers and the pre[parathion of tax returns. In this regard it is beneficial for the fri9mtomake use of modern communication technology for communicating with their clients and their staff. The firm can make use of SMS to communicate with their staff and inform of any urgent meetings to them.

The SMS option can also be used to inform the clients about any sudden change in plans or to schedule a meeting with them where direct communication at the moment is not possible. Aside from this Email is a option that can be employed to provide the clients with updates in their tax returns and inform of any discrepancies and issues that may come up. The staff can also be delegated work and kept in the work loop using detailed emails with attachments for tax return evidence etc.

The video conferencing option can be used to establish a communication link between the client and the staff working on the tax returns for face to face meetings where a direct face to face meeting is not possible due to geographic or time constraints.

While the modern communication media can be expensive to acquire and use in the firm, it is important to note as well, that its use and implementation can help the firm attain competitive advantage in operations through greater efficiency and increased personal services that it can offer to its customers. The 21st century communication media can be used to strategically motivate and reward the employees where instead of providing them with cash bonus or raise, a BlackBerry or an iPod can be provided. (‘Rewarding a Job Well Done’, 2008) This helps increase the motivation of the employees with returns that are substantial in nature and can be used for business purposes as well.

‘Rewarding a Job Well Done’, LW , 2008.

‘Whispering Class Must Be Heard’, 2008.

Lengel, R.H., Daft, R.L., ‘The Selection of Communication Media as an Executive Skill’, Academy of Management Executive , 1998, 2, no. 3, pp. 225-32.

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Essay on 21st Century Communication

Students are often asked to write an essay on 21st Century Communication in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on 21st Century Communication

Introduction to 21st century communication.

The 21st century has brought major changes in how we talk and share ideas. From phone calls and letters, we have moved to emails, texts, and social media. This new way of talking is faster and can reach more people. This is the heart of 21st century communication.

Internet and Communication

The internet is a big part of this new way of talking. It lets us send messages to people around the world in seconds. We can share photos, videos, and even live moments. This has made our world smaller and more connected.

Social Media and Its Influence

Social media is a big part of 21st century communication. It lets us share our lives with others. We can post photos, thoughts, and updates. This helps us stay in touch with friends and family, no matter where they are.

Mobile Devices and Instant Messaging

Mobile devices have made communication even easier. We can send messages, make calls, and use social media from anywhere. This makes it easy to stay in touch, even when we are on the go.

250 Words Essay on 21st Century Communication

What is 21st century communication.

Communication in the 21st century is all about connecting with people. It’s the way we share ideas, thoughts, and feelings with each other. This can be done in many ways, like talking face-to-face, sending emails, or chatting on social media.

Changes in Communication

In the past, people usually talked in person or wrote letters to each other. But now, we have many new ways to communicate. We can send text messages, make video calls, or use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These new ways of communication are faster and easier than the old ones.

Benefits of Modern Communication

The new ways of communication have many benefits. They let us talk to people who are far away from us. We can even see them on our screens while we talk to them. We can share photos and videos with them in just a few seconds. We can also find and talk to people who have the same interests as us.

Challenges of Modern Communication

But these new ways of communication also have some challenges. Sometimes, we spend too much time on our phones or computers. This can make us feel lonely or stressed. It can also be hard to understand what someone is really feeling when we can’t see their face or hear their voice.

In conclusion, communication in the 21st century has changed a lot. It has many benefits, but also some challenges. We need to learn how to use it wisely. This will help us connect with others in a positive and healthy way.

500 Words Essay on 21st Century Communication

Types of communication in the 21st century.

There are many ways to communicate in the 21st century. One of the most common is through digital devices like smartphones and computers. We use them to send emails, text messages, and even make video calls. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter also help us share our lives with others.

Another type of communication is through blogs and websites. Here, people can write about their thoughts and share them with the world. News websites also use this method to share information quickly.

The Role of the Internet

The internet also helps us to work together, even if we are not in the same place. For example, we can use video calls to have meetings, or use online tools to work on projects together.

Benefits of 21st Century Communication

There are many benefits to 21st century communication. One of the biggest is that it is fast. We can send a message to someone on the other side of the world and they can read it almost instantly.

Challenges of 21st Century Communication

While there are many benefits to 21st century communication, there are also some challenges. One of the biggest is that it can be hard to know if the information we find on the internet is true or not. It is important to check the facts before we believe something we read online.

Another challenge is that sometimes we can spend too much time on our phones or computers. This can stop us from doing other important things, like studying or spending time with our family.

Communication in the 21st century is exciting and full of possibilities. It helps us connect with people all over the world, share our ideas, and learn new things. But it is also important to use it wisely, and remember that sometimes, it is good to talk to people in person too.

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Communication in the 21st century. The influence of technology and globalization

Florina Bran 1 * , Dumitru Alexandru Bodislav 1 , Anna Kant 2 and Raluca Iuliana Georgescu 1

1 Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania 2 PhD Student, Valahia University of Targoviste, Romania

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Research background: This paper highlights the evolution of the way we communicate, especially on how it accelerated to today’s means of communication, resulted as a secondary outcome of the actual covid19 pandemic. We try to elaborate on the evolution of the technology, from the primitive email to today’s Zoom meetings and others powerful tools of collaboration.

Purpose of the article: Globalization although it has decelerated as a 21st century standalone tool, it had its powers and paths saved and restored by the use of communication technology that not only stepped up as a key player in the global IT&C market, but also it is pushed to new limits by the involvement of companies like Google and Amazon in pushing virtual meetings at the next level. Our study follows the journey of becoming a global and connected citizen in the 21st century by analyzing the macroeconomic perspective and also by creating an oversight on how the business concepts in the communication technology market will influence the next decade.

Methods: The methods will consist of an analysis of the global environment of the IT&C companies and of the most tech-savvy economies.

Findings & Value added: The key feature of this research is that it offers an elaborate plan on the next decade will look like in the field of communication from the technological and globalization perspective.

Key words: globalization / technology / communication

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2021

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Importance of Communication Skills in the 21st Century

In the throes of diverse living and working environments, communication skills anchor us to what matters. In a way, communication skills are the key to social integration in the 21st century.

Today, communication styles are as diverse as the goals. Communication can be interpersonal : a two-way interaction with someone else, interpretive : understanding and interpreting a one-way aural or written text, or presentational : presenting information in either a written or oral format. According to the Connected Culture survey , 71% of employees who reported being more productive believe they are well-connected to their coworkers. Employees that speak with one another on a regular basis are thus more productive.

According to a McKinsey analysis, well-connected teams enhance productivity by 20-25%.

In written communication which is explicitly taught in English Language, students learn to write to meet various needs, such as to explain, to persuade, to synthesize, in the forms of research papers, email, journal, science report, reflection, summary, so on and so forth.

Communicating to share ideas and express feelings helps in improving relationships. On the career front, contributing to discussions and debates is seen as a big plus. Brushing up one’s communication skills is the need of the hour.

“No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5% by your academic credentials, 15% by your professional experiences, and 80% by your communication skills."

Ms. Gayatri Roy English Language and Communication Facilitator,  GEMS International School, Gurgaon

Skills for life

Communication, as a citizen of the 21st century, you should be able to.

Communicating clearly in a variety of spaces, environments, cultures, and contexts.

Actively listening to decipher meanings, intentions, attitudes, etc.

Receiving and transmitting messages using any available resources.

Exchanging knowledge or opinions.

Articulating ideas effectively, using oral, written, and non-verbal resources in different forms and contexts.

Determining the best communication strategy according to your objectives.

Sharing information that is understood, as well as using media and technology to communicate.

Using communication for a variety of reasons: to inform, instruct, motivate, persuade, question, entertain, etc.

Competence Area

• Identifying the itended message’s outcomes (what you want to convey with the message)
• Competence in mother tonge and other languages (e.g., ability to employ appropriate vocabulary, grammar, and logical structures); visual literacy (communication through non-linguistic visual modes); effective use of bodily gestures; providing the exact amount of information required; presenting relevant information; being concise and avoiding ambiguity and obscurity; avoiding false information; making questions; questioning; explaining
• Self-regulation (goal-setting, planning, and reflection)
• Perspective taking; theory of mind or audience analysis
• Adherence to conventions (accounting for diversity in the conventions or norms of different disciplines; professions; and communication channels)
• Intercultural sensitivity; awareness and androitness; curiosity about other cultures; dealing with cultural differences and uncertainties; resistance to stereotyping
• Adaptation and empathy
• Navigating through different channels (email, video chat, instant messaging, blogs, wikis, websites, and social media, in addition to more traditional forms of communication such as papers, presentations, or face-toface conversation)
• Digital skills, use of information and communication technology

• Linguistic and visual competencies for encoding and decoding linguistic and nonlinguistic symbols
• Modeling senders’ mind to reliably recover intended meanings
• Intercultural communication skills
• Being aware of the conventions governing communication in various contexts and channels to accurately interpret the message
• Determining senders’ outcomes when receiving and processing the message
• Active listening (being an active receiver by actively attending to the messages, monitoring their understanding, and considering the senders’ background, emotions, and intentions); paying attention; withholding judgment; reflecting; clarifying; summarizing; sharing
• Critical-thinking, inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, and insight

• Creating of a strategy, theory, method, or argument based on a synthesis of evidence
• Creating an argument that goes beyond available information
• Synthesis, dialectic debating, designing, planning
• Computational thinking: abstractions and pattern generalizations; systematic processing of information; symbol systems and representations; algorithmic notions of flow of control; structured problem decomposition (modularizing); iterative, recursive, and parallel thinking; conditional logic; efficiency and performance constraints; debugging and systematic error detection

• Judging the quality of content, information, procedures or solutions
• Being able to criticize a work product with respect to their credibility, relevance, and bias using a set of standards or specific framework
• Criticism, auditing, appraisal, authentication

Sources: Based on PEARSON framework (Metusalem, Belenky & DiCerbo, 2017; Griffin, McGaw & Care, 2012).

SKILLS IN ACTION

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Griffin, P., McGaw, B. & Care, E. (2012). Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (pp. 1-15). Springer, Dordrecht. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400723238

Hargie, O. (Ed.). (1997). The handbook of communication skills. Psychology Press. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203007037

Metusalem, R., Belenky, D. M., & DiCerbo, K. (2017). Skills for today: what we know about teaching and assessing communication. Pearson. https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/global/Files/efficacy-and-research/skills-for-today/Communication-FullReport.pdf

Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. John Wiley & Sons. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/21st+Century+Skills%3A+Learning+for+Life+in+Our+Times-p-9781118157060

21st century skills help individuals of all ages to reinvent themselves throughout life, adapt to changing and diverse circumstances, and identify opportunities for growth amid differences.

What are these skills?

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Electronic Test Result Communication in the Era of the 21st Century Cures Act

Bradford A, Ehsan S, Shahid U, et al. Electronic Test Result Communication In The Era Of The 21St Century Cures Act. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2024. AHRQ Publication No. 24-0010-3-EF

The reliability and timeliness of electronic test result delivery can support safe, high-quality care while introducing the potential for patient and family emotional harm. This issue brief identifies current evidence and best practices to inform patient-centered implementation of test result communication through patient portals under the 21st Century Cures Act.

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Can the ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ initiative improve the opening-up of China’s coastal provinces?

• Open access
• Published: 27 August 2024
• Volume 2 , article number  19 , ( 2024 )

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• Yuping Wang 1 ,
• Yuan Gao 1 ,
• Yu Wang 1 &
• Ziang Guo 2  

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The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) serves as China’s blueprint and major strategy for opening-up in the new era. This study theoretically examines three mechanisms of the ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ (CMSR) to promote the opening up of provinces and cities along the line, including the allocation, integration, and circulation mechanisms. Using 2009–2021 data from prefecture-level cities, this study designed a quasi-natural experiment based on the CMSR by combining propensity score matching (PSM) and differences-in-differences (DID) methods. The study findings show CMSR significantly promoted China’s opening-up. Various robustness tests demonstrate that our findings are robust. Mechanism analysis shows that CMSR improved China’s opening-up by promoting the flow of production factors, integrating domestic and international product markets, and accelerating circulation. Heterogeneity analysis shows that CMSR strongly influences large, coastal, and nonprovincial cities. These findings provide a new perspective for evaluating the policy effects of the 21st CMSR.

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1 Introduction

During a visit to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed the concept of building the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ (CMSR), which led to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In March 2015, China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Commerce, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly released the vision and proposed actions based on jointly building SREB and CMSR, clearly defining the basic requirements, implementation mechanism, and scope of the BRI, a major manifestation of China’s opening-up.

Opening-up to the outside world is China’s key national strategy. Since implementing China’s reform and opening-up 40 years ago, China has made significant economic progress. This advancement largely depends on internal circulation driven by external circulation. China’s economic development earlier adopted an export-oriented model, which focused on leveraging China’s comparative advantage in terms of the labor force, using foreign production technology, capital and financial resources and management experience, and establishing China as the ‘world factory’ (Bräutigam & Tang, 2014 ). China’s economy has shifted from a high-speed growth phase to one of high-quality development. Given the continuously increasing production costs and overcapacity in China, the export-oriented model is no longer suitable because of its dependence on population dividends and labor advantages (He et al., 2020 ). China started modifying its opening-up strategy by creating the BRI. Historically, China’s coastal provinces have always been the ‘main force’ of its opening-up strategy. The CMSR is designed to support the eastern coastal provinces to further expand their cooperation with foreign countries and continue to promote high-level opening-up to the outside world. This study aims to quantitatively assess CMSR’s impact on the opening-up of cities in China to provide reliable empirical evidence and insights for improved implementation of high-quality development and BRI.

Previous researches have empirically analyzed the policy impacts on the BRI as it progresses and continues to advance. In addition to the traditional classical econometric methods, specialized policy evaluation techniques have been introduced in recent years, including the most popular double-difference method, breakpoint regression method, and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model (Herrero & Xu, 2017 ; Xue & Wang, 2023 ; Yang et al., 2020 ; Yue, 2021 ; Zhai, 2018 ). In particular, Card and Krueger ( 1994 ) pioneered the use of this method for assessing the impact of minimum wage on employment. Empirical research methods have thus become an integral part of studying the impact of the BRI.

Scholars, both domestic and international, are currently studying BRI’s policy effects from various perspectives (Cheng et al., 2023 ; Huang, 2016 ; Winter, 2020 ). Studies at the micro level typically focus on firms’ import and export behaviors. For example, Gorg and Mao ( 2020 ) used a gravity model based on Chinese firms’ export data in their study of international trade from 2011 to 2015. They showed that the BRI had increased exports from state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to countries along its routes with a minimum impact on private firms. Wang et al. ( 2018 ) analyzed the effect of the BRI on firms’ globalization using data from A-share listed manufacturing firms from 2010 to 2016 and found that this effect is stronger in resource-rich firms and non-SOEs.

Macro-level studies have covered several topics, including international investment, finance, and trade activities (Baniya et al., 2020 ; Li et al., 2024 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). Regarding international trade, Wang et al. ( 2018 ) used data from China’s exports to 49 BRI countries, revealing a significant increase in China’s goods exports facilitated by the BRI and logistics network. In terms of international investment, Chen and Lin ( 2020 ) observed that the BRI could further raise cross-border investment by 3% for participating countries and 1% for non-participating countries via network spillovers. Bandiera and Tsiropoulos ( 2020 ) examined the impact on international finance and found that infrastructure investments may exacerbate financing burdens and debt risks for many countries along the route. When examining infrastructure development, Soyres et al. ( 2020 ) used a general equilibrium model and showed that the completion of the transnational transportation network had a significant impact on the economies of countries along the routes, with a substantial economic growth rate of 3.4% for the former and 2.9% for the latter, affecting the global economy. Additionally, analogous studies have examined the effects of the BRI on overseas mergers and acquisitions, employment, sustainable development, and other relevant factors (Du & Zhang, 2018 ; Liao et al., 2021 ; Liu et al., 2020 ).

Several studies have examined BRI’s policy impacts from a comprehensive perspective. However, it is important to note that the BRI includes two main components: the SREB and the CMSR. While the SREB focuses on land-based trade routes, the CMSR focuses on maritime trade, each of which has distinct implications for China’s strategic openness. China’s coastal provinces have long served as central hubs for the country’s external engagements. In comparison, the CMSR is poised to exert a more direct and substantial influence than the SREB on these provinces. The CMSR fosters trade and cultural exchanges among participating nations by establishing an extensive maritime shipping network (Jiang et al., 2018 ; Xu et al., 2023a ). On the one hand, the CMSR boosts maritime economy development, port infrastructure construction, sustainable energy utilization, and collaborative infrastructure initiatives across participating nations (Alves et al., 2023 ; Kim et al., 2018 ; Shi et al., 2018 ; Zhao et al., 2021 ). For example, Chen et al. ( 2023 ) examined progress in sustainable resource utilization in five CMSR countries, including Croatia, Italy, Greece, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore, using an indicator system derived from the Sustainable Development Goals. Additionally, Wang and Lin ( 2022 ) used World Bank data on energy infrastructure projects from 2006 to 2019 to build an econometric model that shows China’s increased focus on foreign investment in clean energy infrastructure projects under the CMSR. Conversely, the CMSR also had positive impacts on China itself. On the other hand, existing research predominantly addresses the broader BRI narrative and examines its impact on China’s sustainable urban development, enterprise growth, and international trade dynamics (Su et al., 2019 ; Zhou & Lin, 2023 ). For example, Chen et al. ( 2019 ) used propensity score matching (PSM) and difference-in-differences (DID) methods on the data from Chinese A-share listed firms and found that the BRI reduced foreign R&D investments from Chinese firms, especially in SOEs. Moreover, Chen et al. ( 2020 ) examined the BRI’s influence on China’s equipment exports using a progressive DID approach. Unfortunately, few scholars have separated the CMSR from the broader BRI narrative, thereby failing to examine the specific impacts of CMSR on the opening-up of China’s coastal provinces. This gap highlights the need for dedicated research to clarify how the CMSR affects the openness dynamics of China’s coastal regions.

Therefore, this study focuses on the CMSR and its important role in promoting the opening-up of coastal provinces. ① Although earlier research has yielded significant findings, this study introduces several innovative elements. Innovative research perspective: while many scholars have used the DID method to assess the policy impacts of the BRI, a significant gap exists in assessing its influence on China’s ongoing opening-up efforts, which is the BRI’s core objective. This study takes a novel approach by focusing on the level of opening-up. ② Innovation in sample: although conventional studies have combined SREB and CMSR under the BRI, it must be recognized that cities along these routes differ significantly in terms of economic fundamentals, geographic positioning, environmental factors, and resource allocation. Consequently, the policy impacts of these initiatives vary significantly across different cities. Thus, this study carefully examines the CMSR’s specific policy implications on the opening-up efforts of the cities along its path and provides a more focused and targeted analysis. ③ Complementary and enhanced research content: this study extends and enriches the existing research by explaining how the CMSR facilitates the opening-up of coastal regions in three dimensions, i.e., the allocation mechanism of production factors, integration mechanism of product markets, and facilitation of smooth circulation. Using mechanism analysis, this study empirically examines the heterogeneity of CMSR’s policy impacts, considering variables such as urban scale, intercity barriers, and urban location. ④ This study provides policy insights to strengthen China’s ongoing expansion of opening-up initiatives and advance the BRI’s high-level development goals.

2 Institutional background and mechanisms

2.1 development process and current situation of the cmsr.

The BRI represents an inclusive and open cooperative effort covering 18 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China. In this context, the CMSR specifically focuses on the coastal provinces of Shanghai, Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Hainan. The CMSR aims to facilitate the orderly and unrestricted movement of economic factors, efficient resource allocation, and deep market integration. It aims to comprehensively enhance regional cooperation. In 2015, Chinese government officially released a document titled ‘Vision and proposed actions outlined on jointly building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road’, which implemented the overarching blueprint for regional cooperation. This document outlined two key directions for the CMSR: the first spans from Chinese coastal ports across the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, further extending to Europe; the second route originates from Chinese coastal ports, traversing through the South China Sea and reaching toward the South Pacific. In 2017, subsequently, the formal release of the ‘Vision for maritime cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative’ outlined China’s strategic plan for promoting maritime cooperation within the BRI framework. Since the CMSR’s introduction, relevant provinces have proactively responded by implementing several policies, as shown in Table  1 .

Based on historical experience, China’s economic prosperity, particularly in the growth of coastal cities, has been driven by openness. These cities serve as critical platforms for China’s engagement in economic globalization, leveraging their strategic geographical locations and rich resources to attract foreign investment and advanced technology. These cities actively participate in the international division of labor and improve the value-added of their export products. Moreover, the CMSR strongly emphasizes the development of port economic zones, highlighting the significant role played by coastal cities. The cities’ openness serves as a catalyst for identifying new sources of consumption-driven growth in the global economy, enabling coastal enterprises to expand globally, maximizing domestic and foreign market resource utilization, and creating a development model based on domestic circulation with support from international circulation. The BRI offers eastern coastal cities favorable opportunities for the development of open economies.

The CMSR has eased China’s engagement with countries and regions along the route, covering South Asia, Europe, North America, and Latin America. This initiative includes five provinces and municipalities on China’s southeastern coast, including three major urban clusters: the Yangtze River Delta, the west coast of the Taiwan Strait, and the Pearl River Delta. The BRI yielded effective outcomes between 2013 and 2022, emerging as the most significant global platform for product trade and cooperation. China and the participating countries saw an increase in the volume of goods traded during this period from 1.04 trillion USD to 2.07 trillion USD. China’s total import and export volume reached 19.1 trillion USD, growing at an average annual rate of 6.4%. Bilateral investment between China and the participating countries exceeded 380 billion USD. In terms of scope of cooperation, besides traditional projects in transportation infrastructure, the cooperative framework also includes green energy, health, and other sectors, covering several fields such as economy, culture, and ecology. China has currently signed more than 200 agreements for jointly building the BRI. These agreements cover more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations across five continents. Figure  1 shows the overall upward trend with fluctuations in foreign direct investments and import-export volume of goods of the five provinces and municipalities along the CMSR from 2000 to 2021. There was a slight decline in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, although foreign direct investments remained relatively high. Foreign direct investments in these provinces and municipalities are likely to increase, and the BRI will further improve the level of openness in the coming decade.

Foreign direct investment and import and export value of goods in provinces along the CMSR (2000–2021). Data source: China Statistical Yearbook (2000–2022)

2.2 Mechanism analysis

The CMSR facilitates maritime trade among countries along the route. Unlike land or air trade, maritime trade relies on the construction of maritime transportation networks and ports. It uses the ocean’s natural sea lanes. Therefore, the CMSR’s construction fully integrates the resources of countries with significantly diverse characteristics and promotes the active integration of China’s coastal provinces into the global market in terms of production, product markets, and the maritime transportation system (Fig.  2 ).

Mechanism analysis

2.2.1 Production factors driving allocation mechanism

Heckscher-Ohlin theory states that in a free trade environment, countries tend to export goods produced using their abundant resources (i.e., those with comparative advantages) and import goods that require relatively scarce factors (i.e., those with comparative disadvantages). This trade pattern enables the indirect movement of production factors across countries, thereby allowing nations to effectively leverage their resource endowments and improve resource utilization (Staiger, 1987 ). The CMSR mainly aims to increase connectivity among the countries and regions along its path, thereby offering the participating nations a broader market and development platform. This initiative further promotes trade liberalization and the exchange of abundant and scarce factors between China and the other countries along the route.

The principle of combining ‘going out’ and ‘bringing in’ also applies to the exchange of factors of production in China. First, based on the CMSR platform, provinces along China’s coastline can actively introduce cash technology, abundant capital, and highly skilled personnel, thereby creating economic incentives for China’s coastal provinces to improve the level of opening-up to the outside world. With advanced production technologies, firms can improve productivity, optimize production processes, and create a technology diffusion effect that can narrow the development gap among Chinese provinces (Parrado & Cian, 2014 ). Senior workers are often highly educated with higher technological and innovation capabilities. They can introduce advanced technologies and management experience to promote enterprise technological innovation and product upgrading, thus increasing enterprises’ global market competitiveness (Xu et al., 2023b ). Foreign capital inflow usually tends to favor emerging fields such as high-tech, environmental protection industry, and modern service industry, which helps in optimizing and upgrading provincial industrial structure, quickly reduces backward production capacity, and improves the industry’s overall competitiveness (Liao et al., 2021 ).

Second, the construction of the CMSR has promoted Chinese enterprises’ investment and development in other countries along the route. On the one hand, Chinese enterprises can locally use energy sources such as oil and natural gas in resource-rich countries (e.g., United Arab Emirates) that are relatively cheaper, thus developing the local economy while reducing production costs and increasing enterprises’ profitability (Xu et al., 2024 ). On the other hand, Chinese enterprises investing in developed countries along the route (e.g., Singapore) can fully benefit from advanced management experience and technology, which can be transferred back to the domestic market to achieve product innovation and improved service quality (Cao et al., 2022 ).

H1: The CMSR can promote the opening-up level of coastal cities by optimizing the efficiency of production factor allocation.

2.2.2 Product market driving integration mechanism

The theory of comparative advantage states that countries that engage in free trade can export goods in which they have a comparative advantage while also obtaining the necessary goods at a lower cost. Global productivity can be increased by focusing on areas in which each country has a comparative advantage, thereby improving the welfare of all countries. The CMSR has created a platform for mutually integrating various product markets and links in the industrial chain. Countries along the route have gradually formed their own specialized production areas, and different countries have comparative advantages in resources, technology, and labor. Placing different parts of commodities in countries with comparative advantages can reduce the overall production costs and improve competitiveness. Similarly, Chinese provinces also have their own comparative advantages, for example, Guangdong Province has an extensive manufacturing base, and Shanghai is a rich financial capital. The CMSR contributes to leveraging each province’s comparative advantages, unlocking the potential of trade and investment cooperation in regions along the route, realizing the deep integration of supply, industrial, and value chains, and further improving the level of opening-up to the outside world.

First, the CMSR’s promotion offers opportunities and platforms for constructing maritime free trade zones in the countries along the route as well as in China’s domestic provinces, which greatly reduces tariffs and eliminates barriers to trade in products and services between China and other countries along the route, thus improving trade facilitation and allowing various products from different countries to expand their market size through free trade zones (Alessandrini et al., 2011 ; Feng et al., 2023 ). Second, sharing of information infrastructure, such as the Internet and communication networks, helps enterprises better understand market demand, competitor dynamics, and consumer preferences and further integrates the product markets (Zhou et al., 2024 ). Sharing of infrastructure, such as roads, railroads, and ports, helps reduce cross-border production costs for enterprises, allowing them to enter the international market, thereby promoting cross-border trade and integrating product markets (Liu et al., 2020 ). Third, digital trading platforms simplify the transaction process and reduce transaction costs through online trading and payment systems, which helps SMEs’ participation in the international market and increases their market competitiveness and vitality. Simultaneously, it reduces consumers’ shopping costs, allows more people to enjoy quality products, and promotes the integration of product markets (Wang et al., 2024 ).

H2: The CMSR can enhance the openness of coastal cities to the outside world by promoting the integration of product markets.

2.2.3 Boosting the circulation domain-unimpeded mechanism

The gravity model states that other conditions being equal, the scale of trade between two countries is negatively correlated with their geographical distance. As distance is directly proportional to time, reducing logistics time results in reduced geographical distance between the countries. This promotes international trade activities between them. The CMSR construction leads to a more efficient resource and product circulation and allocation, i.e., efficient logistics, by constructing modern ports and improving the maritime transport system.

As a carrier of marine transportation, ports are crucial for international trade. The port system has a certain hierarchical structure, which can be divided into global pivot ports, regional hub ports, and other ports based on their geographic location, functional responsibilities, scale, and level, which are divided and cooperate with each other and perform their own functions in marine transportation (Fu et al., 2023 ). The construction of modern ports and a perfect maritime logistics system will attract coastal provinces to actively participate in the global market. First, the CMSR builds a perfect maritime transportation network by integrating the major ports of China and the countries along the route, which will further accelerate bulk commodity shipping, reduce transportation time, and reduce the iceberg cost of maritime transportation (Ferrari et al., 2023 ; Lee et al., 2016 ). Second, the CMSR accelerates the construction of modern ports in coastal provinces, which, as the interface between the domestic and international economies, form the meeting point of the flow of people, goods, commerce, capital, technology, and information. Through the industrial aggregation effect and integrating various production factors, ports can have a 1 + 1 > 2 effect, which offers abundant resource support for opening-up to the outside world (Wang et al., 2020 ). Concurrently, the construction of modern ports promotes the development of port–city integration, which closely links the ports to the hinterland economy. This connection not only helps develop the port city but also promotes the hinterland economy, providing strong economic support for opening-up to the outside world (Shi & Li, 2016 ).

H3: CMSR can enhance coastal cities’ openness to the outside world by improving the efficiency of maritime transportation.

3 Research design

3.1 model setting, 3.1.1 did method.

The CMSR’s official implementation influenced cities along the route mainly in two ways: the ‘time effect’ of natural openness formed with the passage of time and economic growth, and the ‘policy effect’ resulting from the CMSR implementation. This study uses the DID method to assess the effects of the CMSR policy implementation. The cities along the route are selected as the treatment group, while the corresponding non-route cities are chosen as the control group. Both groups are assumed to show the same ‘time effect’ trend before the CMSR implementation. The difference in the openness levels between the cities along the route and the non-route cities after policy implementation represents the ‘policy effect’ attributed to the CMSR construction. The basic model is as follows:

where the dependent variable \({Open}_{it}\) is the level of opening-up for city i in year t . The variable \({oceanroad}_{it}\) is a binary variable denoting the CMSR, taking a value of 1 for cities along the route included in the initiative in 2015 and 0 for non-route cities. The variable \({time}_{it}\) is a time dummy variable, taking a value of 0 before 2015 and 1 from 2015 onward, representing the period of policy implementation. The interaction term \({time}_{it}\times {oceanroad}_{it}\) (oceanroad_t) is the city dummy variable after the policy implementation, and the coefficient \({\beta }_{3}\) is the differential impact of the policy on the treatment and control groups, which is the focus of this study. The term \(\sum {X}_{n}\) represents the control variables used in this study, including the levels of economic growth, government intervention, industrial structure, infrastructure development, and information technology development. These control variables influence the degree of openness and serve as covariates affecting the likelihood of cities participating in the CMSR. \({\mu }_{i}\) is the city-fixed effects and \({\gamma }_{t}\) is the time-fixed effects. \({\varepsilon }_{it}\) is the error term.

3.1.2 Propensity score matching with difference-in-differences (PSM-DID)

The parallel trends assumption is essential for applying the DID method. This assumption posits that, without the CMSR, there are no systematic differences in the trends of openness levels between cities along the route and non-route cities over time and that they show consistent ‘time effects’. However, satisfying the parallel trends assumption using the DID method is challenging due to economic development theories and the actual variations in economic development among different cities. Recognizing this challenge, Heckman ( 1976 ), Heckman et al. ( 1998 ), and Rosenbaum and Rubin ( 1983 ) proposed a combination of the propensity score matching (PSM) method with the DID method to help mitigate endogeneity concerns arising from sample selection bias and ensure that the control and treatment groups adhere to the parallel trends assumption. Using the PSM-DID approach, the potential biases arising from nonrandom assignment to the CMSR are minimized, thereby enhancing the validity of the empirical analysis.

The PSM approach focuses on identifying a city j within the control group of non-route cities that closely resemble the covariates (observable variables) of a city i in the treatment group, including cities along the route, i.e., \({X}_{j}\approx {X}_{i}\) . By finding an appropriate match, the impact of individual heterogeneity on the decision to participate in the CMSR can be isolated from the analysis, thereby removing the potential bias arising from the differences in covariates. City j , selected as the control group, shows a similar probability of participating in the CMSR compared to city i . This comparison ensures a more scientifically sound evaluation of the policy’s impact. The following are the specific steps:

First, selecting covariates. Based on earlier research, the variables characterizing the city that may affect its openness levels to the outside world are included in the model, namely, economic growth, government intervention, industrial structure, infrastructure development, and information technology development. This validates the model negligibility assumption.

Second, calculating the propensity score. A logit regression model is established, where \({city}_{it}\) is the treatment group dummy variable, which takes a value of 1 for the treatment group and 0 for the control group. The covariates of the i -th city are denoted as \({X}_{i}\) . The function h(∙) represents a linear function, and F(∙) is the logistic function. The propensity score, \({p}_{i}\left(X\right)\) , which represents the probability of city i belonging to the treatment group based on its covariates, is calculated as follows:

Third, performing PSM. Before undertaking PSM, it is crucial to determine the most suitable matching method. It is well known that no matching method holds inherent superiority or inferiority. However, each method may introduce certain measurement biases, leading to divergent outcomes even when applied to the same dataset. There is no consensus among studies regarding the optimal matching method. Therefore, selecting an appropriate matching method should be tailored to the specific research objectives. However, it is important to note that if results obtained from using multiple matching methods successfully pass the balance test, it provides a basis for affirming the validity of the PSM approach. This highlights the importance of methodological rigor in assessing PSM’s effectiveness in achieving balance across covariates. This study uses five popular matching methods (Soyres et al., 2019 ): ① k-nearest-neighbor matching, which identifies k closest individuals with different treatment assignments based on propensity scores. In this study, k is set to 4; ② caliper matching, which limits the absolute distance of propensity scores. A caliper range of 0.02 is used in this study; ③ a caliper within k -nearest-neighbor matching, which identifies the k closest neighbors within a given caliper range. A caliper range of 0.02 and k set to 4 are used; ④ kernel matching, which assigns weights to control variables and calculates their average, using default kernel functions and bandwidth in this study; ⑤ spline matching, which transforms multidimensional datasets into single-dimensional sequences and fits separate functions to them. In this study, kernel matching with a caliper of 0.02 and k of 4 is selected as the main PSM method. The other four matching methods are used to assess the robustness of the matching results. The kernel matching method pairs the treatment group samples with an estimated effect computed from all samples in the control group, where the estimated effect is obtained by weighting the average of the individual scores in the treatment group with that of all samples in the control group, and the weights are computed from the kernel function. This method implies that individuals in the control group who are more similar to those in the treatment group will receive higher weights.

Finally, the DID model was applied for estimation based on the matched treatment and control groups.

3.2 Data and sample

3.2.1 sample selection.

In 2015, the Chinese government released the ‘Vision and Action for Promoting the Construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’, which stipulates the provinces along the CMSR as Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Hainan. Therefore, this study considers the cities in the five provinces along the CMSR as the treatment group. Accordingly, the cities in other coastal provinces not along the CMSR are used as the control group (including Liaoning, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Guangxi). Footnote 1 The control and treatment groups include 111 prefecture-level cities (Table  2 ).

Cities located in coastal provinces outside those along the CMSR are selected as the control group, rather than opting for all prefecture-level cities outside the CMSR, because of two main considerations. First, coastal provinces have an inherent geographical advantage due to their proximity to the sea, distinguishing them from inland provinces. This geographical proximity affects the cost dynamics associated with maritime trade, leading to differential rates of openness to the international market via maritime routes. Second, the emphasis of the CMSR lies in increasing international trade activities through maritime routes. Since the inception of China’s reform and opening-up policies, coastal provinces have led maritime trade endeavors. Thus, these provinces have amassed substantial resources and garnered extensive experience in maritime trade activities—a qualitative advantage that is challenging to quantify. Combining these factors, using all prefecture-level cities outside the CMSR as the control group risks undervaluing the opening-up effects attributable to the CMSR. Therefore, this study chooses cities in coastal provinces not along the CMSR as the control group. This strategic choice aims to mitigate potential confounding effects arising from endowment factors such as coastal location and existing expertise in maritime trade activities. Thus, the study directly and accurately determines the CMSR’s policy impact.

3.2.2 Variable definition

① Dependent Variable \({Open}_{it}\) : the essence of the BRI lies in enhancing economic and trade exchanges and cultural communication among countries situated along the routes. In this study, the level of a city’s opening-up to the international arena is measured by the proportion of total imports and exports to its GDP.

② Covariates: this study has five covariates, i.e., geographical location, economic growth, government intervention, industrial structure and infrastructure development, and information technology development.

Economic Growth Level: the level of regional economic growth is a crucial foundation for engaging in foreign exchange activities. In general, cities with a larger economic scale show higher levels of internationalization and greater openness to the outside world. To reduce the influence of population size and resource endowments, this study uses per capita GDP as a measure of regional economic growth.

Government Intervention Level: the government contributes significantly to promoting socioeconomic growth. The development and implementation of government policies substantially impact openness to the international arena. This study uses the total amount of local government fiscal expenditures as an indicator to measure the government intervention level.

Industrial Structure: the industrial structure reflects the degree and sophistication of a city’s economic development. Typically, cities with a more developed and higher share of the tertiary sector in the national economy have advanced industrial structures, thereby attracting foreign investment and facilitating goods and services exports. Hence, this study uses the ratio of the output value of the tertiary industry to GDP to measure a city’s industrial structure.

Infrastructure Development Level: infrastructure construction, such as road transportation and waterways, is a necessary prerequisite for improving a city’s transportation network. A well-developed transportation network greatly facilitates a city’s foreign exchanges and significantly influences its capacity for openness. In this study, the per capita road area of a city is used to measure the infrastructure development level.

Information Technology Development Level: the Internet is a vital platform for international trade. Numerous studies have shown that an increased Internet penetration rate reduces trade search costs and facilitates the participation of enterprises and regions in international trade. Consequently, this study chooses the number of international Internet users in a city as an indicator to measure the regional Internet penetration rate.

Table 3 shows the dependent variable and control variables and their corresponding definitions.

3.3 Descriptive statistics

This study uses a 13-year panel data covering 111 prefecture-level cities. The primary data sources include the ‘China City Statistical Yearbook’ (2010–2021), supplemented by data from the ‘China Statistical Yearbook’ (2010–2021) and the ‘China Trade and External Economic Statistical Yearbook’ (2010–2021). Rare missing data were addressed using interpolation or moving average techniques. Table 4 shows the descriptive statistics for the control and treatment groups. The total sample in this study is 1,443, comprising 572 observations in the treatment group and 871 in the control group. The mean value of the dependent variable within the treatment group is 0.479, twice that of the control group, which concurs with the expected policy effects of the CMSR aimed at improving coastal cities’ openness to global markets. This correspondence supports the expected CMSR’s impact on enhancing the opening-up of cities in China’s coastal provinces. Furthermore, the standard deviation of the dependent variable in the treatment group exceeds that of the control group, at 0.473 and 0.289, respectively, suggesting varying impacts of the policy on the cities, with substantial intragroup disparities. This disparity leads to subsequent heterogeneity analyses in this study. The marginal disparity in the mean values of other control variables (e.g., lnpgdp and lnindustry) between the treatment and control groups indicates minimal influence of the CMSR on these variables. This highlights the rationale behind the covariates selection in this study, further supporting the use of the methods in this study.

3.4 PSM matching results

3.4.1 psm matching results and common support region.

The propensity score was calculated using the Logit function in this study. Subsequently, the kernel matching method was used to conduct one-to-many matching between the treatment and the control group. Figure  3 shows the propensity scores’ common support region derived from the treatment and control group samples, indicating a substantial overlap in the propensity score distributions, with most scores falling within the common range. After the matching process, the treatment and the control groups retained 1427 samples, resulting in a loss of 16 samples. This outcome suggests a satisfactory matching effect (Table  5 ).

Common support region based PSM method

3.4.2 Balance test

To ensure the accuracy of the PSM outcomes, this study conducted a thorough examination of covariate balance, as presented in Tables 6 and 7 . Prior to PSM, significant disparities were observed between the treatment group and the control group regarding geographical location, industrial structure, and infrastructure development level. However, after PSM, no significant systematic differences were found between the treatment group and the control group in terms of covariates. The standardized bias decreased from 21.0% before matching to 5.0%, the pseudo R-squared decreased from 0.063 to 0.002, and the LR statistic decreased from 121.75 to 3.06. Additionally, this study assessed the robustness of the matching method by employing alternative matching techniques such as k-nearest-neighbor matching, caliper matching, within-caliper nearest-neighbor matching, and spline matching. The balance tests indicated that the matching outcomes of these methods passed the tests (Fig.  4 ). Based on the aforementioned test results, it can be concluded that the PSM effectively mitigates systematic differences in covariates between the treatment group and the control group, thereby addressing sample selection bias and the endogeneity issues associated with it.

Kernel matching results

3.4.3 Parallel trend test

The accurate estimation of the CMSR’s policy impact through PSM-DID depends on the premise of parallel trends, where, before implementing the policy, the developmental trajectories of openness levels among cities in both groups show relative consistency. This study is based on the methodological framework outlined by Jacobson et al. ( 1993 ) and uses the event study to meticulously assess the parallel trend assumption. The procedural details are explained as follows:

\({D}_{i{,t}_{0}+k}\) is a series of dummy variables, where \({t}_{0}\) denotes the year of policy implementation, taken as \({t}_{0}\) =0, and k denotes the k th year relative to the year of policy implementation. The sample period of this study is 2010–2021; therefore, \({t}_{0}+k\) can be taken as {–5, –4, –3, –2, –1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}. \({X}_{it}\) denotes control variables, consistent with the baseline regression. \({\alpha }_{t}\) defines the variance in the openness level of cities between the treatment and control groups during the k th year of implementing the CMSR-related pilot policy.

To further prevent the effect of multicollinearity on the estimation, we perform the regression using the previous period when the policy was implemented as the base period (Jia, 2014 ). Figure  5 shows the results of the parallel trend test. The regression coefficients are not significant in all periods before the policy shocks, indicating no significant difference between the level of opening-up of cities in the treatment and control groups before the CMSR implementation.

Parallel trend test

4 Empirical results and discussion

4.1 baseline regression results.

Considering the most significant development strategy for China’s opening-up in the new era, the CMSR offers a quasi-natural experiment. Thus, building upon the PSM results, this study uses the DID method to assess the policy effect of the CMSR on the level of openness in China’s coastal provinces and cities. The baseline regression results are presented in Table  7 .

Table 8 shows the estimation results of baseline regression. Column (1) shows the estimation results without adding control variables and any fixed effects to the model, while column (2) shows the results of adding time-fixed and city-fixed effects to the model, indicating that the CMSR significantly increases the level of opening-up of China’s coastal provinces and cities to the outside world. Columns (3)–(7) show the estimation results of gradually adding control variables, such as the level of economic development. After controlling for other influencing factors, the estimated coefficients of all core independent variables of the model are all significantly positive at the 1% level, which further confirms that the CMSR significantly boosts the level of opening-up of cities in coastal provinces in China. Specifically, column (7) shows that the CMSR increases the level of opening-up of cities in coastal provinces by 11.9%.

4.2 Robustness tests

4.2.1 shortening the sample period.

Given the CMSR’s official implementation in 2015 and its significant impact on promoting the openness of cities along the route, the substantial policy effect on the openness of these cities is likely to persist, regardless of the variations in the time interval of the quasi-natural experiment. To assess the randomness of the selected sample period, the period is further narrowed down to 2011–2020. The regression results are presented in column (1) of Table  9 , indicating that even after reducing the time, the CMSR significantly enhances the level of openness in cities along the route, consistent with the baseline regression findings.

4.2.2 Alternative matching method

To assess the robustness of the kernel matching method used in the PSM procedure and reduce the potential inaccuracies arising from the subjective selection of matching methods, this study includes the caliper nearest-neighbor matching method ( k  = 4, caliper = 0.02) to redefine the treatment and control groups. Column (2) of Table  9 presents the estimation results derived using the same method. It is evident that the coefficient of the interaction term remains significant, indicating that the formal implementation of the CMSR still has a substantial positive effect on the level of openness in cities along the route.

4.2.3 Excluding centrally administered municipalities sample

This empirical study uses a sample comprising prefecture-level cities, while Shanghai and Tianjin, as centrally administered municipalities, hold administrative statuses similar to provincial-level entities. Given their robust infrastructure and advanced economic status, their inclusion in the regression analysis sample may interfere with the estimation results, potentially yielding inflated coefficient estimates. This study conducts regression analysis with a sample that excludes centrally administered municipalities. Column (3) of Table  9 shows that even after mitigating the influence of centrally administered municipalities, the CMSR continues to significantly boost the level of opening-up of cities in coastal provinces, which emphasizes the robustness of the conclusions drawn in this study.

4.2.4 Excluding provincial capital samples

Provincial capital cities are central to political and economic activities in their respective provinces. Their unique administrative status helps them attract top-tier talent and foster innovation while granting them access to a broader range of preferential policies. These factors may influence regression outcomes, potentially inflating estimated coefficients. To address this concern, this study analyzes regression after excluding all samples from provincial capital cities. Column (4) of Table  9 shows consistency with the benchmark regression outcomes even after excluding provincial capital city samples, thereby improving the robustness of the conclusions presented in this study.

4.2.5 Time placebo tests

To ensure the credibility of causal conclusions and exclude the influence of non-policy factors on the study findings, this study conducts placebo tests to validate the policy’s exogeneity. Given the CMSR’s sustained and unexpected effect, if the selected policy is exogenous, shifting the policy timing should have a minimum impact on the level of openness in cities along the route. Therefore, 2014 and 2016 are selected as the hypothetical implementation years of the placebo policy. The regression results are presented in columns (5) and (6) of Table  9 . Assuming a delay in the policy timing to 2016, the CMSR continues to significantly raise the level of openness in cities along the route, indicating its sustained effect. This finding further strengthens the robustness of the estimated policy effect. However, assuming that the policy timing is advanced to 2014, the CMSR significantly affects the level of openness in cities along the route, suggesting no real policy effect. These results confirm the robustness of the estimated policy effect of the CMSR on the level of openness in China’s coastal provinces and cities.

4.2.6 Individual placebo test

The standard procedure for conducting a placebo test under the DID method is to randomly assign individuals to a treatment group and repeat this process n times to assess the significance of the coefficients associated with ‘pseudo-policy dummy variable’. Assuming a consistent policy implementation timeframe, this study randomly designates 46 cities from the sample to form the new experimental group, with the remaining cities constituting the control group. The regression analysis is then rerun to derive updated coefficient estimates, repeating this procedure 1000 times. Subsequently, the probability density distributions of these estimation results are plotted (Fig.  6 ).

Individual placebo test results

The findings show that the estimated coefficients conform to a normal distribution, with most centered around 0. Most estimates yield p -values greater than 0.1, indicating non-significance at the 10% threshold. This implies that the estimates presented in this study are unlikely to result from chance alone and are less likely influenced by extraneous policies or random factors. Therefore, these findings suggest that the sample data are consistent with the expected outcomes of a single placebo test.

5 Further analysis

5.1 mechanism analysis.

This section further examines whether the CMSR affects the level of openness in cities along the route using three mechanisms: production factor allocation, product market integration, and smooth circulation. The mechanism variables and their definitions are shown in Table  3 in the previous text. This study uses the interaction regression method to empirically analyze the mechanisms by which the CMSR’s construction increases the level of openness in cities along the route. The regression results are presented in Table  10 .

First, this study uses total factor productivity (TFP) as a measure of production factor allocation in prefecture-level cities. The actual GDP acts as the output variable, while capital stock (calculated using the perpetual inventory method) and total employment in society are considered the input variables. Data envelopment analysis is used to construct the Malmquist index and calculate the cities’ TFP. An interaction term (oceanroad_tf) is created between TFP and the CMSR’s construction for pilot cities. Column (1) of Table  10 shows that the coefficient of the interaction term between TFP and the CMSR’s construction is significantly positive. This suggests that in regions with higher production factor allocation efficiency, the CMSR’s influence on promoting openness in cities along the route is more pronounced. In other words, the CMSR’s construction optimizes the production factor allocation efficiency, thereby raising the level of openness and thus validating H1.

Second, the study uses the total sales of wholesale and retail trade above the quota as an indicator of product market integration in terms of imports and exports. An interaction term (oceanroad_tg) is created between product market integration and CMSR construction. The regression results are represented in column (2) of Table  10 , showing that the coefficient of the interaction term is significantly positive. This suggests that the CMSR construction facilitates product market integration, leading to a higher level of openness. Furthermore, at higher levels of product market integration, the effect of the CMSR construction on the level of openness becomes more pronounced, thus validating H2.

Third, this study uses the volume of waterborne freight transport to indicate the degree of smooth circulation. An interaction term (oceanroad_tt) is created between smooth circulation and the CMSR construction. Column (3) of Table  10 shows that the coefficient of the interaction term is significantly positive. Similar conclusions can be drawn, suggesting that the CMSR construction facilitates smooth circulation and thereby promotes the level of openness, thus validating H3.

5.2 Heterogeneity analysis

This section examines the CMSR’s heterogeneous impact on the level of openness in pilot cities. The samples from the treatment and the control groups are classified and compared based on three factors: city size (i.e., large, medium, and small), geographical location (i.e., coastal and noncoastal), and adjacency factors (i.e., inter-provincial and non-inter-provincial border cities). This classification allows for a comprehensive analysis of how the construction effects vary across different city sizes, geographical locations, and adjacency characteristics.

5.2.1 Heterogeneity in city size

This study categorizes the total sample into large, medium, and small cities based on their size and overall development level (Table  11 ). Columns (1)–(3) of Table  12 present the regression results, revealing that the CMSR construction significantly increases the level of openness in large cities, followed by medium cities. The coefficient of the interaction term in the sample of large cities is 0.143, considerably higher than the coefficient of 0.05 in the sample of medium cities. However, there is no significant improvement in openness for small cities.

Large cities, which mainly include first-tier, new first-tier, and second-tier cities, have more advanced infrastructure, a more practical industrial structure, and abundant resources in terms of talent, technological innovation, and market. These cities attract a greater influx of foreign direct investment and encourage local companies to actively integrate into the global value chain. Their economic strength and level of openness exceed those of other cities. Consequently, the CMSR has a stronger impact on encouraging extensive and comprehensive exchanges and cooperation between large cities and other countries and regions along the route. Unlike large cities, medium cities, mainly comprising third-tier cities, still show gaps in infrastructure development, talent resources, innovation element aggregation, and policy flexibility. However, their manufacturing-based industrial structure offers a solid foundation for economic growth. They can swiftly adapt to technological innovation and the trends of economic globalization, gradually optimize their industrial structure, and intensify efforts in technological innovation. These cities can leverage their own advantages, actively engage in international trade, and enhance their level of openness with the help of the CMSR. Unlike large and medium cities, small cities, comprising fourth- and fifth-tier cities, typically develop unique industries based on local conditions. Their infrastructure is relatively underdeveloped, they lack talent resources and innovation elements, their economic foundations are weak, they are less attractive to foreign investors, and they struggle to align their production levels with international standards.

5.2.2 Heterogeneity in geographic location

This study further categorizes the sample into coastal and non-coastal cities based on their geographical location. The regression results are presented in columns (4) and (5) of Table  12 . The findings indicate that the CMSR significantly raises the level of openness in coastal pilot cities, while it has no significant effect on that in noncoastal pilot cities. The CMSR’s core objective is to foster economic connections and cultural exchanges among countries and regions along the route by establishing a robust maritime transportation system. Coastal cities, unlike noncoastal cities, typically have natural advantages such as excellent harbors and well-developed port infrastructure, offering favorable geographical conditions. With the CMSR’s policy support, the level of openness in coastal cities significantly improves.

5.2.3 Heterogeneity in adjacency factors

This study classifies the sample into inter-provincial and non-inter-provincial border cities based on whether cities are situated on provincial (or international) boundaries. The regression results are presented in columns (6) and (7) of Table  12 . The term inter-provincial border cities implies that a city is located at the borderline between provinces. The CMSR’s efficacy in improving the openness levels has a significant disparity between inter-provincial and non-inter-provincial border cities. Inter-provincial border cities face formidable obstacles in infrastructure development, worsened by ‘border effects’ in road transportation stemming from policy barriers and market segmentation imposed by administrative boundaries. Infrastructure development in inter-provincial border cities lags behind that of non-inter-provincial border cities due to the disparity in resource allocation for road construction and provision of public services. Provincial governments typically prioritize the public service infrastructures and well-connected road networks within inter-provincial border cities. Moreover, the existing administrative boundaries generate significant ‘border effects’ as resource allocation systems vastly differ between the economic regions on both sides of the administrative boundaries, resulting in market segmentation and the inability to establish a unified market for the division of labor and cooperation to fully leverage their respective comparative advantages. Inter-provincial border cities face difficulties in creating large markets and implementing cohesive factor allocation strategies. Mechanism analysis reveals that the CMSR mainly uses production factor allocation, product market integration, and transportation infrastructure enhancements to improve the opening-up of cities in coastal provinces. Unlike their counterparts at inter-provincial borders, non-inter-provincial border cities boast robust infrastructure networks, thereby creating unified regional markets and resulting in efficient factor allocation. Consequently, the CMSR’s impact on improved level of openness is significant in pilot cities distant from inter-provincial junctions.

6 Conclusions and recommendations

This study used a quasi-natural experiment approach to assess the CMSR’s policy effects on the level of openness in China’s coastal pilot provinces. From 2009 to 2021, a sample of 113 coastal cities were included. The study findings are as follows: ① The CMSR significantly increases the level of openness of pilot cities along the route. ② The initiative significantly enhances the level of openness of pilot cities by optimizing factor allocation efficiency, integrating the import-export market, and facilitating smoother circulation. ③ The CMSR’s promotion effect on the level of openness of pilot cities varies depending on city size, geographic location, and adjacency factors. Large cities are the most significantly affected, followed by medium-sized cities, while small cities with weaker economic foundations do not receive significant benefits. Coastal pilot cities show a more substantial improvement in openness than noncoastal pilot cities. Moreover, the initiative’s impact is more pronounced for non-inter-provincial border pilot cities than inter-provincial border pilot cities.

These findings have important policy implications. First, it is imperative to promote the BRI construction while emphasizing high quality and examining new paths for global resource allocation. This involves leveraging the initiative’s integration capacity to enhance the combination of domestic and international production factors, talent resources, and innovative technologies. There is a need for efficient chains for factors, industries, talents, and innovation to expand the scope and depth of global resource allocation, including capital and technology.

Second, the main bottlenecks hindering regional openness should be addressed by improving infrastructure construction. Progress should be encouraged in inter-provincial infrastructure construction, such as highways and high-speed railways, to improve transportation conditions and reduce the cost of participation in the BRI and international trade activities. This will improve the ability and level of integration with the world economy. Moreover, accelerating the development of new-generation information technology infrastructure, such as the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence, is essential for harnessing the role of the platform economy in international economic and trade exchanges.

Third, there is a need to optimize the CMSR’s strategic deployment and continuously promote high-level openness. Port construction and connectivity that support the development of key nodes and major ports should be emphasized. This will establish a maritime transportation system connecting China and countries along the route. In the marine economy, it is essential to promote cooperation among strategic emerging industries such as marine medicine and marine equipment, forming a cooperative model integrating resources, technology, and products. Furthermore, integrating regional development strategies and leveraging the advantages of economically open and strong regions, such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the western coast of the Taiwan Strait, should actively involve more non-pilot cities in the CMSR construction, thus accelerating the formation of a new development pattern with a domestic circulation as the mainstay and a dual domestic-international circulation, cultivating new highlands of openness.

7 Discussion

Currently, several studies have focused on the effects of the ‘Belt and Road’ policy in domestic and foreign academic circles. This study focuses on the CMSR’s impact on the level of opening-up of coastal cities and explains its impact mechanism on the level of opening-up of coastal cities by combining the Heckscher-Ohlin Theory, Comparative Advantage Theory, and Trade Gravity Model. It also clarifies its influence mechanism on the level of opening-up of cities in coastal provinces. However, more studies are required on the following topics.

Currently, several studies, both domestic and international, focus on assessing the BRI’s effects. This study, however, evaluates the CMSR’s influence specifically on the openness levels of coastal cities. By combining theories such as the Heckscher-Ohlin Theory, Comparative Advantage Theory, and Trade Gravity Model, the CMSR’s influence on the level of opening-up of cities in coastal provinces has been explained. However, there remains room for refinement, as follows:

First, to comprehensively assess a city’s openness to the global arena, there is a need for a multidimensional perspective, requiring a comprehensive indicator evaluation system. This study uses the ratio of total imports and exports to GDP as an indicator of a city’s level of openness. This selection stems from the direct correlation between the aggregate import-export volume and the extent of a city’s engagements in the international trade of goods and services. In particular, this indicator is consistent with the standard metrics used by China’s statistical authorities to indicate external openness levels. However, it is relevant to note that a city’s openness covers a broader spectrum of dimensions. Beyond trade metrics, factors such as foreign direct investment, cultural exchanges, population mobility, and technological collaborations also contribute significantly to evaluating a city’s external openness.

Second, there is a need to expand the research scope to a global level. While this study currently focuses on a sample comprising prefecture-level cities within China’s coastal provinces to evaluate the CMSR’s domestic implications, it is crucial to acknowledge the extensive reach of this initiative. Originating in China and culminating in Europe, the CMSR traverses numerous nations en route , including Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Africa. Leveraging country-specific data from these regions gives an opportunity to examine the CMSR’s impact on the openness levels of countries along its route.

Finally, broadening the study’s scope to cover the maritime economy presents a compelling avenue for exploration. The CMSR primarily facilitates trade exchanges among nations along its path by opening up maritime trade routes, focusing on advancing the marine economy. Consequently, subsequent studies have the opportunity to examine various facets. Macro-level studies may examine the impact of constructing the CMSR on fostering high-quality marine development in China or the countries along the route. From a meso-level perspective, studies may examine how the initiative influences the development of specific sea-related industries, such as marine fisheries, marine engineering manufacturing, and strategic emerging marine sectors. Moreover, at the micro level, constructing a sample of ocean-based enterprises allows an in-depth analysis of the import and export behaviors of firms engaged along the CMSR.

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Although Shandong is not along the CMSR, Qingdao and Yantai in Shandong Province have been categorized as node cities of the Belt and Road Initiative, and in order to ensure the scientific validity and rigor of the empirical conclusions, these two cities are excluded from the control group in this study.

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Wang, Y., Gao, Y., Wang, Y. et al. Can the ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ initiative improve the opening-up of China’s coastal provinces?. Mar Dev 2 , 19 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44312-024-00031-4

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Received : 18 March 2024

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s44312-024-00031-4

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A new academic year is set to begin after what was one of the most tumultuous years on college campuses since the Vietnam War–era protests. Depending on one’s perspective, higher education institutions have emerged as sites of protest against a disturbing foreign conflict rife with humanitarian crises; they have been dangerous hotbeds of radicalism threatening Jewish community members; or they have been testing grounds for the limits of free speech in the 21st century. From our vantage point, as the president and a faculty member at a small liberal arts college, all can be true, and it is precisely the legitimacy of multiple perspectives that has made life on campus this past year so difficult and demanding.

We can’t sugarcoat it, because we live it: The breakdown of dialogue on college campuses is real. The irony that liberal arts institutions of higher education are struggling to navigate diverse perspectives is not lost on us. Institutions of higher education insist that navigating differences is core to their work. Mission statements aplenty claim that being able to engage multiple viewpoints represents a central educational value. That so many colleges and universities are grappling with their most basic and central educational commitments should give pause.

It pushes us to ask a question that has largely gone unasked: Is a breakdown in how we now educate partially to blame for the current breakdown on campuses? In other words, is it us?

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Current tumult has obscured a crucial organizing tenet of higher education: to be always in pursuit of greater understanding. It is cliché, perhaps. But in these toughest of days, we found ourselves thinking about the deeper implications of being “in pursuit.” To pursue understanding is to conceive of knowledge building as requiring continuous seeking, revising and questioning. Such an approach to learning is desperately needed today not only because it fosters curiosity (which it does) but also because it staves off absolutist impulses to deride and silence others’ views, impulses we have seen firsthand.

Consider, for example, a tremendously difficult class one of us co-taught on the history of blackface performances and minstrel practices during the early part of the 20th century at what was then our all-women’s college. Since the course dealt with deeply racist practices, the understandable desire to singularly condemn the college’s history was palpable. Indeed, at the start of the class, many students, most of whom were white, described their motivations for taking the class primarily in terms of exposing the college’s racist past. “Critique” was the language they spoke, which they took to mean uncovering the college’s blameworthy history, denouncing the practices they were studying and confirming their own absolutes about race and hypocrisy at elite institutions more broadly. They described their attachment to the institution as tenuous. It was clear that, to their thinking, college was a place to have an educational experience and receive a degree, while the notion that they might develop a sense of fidelity or obligation to a college with a racist history, or develop a complex understanding of a condemned practice, was an anathema.

But something different happened. What unfolded over the course of the semester was an exercise in the pursuit of understanding. If the students began the course convinced about the racist motivations of their counterparts in the early 20th century, their research complicated those assumptions. They learned that all-women performances of blackface at that time were quite rare, and so what was happening on campus then represented something distinct. Their inquiries led them to consider the transition from 19th-century Victorian models of white womanhood to newer formulations in the early 20th century that came to be known as first-wave feminism. They began to ask: Is it possible that these blackface performances contributed to this transition? Did commitments to feminism and gender equality at that time actually reinforce persistent racial inequalities? How is it possible that these young women could have genuinely believed they were pursuing a form of self-liberation through racist tropes and performances?

Their answers to these questions went in many directions, and none of them excused the racism of this time. But instead of vilifying these earlier students and refusing to understand perspectives different from their own, our students began to see their predecessors as flawed and complicated with multiple motivations; these included a daring to do what men were doing in an attempt to articulate their own desires for equality. Again, our students did not excuse these practices or the women who participated in them as much as they began to understand their behavior as sitting in a complex network of forces, a condition that may very well mark the human experience. Crucially in the final sets of class meetings, the students began to wonder about themselves as similarly flawed and circumscribed by social forces of which they may not be fully aware.

The effects of this insight on the students’ relationships to the institution were significant. They began to see the college in the early 20th century as a context in which young white women, many of whom were from the middle classes, were struggling to craft a self during a tumultuous time of changing norms. The parallels became obvious. The students began to understand that they too sit in cross-pressured contexts in which they are haltingly and fallibly trying to make sense of themselves in their own turbulent times.

We do not want to overstate the effects of the class; however, the experience gave students a profound encounter with the power of epistemic humility, an acknowledgement of the necessity of curiosity, nuance, uncertainty and multiple perspectives needed for building knowledge. That encounter expanded the students’ capacity to understand—and even have empathy for—a broader range of experiences and perspectives, a necessary condition for engaging the pluralism possible on a college campus.

The question facing higher education today is how to build these types of experiences. The good news is that this doesn’t require fancy lab equipment or other expensive infrastructure. It does require three basic elements—instructors committed to giving their students an experience of novel inquiry, primary sources and time. When faculty make clear that the entire purpose of the class is for students to figure out what they think, students begin to understand the power of question asking. From there, any question—from the teacher, their classmates and themselves—feels exploratory and enticing.

Primary sources—original documents or images—are vital because they cry out for multiple interpretations, functioning like a ball-and-socket joint around which students’ thoughts, ideas and questions can begin to turn. Critically, all this takes time. Students need time to trust that the instructor genuinely wants them to go on a journey of their own. And the meanings of images and texts surface slowly, yielding only to the student’s patience and persistence to ask questions from multiple perspectives.

At the end of the 19th century, William James insisted that education required “the habit of always seeing an alternative, of not taking the usual for granted, of making conventionalities fluid again, of imagining foreign states of mind.” In the 20th century, W. E. B. Du Bois worried about the dangers of education reinforcing “the overwhelming sense of the I, and the consequent forgetting of the Thou.” And in the 21st century, the feminist literary theorist Rita Felski asks , “Why—even as we extol multiplicity, difference, hybridity … are we so hyperarticulate about our adversaries?”

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All three circle around the same idea. To be always in the pursuit of greater understanding is to confess that we have more to learn. It is to conceive of education as a process of relationship building between our own perspectives and experiences not our own. Without this, our relationships with those with different experiences risk becoming brittle and unsustainable. Unable to contain a community’s multitudes, we resort to excising—canceling—those whom we cannot countenance. The pursuit of understanding requires the opposite.

Today’s campuses need to develop and be given greater latitude for this version of learning. We know from experience that this process is messy, and we need to allow for that messiness, knowing that exploration, mistakes and missteps are all part of learning. We must resist the temptation to drop the “in pursuit” and focus only on the “understanding,” as if learning amounts to nothing more than the dogmatic piling up of facts.

The pursuit of understanding emphasizes the dynamics of learning, which necessarily expands our abilities to comprehend a broad range of perspectives and experiences. Most importantly, the pursuit of understanding pushes us to ask what sort of human each of us wants to be in relation to others. Our future together relies on being forever in pursuit.

Elizabeth H. Bradley is the president of Vassar College and a professor of science, technology and society, and of political science. She is deeply engaged with research on the performance and quality of higher education institutions in the U.S. Jonathon S. Kahn is a professor of religion and the former director of engaged pluralism at Vassar College. He works at the intersection of race, religious ethics and politics.

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