A review of China’s overseas economic and trade cooperation zones along the Belt and Road: Progress and prospects

As a new mode for Chinese overseas investment and a growth pole for industrialization and urbanization of the host countries, the overseas economic and trade cooperation zone (OETCZ) or overseas free economic zone (OFEZ) of China plays an important role under the Belt and Road Initiative. With the rising attention on OETCZ, studies regarding OETCZ have also increased. However, there is a lack of studies reviewing this topic’s progress, challenges and future directions. This paper employs a systematic review to examine the literature on the OETCZ along the Belt and Road, based on domestic and overseas studies. The results show that domestic studies account for a large proportion of the collected literature, compared to overseas studies. Interdisciplinary research focus includes inductive case studies from a classification perspective, deductive studies based on cultural and institutional perspectives, trade network and bilateral trade relations based on the perspectives of international trade and regional economy, spatial planning studies from urban planning perspective, and overseas comments and earlier studies on Japan’s and Singapore’s overseas parks from the geopolitical and international political perspectives. Despite diverse research contents and dramatic progress, limitations exist in current OETCZ-related studies, including a lack of exploration of the mechanism, questions and concerns from overseas scholars, sustainable development and other problems. Future studies should broaden and deepen research insights, including the “overseas free economic zones (OFEZ)” as a general designation to cover all other types of OETCZs, studies on the primary conditions of host countries, exploration of the theoretical issues behind China’s OETCZ, comparative study of OETCZs such as management structures, profit models, environmental standards and legal systems as well as popular issues questioned internationally.