An analysis on the policy evolution of cross-border ecommerce industry in China from the perspective of sustainability

The rapid development of China’s cross-border e-commerce has largely benefited from the support of industrial policies. This paper adopts social network analysis and content analysis, builds an analytical framework from the four dimensions: policy time, policy document type, text subject, and content theme. We conduct a quantitative analysis of 81 cross-border e-commerce industry policy texts from 2008 to 2018, and systematically reveal the characteristics of China’s cross-border e-commerce industry policy system, including document structure, subject network and content theme, as well as the time trend of those characteristics. The results show that China has initially established a cross-border e-commerce industry policy system with reasonable text structure and relatively concentrated themes, which covers all business links of the cross-border e-commerce industry ecological chain. Among them, four departments, including the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Customs, the Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Finance, are at the core of the cooperation network on industrial policy issuance. Customs management, foreign exchange receipt and payment, business pattern, tax administration, credit management, inside and outside coordination are the most concerned themes of cross-border e-commerce industry policy system during 2008–2018.