Cross‐National Industrial Spillovers and Regional Value Chain Resilience: Empirical Evidence From China

ABSTRACT

As geopolitical rivalry intensifies and pressures toward deglobalization grow, the systemic vulnerabilities of global production networks have become increasingly evident. Global value chains are shifting from an efficiency‐first model toward one that places greater emphasis on both efficiency and security, accelerating the regional reorganization of cross‐border production. Using industry‐level panel data covering China and 20 Asia‐Pacific partner countries from 2000 to 2022, this paper examines how cross‐national industrial spillovers affect regional value chain resilience. The results show that cross‐national industrial spillovers significantly strengthen China's regional value chain resilience. Mechanism analysis indicates that these spillovers operate through two complementary channels: they reduce bilateral institutional frictions and improve soft infrastructure, while also deepening China's digital embeddedness in partner countries and strengthening hard infrastructure connectivity. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that the resilience‐enhancing effect is concentrated in technology‐ and knowledge‐intensive industries and is particularly pronounced for partner countries with higher levels of political trust and greater geographic proximity. These findings provide new empirical evidence on the regional restructuring of global value chains and suggest that emerging economies can strengthen resilience to external frictions and production disruptions by developing regional production networks with politically trusted and geographically proximate partners.