“Measurement and spatiotemporal evolution of geo-economic relationships in China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry”

In recent years, continuous changes in geo-economics and environment, especially the rise in global trade protectionism, have severely impacted China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry, which is dominant in international trade. Therefore, this paper attempts to examine the geo-economic environment and influence factors of China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry, and puts forward strategies to improve the competitiveness of China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry and promote its high-quality development. This paper selects indicators that can reflect the geo-economic relationships of compe- tition and complementarity, including household final consumption expenditure (% of GDP), sporting goods import and export trade volumes (% of GDP), FDI (% of GDP) and R&D (% of GDP) from 2013 to 2018. Using the standardized Euclidean distance method, the geo-economic relationship of sporting goods manufacturing industry be- tween China and each One Belt and One Road Initiative (BRI) country is obtained. Statistic results show that the geo-economic relationship of the sporting goods manu- facturing industry between China and other BRI countries is more competitive than complementary. Meanwhile, a map generated by the ARCGIS10.0 platform shows that competition between China and the BRI countries increased from 2013 to 2018. According to the analysis of statistical data regarding the aspects of the industrial struc- ture of China’s sporting goods manufacturing industry, geo-economics and geopolitics, respectively, several proposals are put forward for the high-quality development of the sporting goods manufacturing industry in China. 1.1% of the The sports goods manufacturing industry plays a pillar role. Administration of Sport statistics and trade


INTRODUCTION
On January 20, 2020, the latest statistics from the General Administration of Sport and the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the output value of China's sports industry was 2.7 billion yuan, and the added value of the sports industry accounted for 1.1% of the GDP in 2018. The sports goods manufacturing industry plays a pillar role. China's General Administration of Sport statistics show that, in 2018, sports goods and related products manufacturing accounted for as high as 49.7% which sales, rental and trade agents of sports goods and related products accounted for 15.5%. However, the international geo-economic situation is increasingly severe and complicated, especially the strengthening of global trade protectionism, and the tide of "anti-globalization" is sweeping the world; China's international trade, including the manufacturing industry of sporting goods, has been severely affected. To make mat-

LITERATURE REVIEW
The study of geo-economics has undergone a transformation from "geopolitics" and "geopolitical economy" to "geo-economy" (Cowen & Smith, 2009;Luttwak, 1990), and scholars have conducted a conceptual study of the geo-economic strategies of regional powers from the perspectives of neo-imperialism, neo-mercantilism, hegemonism and liberal institutionalism (Wigell, 2015). Scholars have also taken regions and powerful countries as their research objects to study issues related to, for example, European integration and the framework of bilateral relations in the EU (Smith, 2002), the geo-economic strategy of Germany after World War II (Kundnani, 2011), the geo-economic characteristics of Russia, especially against the background of economic sanctions (Aalto & Forsberg, 2015), and Japan's geo-economic strategy to pursue the maximization of its economic strength (Huntington, 1993).
In the geo-economic era, the competition between countries have replaced military factors as important means and tools of the game between countries (Luttwak, 1990). Baracuhy believes that geo-economic forces are reshaping globalization and the map of world trade has been redrawn (Baracuhy, 2014). The economic development of any two regions or countries are mutually influenced. The degree of influence depends on the close degree of geo-economic relations. It mainly reflects the competitiveness and complementarity of economic relations between countries or regions. Therefore, correct evaluation of geo-economic relations is the precondition for formulating appropriate regional economic development strategies and promoting the prosperity and development of the economy. According to the research content of this paper, relevant literature is sorted out from the following aspects.
In terms of the study of geo-economic relationship measurement, Pual Krugman's "New Economic Geography" has opened a precedent for scholars to study geo-economic relations (Krugman, 1998). From the perspective of time and space, scholars have used different methods to measure geo-economy or geo-economic relations. For example, by using the grey relational model based on the ideas of TOPSIS methods, Qin et al. (2020) measured the geo-economic connection between China and South American countries. Huang et al. (2019) calculated the geo-economic relationship between China, the United States and Japan based on Coulomb force model. Coccia (2007) analyzed the spatial mobility of technology transfer and knowledge spillover measuring their impact on the domestic geo-economic system by using evolutionary theory and economics of proximity. According to the space of flow theory (Castells, 1996), Hu et al. (2020) built a geo-economic flow model and measured the geo-economic relations between China and the BRI countries.
In addition to the literature from the perspective of the overall development of economy of the country or region mentioned above, some scholars have also measured geo-economy from perspectives of international trade and OFDI. Referring to empirical evidence of the BRI, Qiao (2019) analyzed the impact of geo-economic relations on China's OFDI. Du and Liu (2016) studied the geo-economic relationship of service industry between Beijing and 30 provinces in China. This is also one of the few papers that measure the geo-economic relationship of certain industries.
In terms of the research on sports goods manufacturing industry, scholars used the gravity model of trade and multiple linear regression and other methods to study the international trade of sports goods and the competitiveness of sports goods industry. Andreff M. and Andreff W. (2009) analyzed comparative advantages, disadvantages and competitiveness of sample countries' sports goods industry, and described the characteristics of international specialization of sports goods industry in different countries and regions. By using key data combined with case studies of global sporting goods brands positioned centrally in production networks, Wolfram (2014) carried out the quantitative analysis on the global sporting goods market and the role of Asian capital and Asian labor. Navjote and Balram (2008) studied the export barriers faced by Indian sports goods industry from the perspectives of financial, marketing, technology and input perspectives. Pinch and Henry (2010) analyzed the geographical cluster of the British motor sport industry though Paul Krugman's geographical economics. Taking football manufacturing as an example, Khalid et al. (2011) explored the relationship between the rise in Chinese and international labor standards, and analyzed how labor standards affected the geography and organization of global soccer production by comparing China, Pakistan and India as three major production areas. Using the test based on the extended trade gravity model, Ji and Ren (2020) discussed influencing factors and trade potential of China's sporting goods export to the BRI countries. Fu (2016) analyzed the current situation of Chinese sporting goods IPO enterprises and the opportunities and challenges they encounter when marching into ASEAN Trade Area.
In conclusion, previous research has provided assistance in terms of a research perspective, research ideas and methods, thus laying a solid foundation for this study. A literature review suggests that geo-economic relations, as a comprehensive indicator of the economic relations between countries or regions, can also reflect the competition and cooperation relationship of the sporting goods industry. Since there has not been a national geo-economic study of the sporting goods manufacturing industry, this paper has certain innovation.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
As one of the most popular geo-economic relationship measurement methods, the Euclidean Distance method, can help scholars' idea or needs that select different indicators to measure geo-economic relations between countries or regions. In the literature reviewed by the authors, Wen (1998) is the first author to propose the use of the "Euclidean distance measurement method" to measure geo-economic relations. After that, scholars standardized the Euclidean distance calculation based on Wen' s method and adjusted the standardized value according to the geographical location studied. For example, Du and Liu (2016) creatively incorporated the weight of the time-distance into the standardization of the distance value. By referring to the theory of regional economic competitiveness and the system analysis framework of city competitiveness, Zhang  Following the definition of geo-economic relationships, this paper assumes that the flow of resources and products, such as capital, technology, talent and other factors, which flow from high-efficiency places to low-efficiency places, can reflect the geo-economic relationships of competition and complementarity. Therefore, this study selects the following indicators to study the geo-economic relationship of China's sporting goods manufacturing industry.
The indicator X represents household final consumption expenditure (% of GDP). It reflects the purchasing power of households and the scale of the retail market in a country, and the higher X is, the stronger the output capacity of a country's products is. The proportion of sporting goods import and export trade volumes in GDP is represented by the indicator . Y It reflects a country's ability to absorb sporting goods resources and the dependence of sporting goods on foreign trade. The indicator Z represents FDI (% of GDP), which reflects the overall economic openness of a country, that is, the degree of its connection to the international economy. W represents research and development expenditure (% of GDP), which mainly reflects the efficiency with which a country's capital and resources are processed and converted.
The data standardization process for , X , Y Z and W generates ', W as the standard value of four indicators of China, the calculation formula for the actual distance between China and the country i indicators is as follows: In the formula, i stands for the index number for the countries.
Similarly, to improve the usefulness of the data, this paper standardizes i D and obtains the nor- If the value of In general, ' i D can be used to distinguish between competitive and complementary relationships between countries. However, the above calculation does not consider the impact of transportation, culture, geography, etc., on the relationships between countries or regions.
In particular, geographical location greatly affects capital flow, production and product circulation. As shown in Table 1, according to the spatial distance between the capitals of various countries and Beijing, this paper gives each country a corresponding weight and then multiplies the standardized Euclidean distance by that weight. In this way, the adjusted distance reflects the differences between countries more accurately. The standardized   Table 2.
According to the values of 2013 and 2018 generated with the help of ARCGIS10.0, Figure 1 shows the pattern in the geo-economic relationships of China's sporting goods manufacturing industry with those of the BRI countries in 2013 and 2018. By comparing the patterns in the geo-economic relationships in 2013 and 2018, the dynamic evolution of the geo-economic relationships in different regions can also be identified, which shows a trend of increasing competition.

DISCUSSION
Theoretically, there are two types of geo-economic relationships, namely, competitive and complementary relationships. However, in the actual analysis, according to the average value from 2013 to 2018, this paper further divides the geo-economic relationship into the following four types according to the threshold value of ': ik D strong competitive relationship, generally competitive relationship, generally complementary relationship and strong complementary relationship (Table 3).  The first cause is the industrial structure of China's sporting goods manufacturing industry.
In the past period, foreign processing and lowend manufacturing dominated China's sporting goods manufacturing industry, which has fewer core technologies and intellectual property rights. There are too many sports goods enterprises with low-added value and high consumption. Under   this background, the increasing rise of the international price of raw materials, fuel, and the surging domestic prices, including circulation costs, inflation and the rise in labor costs has significantly increased the cost of production of sporting goods. These directly lead to the fact that the comparative advantage of China's sporting goods manufacturing industry is no longer obvious. Furthermore, Chinese sporting goods enterprises are mostly engaged in foreign processing and exporting, so sporting goods transactions are settled in US dollars. Therefore, unstable exchange rate, especially the appreciation of the RMB, also lead to a significant increase in the cost of enterprises and has also caused the adverse situation of downstream foreign trade enterprises in the sporting goods sector.
The second cause that leads to the geo-economic situation of China's sporting goods manufacturing industry is geo-economic environment. In general, there is a lot of political and economic instability in the BRI zone, frequent regional conflicts and even wars, such as the Ukrainian crisis, the European migrant crisis, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. For example, the political conflict between Turkey and the United States directly led to the sharp devaluation of the Turkish lira, which has led to a sharp decline in economic growth of Turkey. Statistics from the Turkey Statistics Bureau show that the bilateral trade volume between China and Turkey has a significant downward trend from 2013-2018. In 2018, Turkey was affected by a domestic economic crisis. The import and export volume between China and Turkey even plunged by 10.4% to USD 23.62 billion (Wu, 2019).
Based on the causes above, this paper argues that the Chinese government, sporting goods manufacturing industry and enterprises should take the following steps to adapt to the changing geo-economic situation. Details are provided below.
Firstly, according to Kojima's marginal industry expansion theory, as an obvious industry about to lose its comparative advantage, the Chinese sporting goods manufacturing industry should accelerate the upgrading of industrial structure, actively cultivate and develop new technology-intensive sports products, and enhance export competitiveness. Increasing the export capacity of sporting goods can promote inter-industry trade between the two sides to transform competitive relations into cooperative ones.
Secondly, given that ASEAN has rich natural resources and cheap labor, and geographical location and cultural background are relatively close to China, especially the super national treatment of foreign investors, China's sports goods manufacturing industry should speed up the transfer of over-supplied enterprises to the region (Zhou et al., 2010).
Thirdly, according to the theory of product differentiation (Beath & Katsoulacos, 1991), China's sports goods manufacturing industry should fully consider geographical differences of each BRI country, including geographical location, sports culture, sports habits, economic level, consumption capacity, wealth gap, etc., to meet the needs of different consumers by integrating differences and emerging technologies into Chinese sports goods.
Fourthly, if China wants to maintain and even expand the advantage of sporting goods export scale, it should continue to explore emerging markets and strengthen its cooperation with other countries that are experiencing large and rapidly growing imports of sporting goods.
Fifthly, Chinese government should increase efforts to promote the internationalization of the RMB, and strive to improve the utilization rate and influence of the RMB. Because if RMB is the settlement currency for international trade of sporting goods, it is also beneficial to reduce the exchange rate risk and operating costs. Furthermore, by importing more raw materials, sporting goods companies can also hedge the increased cost of exports caused appreciation of the RMB.
Sixthly, as most important of all, China should resist unilateralism and protectionism, continue to support the multilateral trading system and actively advocate and firmly promote free trade. Under the WTO's cooperation framework, China should actively build or join more multilateral cooperation platforms, such as the newly signed RECP and EU-China Comprehensive Investment Agreement.

CONCLUSION
Since geo-economic competition and complementarity among countries are manifested in many industries and influence factors, different indicators should be selected to reflect different purposes of the actual analysis. Therefore, according to the characteristics of sporting goods manufacturing industry and the research purpose, this paper innovatively chooses four indicators to reflect geo-economic relations of China's sporting goods manufacturing industry, including household final consumption expenditure (% of GDP), the proportion of sporting goods import and export trade volumes in GDP, FDI (% of GDP), and R&D (% of GDP), and calculates the standardized Euclidean distance by using the model of geo-economic relationship. Statistics show that the geo-economic relationship in the sporting goods manufacturing industry between China and the 35 sample countries is more competitive than complementary overall, and the competition has increased significantly in recent years. According to the research results, this paper finds that the geo-economic relationship of China's sporting goods manufacturing industry is influenced by many aspects, which can be roughly divided into the industry itself, the geo-economic and geo-political environment of BRI. Finally, this paper puts forward several suggestions on how to improve the competitiveness and high-quality development of China's sporting goods industry. Under the background of the "Made in China 2025" strategy, this study will help China master the power of discourse of the sporting goods manufacturing industry worldwide and provide an important basis for government decision-making.