Against the background of high-quality Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation, this study examines how the interaction between high-quality digital cooperation and high-quality innovation cooperation affects industrial chain integration between China and BRI partner countries.
Drawing on data for China and BRI partner countries from 2010 to 2023, this study constructs BRI industrial linkage networks based on multi-regional input-output data. The proposed hypotheses are tested through fixed-effects models, mediation analysis, and additional robustness checks.
The results show that high-quality digital cooperation and high-quality innovation cooperation are mutually reinforcing, and their interaction significantly promotes industrial chain integration between China and BRI partner countries. The strength and breadth of industrial linkage network ties play mediating roles. Heterogeneity tests further indicate that these effects are more pronounced for Asian BRI partner countries, relatively developed partner countries and medium- and high-technology manufacturing industries.
This paper enriches research on high-quality BRI cooperation in the digital economy era by integrating digital cooperation and innovation cooperation into a unified framework. It develops bilateral, multidimensional measures of high-quality digital and innovation cooperation and extends the research on BRI industrial chain from an industrial linkage network perspective.
