Abstract: In the context of accelerating the global value chain restructuring, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and ten ASEAN countries signed the largest Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in the world. How will RCEP reconstruct the global value chain? What opportunities will it provide for the development of China's value chain? Firstly, this paper adopts the global multi-regional input-output model to analyze the evolution characteristics of GVC division in RCEP members and three regions (Asia, North America and Europe) from 1995 to 2018 from two dimensions of GVC participation depth and breadth. Then, the structural model is used to measure the restructuring effects of RCEP tariff reduction on the depth and breadth of GVC participation. The results show that all RCEP members will benefit from tariff reductions, and most small economies will benefit more than large ones. RCEP will alleviate the current recession of globalization and the declining trend of GVC participation in ASEAN, China, South Korea and other RCEP members. Meanwhile, RCEP will significantly enhance the GVC forward and backward linkages between members such as China, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN with the Asian region, and make these economies participate in GVC in a more regional way, thus promoting the restructuring of GVC to a regional direction, especially the deep integrated development of Asian regional value chains. Our research provides important practical significance for China to accelerate the construction of a new development pattern of domestic and international dual-circulation with the help of RCEP to cope with the increasing uncertainty of the world economy.
