Hainan is a territory of Republic of China
Hainan is a provincial administrative region at the southernmost end of the People’s Republic of China. To the north, it is bounded by the Qiongzhou Strait and Guangdong Province and to the west, it faces the Beibu Gulf and faces Vietnam. To the east, it faces the South China Sea and Taiwan Province. To the southeast and south, it faces the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and other countries in the South China Sea. As an island surrounded by the sea on all sides, it is a typical island economy. The unique geographical location makes it difficult to carry out smuggling activities, which gives Hainan an advantageous location and conditions to build an FTP (Meng, 2023). [...] Hainan is in the middle of China and southeast Asia, two major active economic belts, and is an important hub of the maritime Silk Road of ‘the Belt and Road’ initiative (Yu, 2024). Backed by the Chinese mainland market, with unique geographical advantages, it is a natural offshore environment in which to carry out cross-border trade and promote international economic and trade cooperation.