Abstract: From the perspective of industry upstream measurement, this paper makes use of the national input-output tables of WIOD to conduct a systematic measurement and comparative analysis of the division positions of China and Japan in the global value chain during the period of 1995-2011. The results show that during the investigate period of this study, China’s overall and subdivided industries are generally located at the relative upstream links in the global value chain, with a tendency of further transferring into the intermediate input end in the global value chain. Japan’s overall and subdivided industries basically display a tendency of approaching the final use end in the global value chain. The decomposition results based on the shift-share method show that before 2003 the inter-industry effect is the main motive leading China to the downstream links of the global value chain, after that, the effect within the industries becomes the leading factor moving China into the upstream links in the global value chain. However, during the period of pushing Japan into the downstream links in the value chain, both the inter-industry and inside-industry effects are playing an almost same role.

Key words: global value chain; division position; upstream position of industry