Abstract: The imbalance of China regional economic development leads to the different of environment effect of foreign trade. Emissions of both SO₂ and CO₂ are adopted as pollution index, by using the panel data during the period of 1990-2008, the environmental effects of foreign trade in China central, eastern, and western regions are investigated, and the direct and indirect effects of trade on pollution are analyzed, at the end, the short term and long term elastic coefficients of the regional trade on the pollution are calculated. The results show that (1) the environment effect of foreign trade is relevant to the difference region in China and the type of pollutants, the international trade is beneficial to the improvement of eastern region environment, but it generates a more adverse effect to the central and western regions; (2) the elastics of trade on pollution in long term is bigger than that in the short term, it means that pollution effects for the long term is bigger than that for the short term.

Key words: trade liberalization, environmental pollution, environmental effect, regional difference