Author: Stephen Howes, ANU
Ever since the 1980s, Australian academics and official reports have called for Pacific Islanders to be given better access to the Australian labour market. To its credit, the Rudd Government introduced the Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme in August 2008. The scheme allows Pacific Islanders to engage in farm work in Australia for up to seven months a year. Unfortunately, the scheme has never taken off, with less than 100 Islanders participating in the two years since its launch. Theories for its failure abound ranging from excessive red-tape to the prolonged drought.
In stark contrast to Australia, New Zealand has always offered preferential migration treatment to its Pacific neighbours. Read more…
Author: Suman Bery, NCAER
On November 3, shortly before US President Barack Obama’s arrival in India, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve announced that it intended to undertake a fresh round of purchases of longer-term treasury securities in an aggregate amount of US$600 billion until the second quarter of 2011, at a pace of approximately US$75 billion per month.
Even though Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had done his best to ‘trail’ (that is, anticipate) this decision, starting with a speech at Jackson Hole, Wyoming in late August, the formal announcement of this move (so called QE2, denoting the second round of quantitative easing) has unleashed a firestorm of criticism both within the US and internationally. Read more…
Author: Fenna Egberink, the Netherlands
As critical accounts of Burma’s first elections in twenty years pour in, and as preliminary results confirm that the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party has secured its hold on the country’s government, the grouping which continues to lend significant international legitimacy to the withdrawn Southeast Asian country remains silent. Although ASEAN has in the past years adopted an increasingly critical attitude towards the Burmese regime, it has now again chosen to follow the path of least resistance.
When Burma was up for membership of the regional grouping in the 1990s its neighbors hoped the inclusion of Burma in a regional framework would bring about internal political reform, as had happened with Vietnam a few years earlier. Read more…
Author: Donald K Emmerson, Stanford University
President Barack Obama is currently in the middle of a major trip to the Asia-Pacific region. President Obama’s Asian itinerary excludes China, but that is not to shun Beijing. On the contrary, he will have chances to interact with Chinese leaders at international conferences in South Korea and Japan. And China’s role in regional and world affairs is a major subtext of his journey.
In relation to China, two big questions loom over the nine-day jaunt from India, Indonesia, South Korea to Japan: as a player in foreign affairs, will China become a responsible stakeholder, an irresponsible stick-wielder, or something in between? Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, ANU
President Obama’s trip to India, Indonesia, the G20 in Korea and APEC in Japan was all about America’s new engagement with Asia. As he said in his address at APEC in Yokohama, America wants to gain its share in the growth of Asian markets as they become a more and more important part of the global economic opportunity. But what does America need to do to achieve that objective?
There are some who see the idea of a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) as the instrument that will forge a new US economic relationship with Asia as well as broader economic integration across the region. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
Japanese politicians are still debating whether Japan should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). TPP members are not allowed exclusions. Agriculture is the issue, specifically the domestic political constraints imposed by protection of that sector in Japan. At the same time, the business sector is pushing hard to join.
The TPP builds on the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement which Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore set up in 2006. Read more…
Author: Rodolfo Severino, ISEAS
ASEAN just held its second summit meeting for the year, like the previous one in April, in Hanoi under Vietnam’s chairmanship. Two noteworthy developments marked this meeting. The first was the adoption of the Master Plan for ASEAN Connectivity, detailing measures for further integration in Southeast Asia. The other was the attendance for the first time of the United States and Russia at the East Asia Summit (EAS).
The annual EAS, convened under ASEAN auspices since 2005, is a significant regional consultative forum for discussion of leading political, security and economic issues of the Asia-Pacific region. Read more…
Author: Amitav Acharya, American University
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ‘new American moment in international relations’ speech, delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC on September 8, 2010, has been widely discussed and debated. Although the speech did not concern Asia only, it does signal important changes in the way the United States looks at Asia, especially its regional architecture.
One unusual aspect of the speech was the amount of space devoted to regions and regional organisations in general. Read more…
Author: Mahendra Ved, New Delhi
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s three-nation visit to Malaysia, Vietnam and Japan marked a reassertion of India’s resolve to ‘Look East’ to achieve its strategic, geopolitical and economic goals. Closely preceding the visit of US President Obama and the G20 summit in Seoul, this tour was of significant strategic importance.
The highlights of his tour were: the signing of a commitment to expand trade with Malaysia; a number of pacts with Vietnam; and an understanding with Japan on nuclear energy. Read more…
Author: John McCarthy, ANU
Palm oil is now the world’s most widely traded vegetable oil. As Indonesia is the centre of global production, palm oil is a priority for Indonesia’s economic planners. With millions of hectares either under oil palm or planned for development, a highly polarized debate surrounds the question of oil palm development in Indonesia. The underlying question here is: can a boom in agricultural commodities such as oil palm provide a pathway out of poverty? Or does it amount to an instrument of mass immiseration?
In the last year, Greenpeace has pursed a very successful campaign against a range of large multinationals.
Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, ANU
The APEC Summit in Yokohama on 13-14 November comes at a critical time in Japan’s finding a new way forward through international economic diplomacy. China continues its unstoppable economic rise. Korea has seized the initiative in domestic reform and global diplomacy through the G20 process.
Can Prime Minister Kan overcome the domestic political drag and seize the APEC moment to re-establish Japan’s credentials as a leader of regional and global economic change? Read more…
Author: Yiping Huang, Peking University and ANU
Today, the National Statistics Bureau released October’s batch of economic data. Almost all indicators for economic activity, including fixed asset investment, industrial production and even retail sales, slowed in October (as measured by year-on-year growth rates). The whole country’s attention, however, was firmly fixed on inflation data. CPI was up by 4.4 per cent year-on-year in October, compared with 3.6 per cent in September and the consensus forecast of 4.0 per cent.
This was the highest level reached in 25 months. Food prices, in particular, increased by more than 10 per cent. Read more…
Author: Pravakar Sahoo, IEG, India
India’s Prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Japanese Premier, Naoto Kan signed India-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement covering trade, investment and intellectual property rights on 25th October 2010. The EPA will eliminate tariffs on goods that account for 94 per cent of their two-way trade over ten years.
This is a strategic move given the over dependence of Japan on China for trade in goods and the recent uneasiness in their relation due to arrest of Chinese sailors by Japan. In addition to the diplomatic row, there are reports of protest in China not to use Japanese products and rising cost of production in China. This makes a perfect case for Japanese exporters and investors to explore the Indian market as export destination and a production hub respectively. Read more…
Author: Ming Hwa Ting, University of Adelaide
Following Chinese restrictions on exports to Japan after the Senkaku maritime incident in September the spotlight has remained on rare earth metals. But it is difficult to ascertain the details of the restrictions as the Chinese government did not impose an official ban.
Disruptions in the supply chain, according to the Chinese government, were due to the private actions of rare metals exporters. In China, there are 32 companies with a licence to export rare metals, of which 10 are foreign owned. Although Japan’s detention of the Chinese trawler captain may have roused the ire of Chinese firms, it is hard to see why foreign-owned companies would react likewise. Read more…
Author: Charles W. Freeman III, CSIS
President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan follows similar whirlwind Asia trips by Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. With the G20 meeting in Seoul providing the keystone of this marathon demonstration of the administration’s commitment to engagement with Asia, the president’s trip will take place against a backdrop of rising concerns in Asia about the frailty of the US and global economic recovery and US policy objectives and limitations to manage any new crisis.
At the finance ministers meeting in Gyeongju, Korea, in late October, Secretary Geithner and other participants sought to quell fears of a ‘currency war’ by pledging support for a strong dollar policy and committing not to succumb to temptations to devalue currencies for competitive purposes. Read more…
