Author: Peter Drysdale, ANU

So what’s the problem? Does it matter if the WTO’s Doha Round is prematurely pronounced dead?

For Asia and the Pacific, it matters, seriously. Read more…

Author: Ed Gresser, GlobalWorks Foundation

It looks like Doha is heading for its first ever round failure, unless there is a big rescue operation directed by presidents and prime ministers — above all, those of the United States and China — or a partial salvaging as former U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab recommends.

This would be the first abandoned Round since multilateral trade negotiations were invented in 1947. This raises three basic questions: why this stalemate? What does it mean for trade and the global economy? And can/should anything new be done? Read more…

Author: Patrick Chin-Dahler, ANU

On 7 May 1999, during the US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, two US B2 bombers launched five 2000-pound missiles.

Three of these bombs exploded near the Chinese embassy’s intelligence operations building in Belgrade, while two of them directly hit the embassy, killing three and injuring 23 Chinese citizens. Read more…

Author: Andrew Sheng, China Banking Regulatory Commission

Even as Asia appears on the journey towards the Asian Century, it may be worthwhile to look back in two ways.

First, it was not that long ago that we suffered the Asian Financial Crisis (1997-99). Few of us who went through the pain of that crisis would forget that the journey out of darkness was months of sleepless nights and stress-filled days. But that pain was worth it because there was sufficient change to weather the current Global Financial Crisis. Read more…

Author: Donald K. Emmerson, Stanford University

‘Bin Laden Dead: Muslim World Reacts,’ announced ABC-TV. An Afghan rickshaw driver likened him to ‘a hero in the Muslim world.‘ Far from a hero, said a Pakistani professor, ‘he was a problem for the whole Muslim world.’

‘For the Muslim world,’ his death was like the lifting of a curse, wrote the Islamic Society of North America. According to the staff of eCanadaNow, ‘the Muslim world is reeling’ because Bin Laden was buried at sea in violation of the Muslim tradition that allows for that practice only if the deceased actually died there Read more…

Author: K. Kesavapany, ISEAS

The general election to be held on 7 May is expected to be a watershed in Singapore’s parliamentary history. From 1966 to 1981, there was not a single opposition Member of Parliament.

Among other reasons, the fact was that the opposition Barisan Socialis (Socialist Front) decided to boycott the General Election of 1968 and take politics to the streets. Read more…

Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International

United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk’s open admission recently that a Doha Round deal is unlikely to be reached this year, coming as it does on the heels of reports that the United States attempted to organize agreement in Geneva to suspend the Round, bodes poorly for the future health of the multilateral trade negotiation system.

Yet in good measure, the United States has been the villain of the piece here, its penchant to indulgently re-frame, mid-stream, the terms of Doha’s already-unwieldy core bargain to suit domestic constituencies going to the heart of the problem. Read more…

Author: Alicia Mollaun, ANU

The United States’ relationship with Pakistan is characterised by deep mistrust. Mistrust in US policy and mistrust of US intentions in Pakistan.

The death of Bin Laden and the circumstances under which he was killed is unlikely to change this. Mistrust is likely to rankle both sides as the details of the US mission come to light. Read more…

I argued recently in the Australian Literary Review that the unpredictable natural disasters of Japan — the 9.0 earthquake, 10 meter tsunami and nuclear crisis — should not be shoehorned unnecessarily into a broader narrative about the direction of Japanese society, but it is still important to consider the wider implications of the tragedies.

In particular, the human tragedy of the 11 March disasters in Japan has an interesting demographic angle. Read more…

Author: Sandy Gordon, ANU

The crucial issue is the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a country of 160 million, mixing a highly sophisticated — albeit semi-feudal — elite with a poorly educated, poverty ridden peasant and tribal mass base.

The US will be doing its sums, including with the material seized from the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad. Read more…

Author: Vikas Kumar, Bangalore

Threatened by geographic and demographic factors, the sovereignty of Oceania’s microstates has been precarious from their inception.

Each of these states has a small but highly diverse population spread over a very large area — their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are comparable in size to EEZs of some of the world’s largest countries. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan

In recent talks with Australian Prime Minister Gillard, Prime Minister Kan reaffirmed his government’s commitment to concluding a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with Australia and to resuming talks at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Joint Statement by the Prime Ministers of Japan and Australia formally pledged that the ‘two countries would conduct further negotiations leading to a conclusion of a comprehensive and mutually beneficial bilateral FTA/EPA’. Read more…

Author: Ann Capling, University of Melbourne

Ten years after its launch, the Doha Round is now on the brink of failure.  At a key meeting in Geneva last Friday, members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreed that the negotiations could no longer continue in their current form.

WTO Director General Pascal Lamy will now undertake consultations at the ministerial level and report back to WTO membership at the end of May about the next steps.   Read more…

Author: C. Randall Henning, American University

European debt crises and the expansion of international financial arrangements during the global financial crisis have dramatically elevated the importance of cooperation between regional institutions and the International Monetary Fund.

While the case for coordination between regional and multilateral institutions is generally accepted, the need to organize it on an ex ante basis is not fully appreciated. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF

There is increasing anxiety about global food security as food prices have spiked in many countries and the inflation of food prices appears as one of the sparks that ignited political protest in North Africa and throughout the Middle East.

The IMF and World Bank chiefs warned that high food prices and joblessness remain dangerous barriers to the world’s economic and social stability despite global macroeconomic gains on the way to recovery from the global financial crisis. Read more…