Author: Hitoshi Tanaka, Japan Center for International Exchange
Just a few weeks after taking office in early September, Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, had his first meeting with US President Barack Obama in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
It was widely reported that first and foremost on the agenda for this meeting was the relocation of the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, with President Obama delivering a stern message that the time has come for results. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
Qantas, the Australian national flag carrier, has faced some major challenges over recent years.
Like many Australia-based services firms which sell into global markets, Qantas has had to deal with significantly rising costs, due to its base in an economy with a booming minerals and energy sector. It is also confronting new competition in its global markets, particularly with the emergence of low-cost carriers and the Middle Eastern airlines. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Last week the world was reassured by the thought that Europe had done a deal which avoided default by Greece, the threat to its southern members and to the euro zone itself.
All that unravelled as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou surprised European leaders and world markets with his referendum plan — just as the G20 meeting got under way in Cannes. Read more…
Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International
On 2 November, on the sidelines of the G20 leaders meeting in Cannes, Zhang Tao, director general of the international department of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), averred that China’s foreign exchange management strategy was based on ‘the principle of safety, liquidity and adding value’.
Given the US$271 billion in reserve losses presumed to have accrued during the 2003-2010 period as a result of the US dollar’s depreciation, this notion of ‘safety’ appears to be a rather elastic one. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
The way ahead in the European debt crisis appears to lie in refinancing the debt held by those countries whose sovereign bond spreads are widening and who are at risk of default: but who will pay?
Read more…
Author: Gibson Bateman, New York
For the Tamil people of Sri Lanka’s north and east, the end to conflict has not engendered the positive changes one might have hoped for.
When President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government achieved victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, most of the LTTE leadership was killed. Read more…
Author: Peter Baofu, Universiti Utara Malaysia
As China fast approaches superpower status, its current policy of non-interference in world affairs will soon become obsolete.
China’s need for an updated foreign policy is more urgent than ever, and its new global outlook will undoubtedly carry global implications. Read more…
Author: Sun Xuegong, NDRC
Integration in the regional and global economies is an important aspect of China’s rapid rise.
China’s interests now lie well beyond its border and extend around the globe. This reality has prompted China to actively engage in regional and global architecture to assure that its rise continues peacefully. Read more…
Author: Sunny Tanuwidjaja, CSIS, Jakarta
After a long-drawn-out process, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono finally announced his decision on 18 October to reshuffle the cabinet.
This will be the first and last major reshuffle in his second term as Indonesia’s president. Read more…
Author: Rajiv Kumar, FICCI
The Pakistan Commerce Minister’s recent visit to India, along with nearly 80 business delegates and high-ranking officials, will hopefully provide the platform from which commercial relations between India and Pakistan move into a higher trajectory.
This visit comes after three-and-a-half decades and follows a very successful round of meetings between the two Commerce Secretaries in Islamabad in April this year. These developments have, for once, taken the external observers of South Asia by surprise. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, ANU
Whatever is done to re-position Asian regional architecture, it needs to take account of Asia’s new role in global economic governance.
It needs to attend to the implications of Asia’s rise for political and security affairs. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
The Japanese government’s new policy reform plan, Basic Policy and Action Plan for the Revitalisation of Our Country’s Food and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, (published 25 October) does little to promote agricultural trade liberalisation.
While containing a number of reform proposals designed to expand the scale of farming and facilitate agricultural land transfers, the plan fails to address the most important issue of all: reducing direct income subsidies to small-scale farms. Read more…
Author: Wook Chae, KIEP
For many reasons, the G20 may be justifiably considered the world’s premier economic forum. These reasons are often associated with problems inherent in the earlier G7 grouping.
The most prominent among those problems was that the G7 consisted only of advanced industrial countries and thus could not legitimately claim the privilege of making important decisions on global economic issues. For the G20 to maintain its authority in future it must continue to incorporate the developing world, and Asia in particular. Read more…
Author: Hu Shuli, Caixin Media
Asia is not without notable examples of women who have made it to the top in the political arena, but this does not mean the gap between male and female participation in politics is anywhere near being closed.
And while many women have played a pivotal role in the modern politics of various Asian countries, it would be wrong to think that the ability to reel off a list of political stars is an indicator of wider participation. Read more…
Authors: Maria Monica Wihardja and Josef Kristiadi, CSIS, Jakarta
The Indonesian cabinet reshuffle of 18 October has ended in an anti-climax.
The Indonesian people — and even their ministers — were hoping for a more effective cabinet to support Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration: they were instead left shocked and clueless about the criteria on which he based his decisions. Read more…
