Author: Nick Nostitz

In 25 October 2009 I went to northeast Thailand, this time to the village of Nong Wua So, about 40 kilometres outside the city of Udon Thani, to observe a red shirt rally: village-style. When I arrived in the early afternoon the action had not yet begun. Soon after, many people began arriving from surrounding villages. Around the rim of the rally area were food stalls, and several large trampolines where children jumped around for a few baht each. Kwanchai Paipanna, the charismatic leader of the Udon Lovers, a local red shirt group, and organiser of the rally, was already there, sitting in a tent close to the stage. He talked with red shirts and police officers.

A high-ranking officer asked Kwanchai to accompany him to visit the abbot at a famous local temple. Read more…

Author: Rachel Leow, University of Cambridge

In early 2010, ten Christian churches in Malaysia were firebombed, attacked or vandalised on account of a controversy over the use of the word ‘Allah’ by Malaysian Christians. A Catholic weekly, The Catholic Herald, had been ordered by the government in 2009 to cease publishing its Malay-language edition until the courts resolved the question of whether the word ‘Allah’ could mean the God of the Christian faith, rather than the God of Islam. Claims were made that such usage would confuse Muslims, who mainly spoke Malay.

On 31 December 2009, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled in favour of The Herald. Read more…

Special Report: EAF team, ANU

On May 13, the Chinese State Council released a new set of guidelines on domestic private investment. Its 36 measures mirror a similar policy review published 5 years’ ago on the non-state economic sector which promoted equal treatment of both state and private sectors. Commentators have dubbed the recent guidelines as the ‘New 36 Articles’.

The measures are aimed at lowering the entry barriers for private investors in sectors such as infrastructure, municipal services, financial services, logistics and defense which have all traditionally been dominated by state titans or excluded from private sector participation altogether. Read more…

Author: Cai Fang, CASS

At the beginning of 2009 the global financial crisis struck hard at the real economy of China. While the whole country suffered, not all regions suffered equally. Looking at two industrial cities on which the crisis had a very different impact helps to explain the reasons for the uneven effect of the crisis, and highlights opportunities for policy reform.

The city of Dongguan in Guangdong province provides a telling example of the severe shock experienced by migrant workers in the wake of the crisis. Dongguan is located in the Pearl River Delta Region which has a high concentration of export-oriented labor-intensive enterprises and migrant workers. As early as the second half of 2008 due to a sharp drop in export orders some enterprises in Dongguan, shut down while others substantially reduced production. As a result, a large proportion of migrant workers in the city lost their jobs. An official source indicated 20 million migrants returned home earlier than expected because of the fall in demand for exports. Read more…

Author: Kihoon Lee

At the U.N. Climate Summit in New York on September 30, 2009, President Lee Myung-bak announced that Korea will adopt a carbon emissions target, with specifics to be presented by the end of the year. Among the non-Annex I countries (signatories to the Kyoto Protocol that do not have binding carbon emission reduction targets), Korea will be the first to voluntarily adopt a target with a timetable.

The target under consideration is quite ambitious. Kim Hyung-kook, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Green Growth, revealed that  Korea’s carbon target will constitute a 21-30 per cent reduction in 2020 from the ‘Business As Usual’ (BAU) trajectory, Read more…

Author: Il SaKong, Chair Korea Summit Coordinating Committee

Since its inception in the mid-1970s, the G7 acted as if it were the informal global steering committee for global economic and financial issues. But over the last couple of decades many considered the G7 lacked political legitimacy because it did not include the major emerging players in the world economy. These critics rightly claimed that although the G7 was only an informal global steering committee, it needed to reflect the shift in global economic power that has taken place over recent decades.

Last November, in the midst of the unprecedented global financial and economic crisis, the G20 Summit—instead of G7—was held in Washington. Read more…

This article is the first part of a digest of a public forum at the ANU.

There has been quite a bit written, including several books, on the Great Crash of 2008. Reading those all at once recalls the old Indian story of the blind men and the elephant: one blind man putting his arms around the legs described the elephant as a tree, another feeling the ear described it as a fan. One felt the trunk and described it as a snake, while a fourth felt the tail and disputed the serpentine explanation. The Great Crash of 2008 is the story of the whole elephant. It tries to show how all the parts fit together. Read more…

Author: Jinjun Xue

There is a potential for environmental issues to act as a constraint on economic growth. In this chapter a growth model displaying the characteristics of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is used to analyse China’s potential of achieving low carbon economic growth.

The EKC is derived from historical empirical observations across countries. It is observed that environmental degradation associated with economic growth increases most rapidly at low levels of per capita income. As income grows, the additional degradation due to economic gain slows until it eventually peaks. As per capita income continues to grow, degradation eventually diminishes.

Read more…

Author: Loyal Reader

The ongoing conflict between the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) and  the Sinhalese-dominated government has kept Sri Lanka in civil war for the last 27 years.

A designated terrorist group,  the LTTE are accused of assassinating top political leaders including an Indian Prime Minister, a Sri Lankan President and a Sri Lankan presidential candidate.  The LTTE has also assassinated many moderate Tamil leaders, making the conflict more than just ‘ethnic’.

In 2002, when a ceasefire was declared, the LTTE were at their strongest.  They ran a de facto state complete with their own taxation system, courts, police and passport control.  In addition to commanding ground cadres, the LTTE controlled a naval unit and a small airforce.  Further, the Sri Lankan government funded schools and hospitals in LTTE controlled areas.

The political landscape shifted dramatically after the election of President Rajapaksa in November 2005. After the new Government invested large amounts of money in the military, and the LTTE attempted to assassinate both the defence secretary and the army commander, the country was again at war by 2007, even with the peace process still officially in place.

Read more…

Author: Amit Singh, ICRIER

PM Yoshiro Mori’s visit to India in August 2000 was the beginning of a new era in India-Japan relations. The visit set a precedent for visits to India by his successors Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe. Since then, the two countries have sought to strengthen bilateral ties through initiatives and programs ranging from economic and cultural linkages to defence and security.

Japan directs 30 per cent of its foreign aid to India and is, even in this period of global economic turmoil, committing more than US $4 billion to the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). The two recent mega deals between Indian and Japanese companies, namely, the Daiichi-Ranbaxy merger (US $4.6 billion) and the acquisition of 26 per cent stakes (US $2.7 billion) in TATA Teleservices by Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo, are clear instances of the growing economic ties between the two countries.

Read more…

Author: Denis Hussey, Chairman, Tasman Transparency Group

With the threat of countries retreating to protectionism in the wake of the global financial crisis, the G20 and APEC leaders’ commitment to support multilateral trade liberalisation is welcome and timely. However, announcing that commitment is the easy part. Rudd returns home now to digest the Mortimer Review and to implement the domestic reforms needed to help us continue to reap the gains from globalisation. He has the additional complementary challenge, and opportunity, to sponsor an approach that would give substance to the G20 commitment to open world markets.

Following the release of the Mortimer Review and the additional analysis on the East Asia Forum, the Australian Financial Review on 25 November 2008 offered the following editorial comment:

Read more…

Guest Author: Dr. Fang-Fang Tang, China Centre for Economic Research (CCER), Peking University

The attraction of China is far more important for its consumption potential to multinational companies than for its low labor costs which are anyway now on an increasing trend. Particularly for the protection of international brand image for consumption goods, it is totally unwise to be legally safe but economically stupid.

There is still no clear law about recalling problematic products in China. In December 2004 the Chinese National Bureau of Quality Monitoring approved and issued a series of ‘requirements’ in respect of food safety and food production management, but the standards are still ‘recommended industry standards’ without any legal obligation. Enterprises can follow them voluntarily, or ignore them completely.

Read more…