Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Almost anyone, looking from the outside on the excitement about the various territorial disputes in the East China and South China Seas, is inclined to wonder what all the fuss is about: an inclination no doubt that is deeply offensive to almost all the protagonists involved. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
No matter how one looks at the numbers, the Asian economies are bound to have a central role in the global economy this century.
This fact has many implications. First, it suggests where the opportunities for growth are going to be in the world economy over the coming decades. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Wherever there is successful industrial and economic transformation in Asia, the tussle over possession of land is at the centre of the politics of development.
There are two main reasons for this. Economic growth in land and resource-deficient economies depends crucially on the shift away from agriculture and other activities that use land intensively, towards manufacturing and urban services that use labour, capital, technology and human skills intensively. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
There is every sign that the new Chinese leadership is contemplating a major round of economic reform comparable to that when Zhu Rongji took China into the WTO more than a decade ago.
China’s accession to the WTO had a profound effect on the global trading and economic system. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Li Keqiang is today in New Delhi on his first visit to India as China’s new premier, an unprecedentedly early high-level exchange between the two great emerging Asian powers. The visit comes only a week or two after resolution of what seemed to be a stand-off between the two in the Ladakh Himalayas on the Sino–Indian border. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum.
The Abe administration in Japan swung quickly into action with policies aimed at lifting the economy out of its long lasting doldrums. Prime Minister Abe appointed Haruhiko Kuroda, after eight years distinguished service at the Asia Development Bank, to implement a strong reflationary program through the Bank of Japan (BOJ): the first arrow of his three arrow revival strategy. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Yesterday, after a hotly contested general election, a record electoral turnout and over half a century of essentially one-party rule, the Malaysian people edged towards change, but chose not to make the leap. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Improving the governance of international institutions is now a core objective in reform of the global order, following the global financial crisis.The G20 group — its own formation a powerful testament to the need for inclusion of the emerging economic powers and more representative participation in managing the world economy — committed to more open and merit-based selection of top jobs in international institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF, at its Pittsburgh summit. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
The political and economic reforms under way in Myanmar have encouraged optimism around the world about the promise of its future and the central role it might play in the next round of Asian development. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
There are many views about which model provides the best understanding of Chinese economic growth and, more immediately, what the prospects are for maintaining a high growth rate in the face of the palpable structural, environmental and social challenges that China confronts today. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Vietnam, though a one-party state, has perhaps been rather more responsive to, and successful in, reforming the economic, social and political conditions of its citizens than might have been presumed from the nature of its political system. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
The grand vision for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) outlined by President Obama at the APEC Summit in 2011 has moved a little closer to realisation, in scope at least, with announcement by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Japan would join in the negotiations. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
China’s longstanding relationship with Pakistan and the challenge of China’s remarkable economic rise have encouraged many in the West to see India as a natural Chinese competitor and a useful pawn for the United States in Sino-American strategic play. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
By 2050 Asia will add another billion to its already huge population of 4.3 billion. Demographers reckon that this will be a very good result, not because Asia’s population will become so large but because the population projection for 2050 is several billion lower than it would have been without the spread of control over human fertility that has occurred over the past four decades. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Increased uncertainty and risk in the political and security environment in Northeast Asia are threatening the stability on which Asia’s rise and growing prosperity have depended over the past few decades and are a challenge to global system stability. Read more…