Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Matthew Hulbert, EER
This year presents a new set of challenges for Chinese energy endeavours, and nowhere more so than in oil.
Despite analysts bemoaning China’s ‘cavalier’ approach to risk as it strikes upstream deals in exotic locations, Beijing always knew it would have to cash in some of its chips when geopolitical cards were put on the table. Read more…
Author: Michel May, Waseda University
As bright as the future may seem for China, crucial reforms are needed in order to maintain its current rate of economic growth and prevent the Chinese economy from falling over like a house of cards.
Some of the most imminent challenges that China faces in the near future include environmental pollution, income inequality, uneven development between rural and coastal areas, and a risky financial system. The central government has already identified these problems, and reforms are now in place — including those contained within China’s twelfth five-year plan announced in March 2011. Read more…
Author: Geethanjali Nataraj, NCAER
As developed countries struggle to recover after the global recession and try to confront the looming sovereign debt crisis in Europe, big emerging markets are now driving global growth.
Given the slow down in developed countries, emerging economies are trying to boost domestic demand to sustain growth — and this is particularly the case in China. Read more…
Author: Zhang Yunling, CASS
Since China’s reform and opening-up policies began in the 1970s, the country’s average annual economic growth rate has hovered around 10 per cent.
Currently, China’s gross domestic product is second only to the United States; it is the world’s largest exporter and importer and the largest holder of foreign exchange reserves. Along with China’s remarkable economic rise comes an increase in China’s role in both regional and global development and governance. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, is set to make a hugely important visit to the US next week, prior to succeeding President Hu Jintao as China’s next president later this year.
The visit will set the stage for interaction between the next generation of Chinese leaders and American political leadership and help to shape how the most important bilateral relationship in the world will be managed over the medium-term future. Read more…
Author: Nicholas Lardy, PIIE
China’s 2009-10 stimulus program was quite successful: growth ticked down only slightly in 2009 while the rest of the world suffered its sharpest decline in 60 years.
But the stimulus program was not intended to address the longer-term structural problems that in 2007 led China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, to characterise the country’s growth as ‘unsteady, imbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable’. Read more…
Author: Sheryn Lee, ANU
On 14 January, Taiwan’s incumbent president, Ma Ying-jeou, won a second term in office, obtaining 51.6 per cent of the popular vote while Tsai Ing-wen, his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opponent, managed 45.6 per cent.
Ma’s party, the Kuomintang (KMT), thus retained control of the Legislative Yuan, securing 64 of the 113 seats. Read more…
Author: Choong Yong Ahn, Chung-Ang University
Since the fourth quarter of 2010, the global economy has faced serious uncertainty and a turbulent outlook.
Both the US and Europe have gloomy growth prospects due to a lack of credible medium-term plans for debt reduction in the US and the sovereign debt crisis in southern Europe. Read more…
Author: Evan A. Feigenbaum, CFR
The year 2011 proved fascinating for Asia, with the region consolidating its role as the essential player driving global economic recovery.
But 2012 promises to be more fraught as domestic politics take command amid new challenges to growth. A number of risks, opportunities and emerging patterns will shape Asia during the next 12 months and beyond. Read more…
Author: Le Hong Hiep, Vietnam National University
Vietnam is arguably the most ‘sinicised’ country in Southeast Asia, a distinctive result of more than 2000 years of intense interaction between Vietnam and China.
But the Vietnamese absorption of Chinese culture is neither a straightforward process nor an inescapable outcome of geographical proximity; it is much more nuanced. Read more…
Author: Nitin Pai, Takshashila Institution
Taiwan’s presidential elections, since they first started in 1996, have in large part been referenda on the ‘One China’ policy.
Voters are generally offered two deviations from the status quo — either a path toward eventual reunification with mainland China or a path toward independence. Read more…
Author: Yongsheng Zhang, DRC
The global financial crisis and the climate crisis are twin concerns: we cannot solve one without solving the other.
Green growth must be recognised as part of the solution to the current global financial crisis. To overcome these dual problems, both developed and developing countries should progress to a greener model of development, and move beyond traditional ways of thinking about these issues. Read more…
Author: Jagdish N. Bhagwati, Columbia University and CFR
As if undermining the WTO’s Doha Round of global free-trade talks was not bad enough (the last ministerial meeting in Geneva produced barely a squeak), the US has compounded its folly by actively promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
President Barack Obama announced this with nine Asian countries during his recent trip to the region. Read more…
Authors: Jonas Parello-Plesner and Parag Khanna, ECFR
Last year proved a tipping point for China’s approach to the world. The confluence of Europe’s debt crisis and America’s contracting defence budget has created rising expectations that China will shoulder ever greater power burdens for international stability.
No longer can it keep a low profile in international strategic and economic affairs. Could it join America as a world policeman sooner than expected? Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
A great deal in the international economy is riding on what happens to the Chinese economy in the new year.
China’s 9 per cent plus growth since the global financial crisis has been a central element in Asia’s bucking the global recessionary trend. With Europe still in trouble and the United States struggling to keep recovery on track, is China too now destined for a hard economic landing?