Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
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: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International
It is remarkable the sort of anxiety that a handful of lightly armed People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers and their dog can educe on a disputed frontier.
On 15 April three dozen or so such soldiers, many miles removed from reinforcement or logistical support, pitched their tents in a demonstrative assertion Read more…
Author: Huy Duong, South East Asian Sea Foundation
On 25 April 2013, Shunji Yanai, president of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, appointed the final three of the five arbitrators to the tribunal adjudicating legal proceedings that the Philippines has brought against China relating to some of the disputes in the South China Sea.
Author: Frans-Paul van der Putten, Clingendael Institute
One of the most enduring aspects of the global system of international relations has been the divide in terms of power and wealth between the West and the developing world. The rise of China, which combines the features of a developing country with those of an emerging superpower, is affecting the West’s position in the developing world.
Author: Sandy Gordon, ANU
The standoff between China and India in Ladakh has been resolved, at least for now.
After China set up five tents for 40 personnel 19 kilometres inside what India regards as the line of control, India set up similar tents facing them. Both lots of tents are now to be removed, but it is still unclear whether India is to remove any of the structures at Fukche and Chumar, as demanded by the Chinese. Read more…
Author: Carlyle A. Thayer, UNSW Canberra
China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea is challenging US primacy in the Asia Pacific.
Even before Washington announced its official policy of rebalancing its force posture to the Asia Pacific, the United States had undertaken steps to strengthen its military posture by deploying more nuclear attack submarines to the region and negotiating arrangements with Australia to rotate Marines through Darwin. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzō Abe successfully stared down opposition from the domestic farm lobby and his own ruling party to take Japan into the TPP negotiations. The other half of the equation — gaining the consent of TPP negotiating countries to Japan’s entry — was sealed at the recent APEC ministerial meeting in Indonesia.
But what does Japan’s largest trading partner, China, think of these developments? Read more…
Author: Raffaello Pantucci, RUSI
The 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan is fast approaching. China has just over a year before Western attention toward Afghanistan shrinks substantially.
But it is not clear that Beijing has properly considered what it is going to do once responsibility for Afghan stability and security passes to local forces. Read more…
Authors: Hiro Ito, PSU, and Ulrich Volz, SOAS and DIE
The correction of microeconomic distortions in countries with persistent current account imbalances is a central precondition for global macroeconomic rebalancing.
China is one country with a long-standing current account surplus, and this surplus derives from microeconomic or sectorial distortions that have led to excessive saving. Read more…
Author: Jonas Parello-Plesner, ECRF
‘I want my money back’ was the late Margaret Thatcher’s motto in internal EU negotiations during her time as prime minister. And the EU’s current external debt holders could soon be demanding the same thing.
Russia, the main external stakeholder affected by the recent Cyprus banking debacle, has already spoken harshly of the EU bailout as ‘expropriation’. Read more…
Author: He Fan, CASS
For years China has been labelled a ‘currency manipulator’. Its critics claim that China intentionally suppresses the value of the renminbi through massive market intervention to raise the competitiveness of its exports. Read more…
Author: Helen James, ANU
Asia, which hosts the largest proportion of the world’s population, suffers the most from the world’s natural disasters.
Between 1999 and 2008, Asia was affected by 40 per cent of the world’s identified natural disasters. Read more…
Author: Lilia Shevtsova, Carnegie Moscow Center
Vladimir Putin has turned to foreign policy as a means of preserving the status quo as he faces increasing domestic discontent.
Long before Obama made his ‘pivot’ to Asia, therefore, Moscow had announced its turn to the east.
Authors: John Knight, Oxford University, Yi Zeng, Duke University and Peking University, and Zai Liang, SUNY
EAFQ: How will the age structure of China’s population change over the coming decades?
Yi Zeng: The very large size of China’s elderly population and its rapid increase as a proportion of the total population are both unique characteristics of population ageing in China.
Read more…
Author: Delia Lin, University of Adelaide
In 1982, Peng Liyuan performed a Chinese folk song, ‘On the Plains of Hope’, at the CCTV New Year’s Gala.
The idyllic image of China depicted in the song brought joy, hope and inspiration to a billion Chinese at the infant stage of economic reform. The song also turned Peng into China’s most loved singer while only 20 years old. Read more…