Author: John West, MrGlobalization
How does a Cold War organisation like the OECD respond to the end of the Cold War? Does it try to hang on to its former identity? Or does it embrace the new ‘age of globalisation’?
The end of the Cold War in 1989 represented a victory of values and ideology — the triumph of pluralistic democracy, respect for human rights and the market economy — for the OECD and its member countries. Read more…
Author: Hubert Wu, University of Melbourne
It is wrong to assess the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) against its short-term benefits — these may very well be non-existent. Instead, the deal’s true value hinges upon its chances of a medium-term expansion into Asia.
The TPP is an ambitious regional trade agreement under negotiation between ten economies: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, Vietnam and as of early November, Japan. The Agreement has concluded its ninth round of negotiations in Lima, Peru, with an unofficial round also occurring recently at the 2011 APEC summit in Hawaii.
Read more…
Authors: Stephen Howes and Frank Jotzo, ANU
Global climate policy reached a turning point at the 2009 Copenhagen conference.
Expectations of a binding global climate treaty were dashed; instead, all major countries made unilateral pledges to cut or restrain their greenhouse gas emissions. In reality, that was probably a more significant outcome than a binding, but weak, agreement — what counts is what countries do, not what they sign up to. Read more…
Author: Julie Sheetz, Harvard University
Even before the announcement that ASEAN member states had awarded the 2014 rotating chairmanship to Burma, it was already a foregone conclusion.
Burma’s campaign to be reinstated as a regular member of ASEAN gained steam when Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa, began hinting at approval before his visit to Naypyidaw, Burma’s capital, last month. Read more…
Author: Gary Hawke, NZIER
While in Honolulu for the APEC summit recently, President Obama announced a 12-month timeframe to complete negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Some have welcomed this development, but, in truth, it is a disappointing one. Read more…
Author: Andrew Elek, ANU
The 2008 global financial crisis catalysed a long-overdue transformation in the oversight of global affairs, bringing large emerging Asian economies to the G20 table.
A transition in the role of Asian countries at the G20 — from cautious and sometimes defensive to visionary and exemplary — was expected to unfold slowly, possibly taking a decade or more. Read more…
Author: Stephen Howes, ANU
The founding institution within the World Bank Group is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
The only part of the institution that was established by the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, the IBRD is the World Bank’s bank. Read more…
Author: Gilbert Rozman, Princeton University
In much of the world the Six-Party Talks represent a futile attempt to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and deter it from a path of belligerence.
But in China the talks offer hope for a new regional security arrangement. While observers took keen interest in China’s resistance to condemn the North’s two attacks on South Korea in 2010, few paid attention to Chinese rhetoric on the Korean peninsula, apart from expressing surprise at Xi Jinping’s revival of Chinese support for the North in the ‘glorious’ Korean War. Read more…
Authors: Nadia Rocha and Robert Teh, WTO
Participation in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) has grown rapidly in recent years.
In 1990, there were only about 70 PTAs in force. Thereafter, PTA activity accelerated noticeably; by 2010 the number of PTAs in force was close to 300. Read more…
Author: Hitoshi Tanaka, Japan Center for International Exchange
The balance of power in East Asia is shifting, presenting new risks to regional stability.
In order to mitigate these risks and maintain and strengthen regional peace, stability, and prosperity, it is critical that regional cooperation be consolidated. Read more…
Author: Maria Wihardja, CSIS
The world is biting its fingernails in anticipation of developments in the global economy and geopolitical landscape.
The Doha Round is on life support, and the OPEC talks on 8 June to increase the world’s oil supply have broken down. Read more…
Author: See Seng Tan, NTU
As the ASEAN Regional Forum meets in Bali, for the eighteenth time, it bears in the eyes of many few signs of institutional maturity.
None of its 27 participants have quite quit the forum yet, but discontent over the ARF’s perceived ineffectiveness in managing the region’s security has indubitably risen in recent years. Read more…
Author: Evan A Feigenbaum, CFR
For more than a decade, creating multilateral forums has rivalled badminton as the leading indoor sport of Asian academics, think tanks and governments.
And the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as proposals multiply and Asians organise themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. Read more…
Author: Joel Rathus, ANU
In early May, the ASEAN +3 Finance Ministers met in Hanoi and reached an agreement on two important issues in the development of the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI).
Firstly, they appointed Wei Benhua to be the first director of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO). Read more…
Author: Sheryn Lee, ANU
On 4-5 June, Singapore was once again awash with security and defence buzz amid the 10th annual International Institute of Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue.
While in previous years attention has centred on the keynote address of the US Secretary of Defence, this year’s event was dominated by a first time attendant: the Chinese Defence Minister, General Liang Guanglie. The Chinese General’s appearance heralded the strategic importance of the dialogue as a forum for the world’s leading nations. Read more…
