Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
As Europe continues its desperate struggle to salvage the euro and monetary union, the spotlight of regional cooperation is shifting to Asia.
In December, European leaders retro-fitted the union with fiscal disciplines which impose binding limits on national budgets and borrowing. All but Britain opted in; the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron argued, was not prepared to yield such fiscal sovereignty. 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: Sandy Gordon, ANU
South Asia is a vast region encompassing eight nations (if we include Afghanistan) and over one-fifth of humanity.
It is difficult to do it justice in this short summary of the year’s events. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
The weather was awful outside the WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva last week, but there was some sunshine within the convention centre.
Russia acceded as a member, along with Samoa, Montenegro and Vanuatu (the club still attracts new members, and as one minister said: ‘as far as I know, nobody has asked to leave’). Read more…
Author: Kirill Muradov, HSE
With the conclusion of the APEC meetings in Honolulu in November, another yearly cycle is about to draw to a close.
Soon all eyes will turn to Russia as the next host, with the 2012 summit scheduled for early September in Vladivostok. Leading APEC will be Russia’s most significant multilateral undertaking since hosting the G8 in 2006. Observers are curious to see what a Russian agenda will entail and what goals will be set for APEC in 2012. Adding to this significance, APEC is the first — and only — major Asia Pacific forum where Russia can hold the chair. Read more…
Author: Shigeki Hakamada, Aoyama Gakuin University
Still months out from Russia’s March 2012 presidential election and it is virtually certain that Vladimir Putin will return to the presidency.
Significantly for Asia, Putin called for the creation of a Eurasian Union shortly after announcing his intention to run. The plan, unveiled in a newspaper article on 4 October, is to achieve EU-style economic integration based on Russia’s customs union with Kazakhstan and Belarus that would eventually encompass the whole Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
In Washington and Beijing last week there were important meetings that are likely to be influential in where the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations on regional trade arrangements lead down the track.
In Washington, the US administration called in ambassadors from the eight negotiating partners to up the ante on an early deal. 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…
Author: Stephen Grenville, Lowy Institute
Only a few years ago, the European common-currency arrangements were held up as a possible model for Asia.
With the euro under serious threat, we do not hear much about this now, but the current mess in Europe could well contain a number of lessons for Asia. Read more…
Author: Jacob Kierkegaard, PIIE
The G20 Summit in Cannes probably made its most important contribution to global financial stability and economic growth before it even commenced.
The summit, held 3–4 November, became a deadline for European leaders to deal decisively with the economic and financial crises in the euro zone. Read more…
Author: Andrew Elek, ANU
A revolution in information and communications technology since the 1990s has changed the nature of production, international commerce and the importance of integration.
Eager to engage their economies in global production networks, governments have moved unilaterally to lift most tariff and other policy barriers which inhibit trade at the border. Read more…
Author: Shiro Armstrong, ANU
East Asia’s pursuit of policy strategies of openness to trade and investment have resulted in its being economically one of the world’s most internationally-integrated regions — both intraregionally and towards the rest of the world.
Read more…
Authors: David Capie, Victoria University; and Amitav Acharya, American University
This week President Obama will join seventeen other Asian leaders in Bali for the Sixth East Asia Summit (EAS).
With a tough economy at home and the decision of the Congressional ‘super-committee’ on the federal budget only days away, this is hardly a good time for a US president to be out of the country. Obama’s decision to participate in the EAS for the first time in Bali is therefore a powerful symbol of a shift in American policy towards Asia. It also says much about the evolving nature of regional cooperation. Read more…
Author: Ram Upendra Das, New Delhi
Asian regional integration initiatives are rich in plans for trade liberalisation and investment cooperation agreements, but they have rarely been contextualised in terms of development goals like creating employment and reducing poverty.
This is possibly due to a lack of proper understanding of the ways in which regional trade and investment integration could promote development outcomes. Read more…
Author: Shinji Takagi, Osaka University
Financial integration can be defined in several ways. But the only relevant definition, in the context of ongoing policy debate in Asia, is in terms of bilateral financial links analogous to the way trade integration is typically defined.
No other definition would highlight the asymmetry between trade and finance in Asia. Read more…
