Authors: Jonathan Unger, ANU, and Him Chung, HKBU
Across China, ongoing industrialisation and urbanisation has led to many local villagers being pushed off their land, sometimes with inadequate compensation.
But in some parts of the country — and especially in the southern province of Guangdong — rural communities retain collective ownership of much of their land when it is converted into urban neighbourhoods or industrial zones. Read more…
Author: Vikas Kumar, Azim Premji University
At the March 2012 session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), India voted in favour of a resolution criticising the Sri Lankan government’s handling of post-insurgency rehabilitation of minorities. This vote has divided India.
While many argue that India has not lost much because Colombo was already brazenly ignoring India’s quiet diplomacy, a vocal group feels that India’s central government has committed a blunder under the pressure of its Tamil coalition partners and the US. Read more…
Author: Michael Cornish, University of Adelaide
Trade liberalisation — whether of goods or services — faces the classic and recurrent political-economy problem attached to serious reform.
The losers from liberalisation are often in concentrated groups, such as those industries that huddle behind tariff and non-tariff protection, enjoying the largesse of direct government financial support. Read more…
Author: Vikram Nehru, Carnegie Endowment
There is growing speculation that the 13th Malaysian general elections will be held in June this year, the prospect of which is raising political temperatures.
But massive demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur on 28 April organised by Bersih, a civil society coalition for clean and fair elections, may have thrown a spoke in the government’s wheels. The demonstrations ended in tear gas and pitched street battles, and some 380 people were arrested. Read more…
Author: Evan A. Feigenbaum, CFR
In recent months, there has been little but gloom about India’s economic prospects in the financial markets, for the following six very good reasons:
First, India’s tumultuous politics have, from a corporate perspective, stalled essential reforms. Tax, pension and FDI reforms have made little headway under the United Progressive Alliance government, and parliamentary business has been tied up in knots as the leading national and regional parties squabble. Read more…
Author: Nabeel A. Mancheri, NIAS
On 13 March 2012, the US, the EU and Japan filed separate but coordinated complaints against China to the World Trade Organization.
China’s export controls on rare earth metals and non-rare earth metals such as tungsten and molybdenum, which have many industrial uses, are at the heart of the complaint. Read more…
Author: Ren Xiao, Fudan University
A reform-minded status-quo power sits somewhere between rigid and anti-status quo powers.
A status-quo state accepts the existing rules of the game and does not seek to change them because it is generally satisfied with the current situation. China has benefited from the existing international system, and has risen to become the world’s second-largest economy. Logically, it would not aspire to overthrow this system within which it is rising to new heights. In this sense, China is a status-quo power. Nevertheless, China is not simply looking to rigidly adhere to this existing system. Read more…
Author: Chalongphob Sussangkarn, TDRI
The Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) is a regional foreign exchange liquidity support mechanism that developed as a result of the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis.
The CMI was designed to be closely linked to the IMF, and later evolved into a multilateralised mechanism, the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM). Read more…
Author: Myoung-ho Park, Dongguk University
South Korean voters find themselves in the midst of a busy political year.
The parliamentary election, which took place on 11 April, saw the governing Saenuri Party retain power. But attention is now turning toward the upcoming presidential election in December. Read more…
Authors: Simon Butt, Luke Nottage and Brett Williams, University of Sydney
Indonesia’s new mining regulation requiring divestment of majority foreign investments is unlikely to generate many formal investor-state arbitration (ISA) claims against Indonesia, based on existing bilateral or regional FTAs, or investment treaties.
Avoidance of arbitration is primarily motivated by immediate pragmatic considerations. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Indonesia will be the tenth-largest economy in the world by the end of the decade, Nouriel Roubini reckons, and could be the sixth-largest economy by 2030.
Citi’s Research and Analysis group suggests that it will be the fourth-largest economy in the world by 2040, accounting for 4.8 per cent of global output. Read more…
Authors: Simon Butt and Luke Nottage, University of Sydney
The Indonesian government issued a regulation in February 2012 requiring majority or wholly foreign-owned companies holding mining licenses in Indonesia to divest a majority share of the company — a minimum of 51 per cent — to an ‘Indonesian participant’ after 10 years of production.
For many foreign investors, this will mean a mandatory divestment of equity.
Read more…
Author: Sanchita Basu Das, ISEAS
ASEAN concluded its 20th Summit on 4 April 2012. The discussion shifted away from building an ASEAN Community, to debates over territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China, Taiwan and four ASEAN member states (the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam).
There was significant debate on whether China should be invited to take part in the drafting of the code of conduct, envisioned as a legally binding document to prevent small incidents in the South China Sea from escalating into bigger conflicts. Read more…
Author: James Laurenceson, UQ
The challenges wrought by burgeoning Asian demand for Australia’s natural resources have already begun to receive policy attention from the Australian federal government.
The Minerals Resource Rent Tax is just one example. But the challenges arising from trade flows are only part of the story that will confront Australian economic policy makers during the Asian Century. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
Ichiro Ozawa’s trial verdict of ‘not-guilty’ for violating the Political Funds Control Law has now been appealed, placing constraints on his political activities.
Fortunately for him, the DPJ executive, under the leadership of key Ozawa ally, Secretary-General Azuma Koshiishi, had already restored his membership and the executive is not intending to revisit their decision. Read more…
