Authors: Melissa Conley Tyler and Samantha Shearman, AIIA
With the release of the Defence White Paper 2013 on 3 May, Australia officially has a new region, the ‘Indo-Pacific’: a strategic arc ‘connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans through Southeast Asia’.
Given the long history of linking Australian foreign policy to the ‘Asia-Pacific’, this is a significant change in terminology. How did we get to this point and what are the implications? Read more…
Author: Ganeshan Wignaraja, ADBI
Mega-regional trade deals are in vogue.
Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are grabbing headlines around the world. Meanwhile, Asia’s own mega-regional trade deal — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) — is quietly being negotiated. Read more…
Author: Ashima Goyal, IGIDR
India’s current account deficit (CAD) rose to a record 6.7 per cent of GDP in the last quarter of 2012.
That is clearly unsustainable. But an effective cure must address the roots of the problem, for which a correct diagnosis is essential. 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…
Authors: Hal Hill, ANU, and Maria Monica Wihardja, CSIS and UI
An international election process arguably more complex than the recent deliberations in the Vatican is about to get underway.
Over the next few weeks, the 159 ambassadors to the WTO in Geneva will assemble to elect a new director-general for the period 2013–17, starting 1 September 2013. Read more…
Author: Arvind Subramanian, PIIE
On 1 April 2013, the Indian Supreme Court dismissed the attempt by Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, to obtain patent protection for a new version of the leukaemia drug Glivec.
The court made its decision on the grounds that the drug is not a new medicine, but an adjusted version of a known compound. Read more…
Author: Barry Desker, RSIS
The recent proliferation of regional FTAs is good news for the parties involved.
But FTAs cannot be substitutes for a global solution in world trade. Read more…
Author: Arvind Subramanian, PIIE and CGD
Trade with India represents a big prize for the United States because of the size and strength of the Indian economy, but there are still challenges for US companies doing business in India.
The United States can address these challenges by adopting a multi-pronged strategy for solving trade conflicts and maximising the underlying potential of the bilateral trade relationship. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
The grand vision for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) outlined by President Obama at the APEC Summit in 2011 has moved a little closer to realisation, in scope at least, with announcement by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Japan would join in the negotiations. Read more…
Author: Claude Barfield, AEI
After a fallow first term, President Obama has embraced an ambitious — but highly problematic — trade agenda for his second term.
First, he has adopted the goal of completing the complex and politically difficult 11-member Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) in the next 12 months. Read more…
Authors: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide, and Shandre Thangavelu, NUS
Mega-regionalism is a major feature of trade strategies in the Asia Pacific today. The ‘spaghetti bowl’ of interwoven bilateral FTAs offers no real future, a realisation that has led to greater action on multi-country agreements. Read more…
Author: Patrick A. Messerlin, ECIPE and SNU
The EU is facing formidable challenges. The euro crisis is far from over, with expected ‘debt walls’ higher than those predicted a year ago. Less visible, but much more pernicious and damaging, is the lessening of competition in many sectors due to the past several years of crisis, a trend that is evident to varying degrees across all EU member states. Read more…
Author: Le Hong Hiep, VNU and UNSW@ADFA
By the end of 2009 Chinese engineering companies were involved in projects worth US$15.4 billion in Vietnam, making the Vietnamese market their largest in Southeast Asia. On occasion, Chinese contractors have even accounted for up to 90 per cent of EPC (Engineering/Procurement/Construction) contracts for thermal power plants in the country. Read more…
Author: Claude Barfield, AEI
In the United States it’s hard to find high-quality winter tomatoes from Mexico or textiles and apparel from poor countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
Those markets have been largely closed off to the United States, in an example of the government’s refusal to abandon old-fashioned 20th-century protectionism in agriculture and manufacturing. Read more…
Authors: Brendan Coates, Dougal Horton and Lachlan McNamee, Australian Treasury
China’s unparalleled rise as a merchandise exporter in recent decades has seen it surpass both the United States and Germany to become the world’s largest exporter, accounting for over one tenth of world merchandise exports by value.
What is more, merchandise exports directly account for approximately one-fifth of China’s ‘miracle’ economic growth in the past decade. Read more…
