EAFQ Vol. 2 No. 4 - Asia and the G20

This issue of the Quarterly presents contributions from across the region to address some of the big questions that face Asia in the G20 and was distributed to all the G20 leaders at the Seoul summit. There are clearly Asian interests in the G20, although the region brings diverse perspectives and agendas to the global table, as it should. The problem of how well Asian members of the G20 can project broader regional interests and engage non-member support for those interests and agendas is also addressed.

Australia-China Dialogue on the G20

EABER and the Shanghai Institute for International Studies will co-host a roundtable for Chinese and Australian academics and policy-makers in Shanghai on November 9 2012 to discuss the agenda for Australia’s hosting of the G20 in 2014. This will be followed by consultations with representatives of the Chinese Finance Ministry in Beijing, co-hosted by EABER and Peking University’s China Centre for Economic Research.

Asia G20 meetings

EABER co-hosted a series of roundtables in coordination with the Korean National Committee for Economic Cooperation (KOPEC) and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta in the lead up to the Seoul G20 summit in November 2010. These brought together academics and policy-makers from the KIA (Korea-Indonesia-Australia) group to work on joint priorities, which informed the Asian Agenda of Structural Reform for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth of the Global Economy for the G20 summit in Seoul in 2010.

Attached documents:
G20 Korea Framework paper
Asia G20 meetings - report
Asia G20 meetings - list of participants

South and East Asian Economic Integration

This conference, consisting of a private roundtable bringing together academics and policy-makers from around the Asian region and a public forum was hosted by EABER in Canberra on 17-18 August 2011. The conference discussions focused on the role Asia can be expected to play as it becomes more economically important, as well as the evolution of regional and global architecture, especially the G20.

Attached documents: Public forum agenda

Thinking About the Asia Century

This conference, consisting of a private roundtable bringing together academics from Asia and the US and Australian policy-makers and a public forum was hosted by EABER in Canberra on 17-18 April 2012. It provided an opportunity to share and reflect on Asian perspectives on the meaning of the rise of Asia and its consequences.

Attached documents: Public forum agenda

• A big deal: Canada and Mexico join the Trans-Pacific Partnership

  Author: Claude Barfield, American Enterprise Institute

  The most significant development during the G20 summit in Mexico occurred on the sidelines and was largely buried in media reports: the decision to invite Canada and Mexico to join negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP).

  

  Adding Mexico and Canada to the current nine-member TPP will result — if negotiations are successful — in a free trade area covering some 658 million people and about US$20.5 trillion in economic activity. Read the rest of this entry »

• Food security: assessing the G20’s approach

  Author: Marie-Alice McLean-Dreyfus, ANU

  The recent meeting of G20 leaders in Los Cabos, Mexico, achieved little with regard to food security.

  

  With an ever-increasing number of malnourished people worldwide, this latest meeting of G20 leaders provided an opportunity to take an innovative approach to resolving food-security issues, but this opportunity was lost Read the rest of this entry »

• Indonesia and the G20: a door left half open

  Author: Maria Monica Wihardja, Bank Indonesia

  Indonesia’s participation in the G20 Summit in Los Cabos was focused, strategic and effective. Despite these positives, criticism of Indonesia’s approach is not unwarranted.

  

  Indonesia’s approach was focused because it concentrated on three major issues: its ‘middle-way’ approach to balancing austerity and job creation, financial inclusion and infrastructure investment. Read the rest of this entry »

The East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) organises conferences, workshops and roundtables which bring together academics and policy-makers from around Asia and the Pacific to promote research on important issues facing the region as well as collaboration and policy dialogue between the Asian countries. Our existing network of research institutes and think-tanks brings together the leading thinkers and policy-makers from around Asia. We are also involved in the work of the Think Tank 20 (TT20), a network of think tanks from G20 countries coordinated by the Brookings Institution, which publishes a collection of works from the participating organisations before each G20 summit, providing analysis and suggesting policy solutions for the pressing problems facing the G20.

Peter Drysdale & Sébastien Willis (EABER) - Asia and the G20
Peter Drysdale (EABER) & Soogil Young (KOPEC) – Opportunity for Asia and the G20
Peter Drysdale – Defining an Asian Agenda in the G20
Peter Drysdale – Can Asia Keep Growing in the Midst of Global Economic Turmoil?
Peter Drysdale – Can Asia Help Power the Global Recovery?

• East Asian fingerprints on the G20

  Authors: Alan S. Alexandroff, University of Toronto, and Yves Tiberghien, UBC

  G20 Summits often capture the headlines for the wrong reasons: a currency war declaration at the Seoul Summit in 2010; a euro crisis at Cannes in 2011 and again at Los Cabos in June.

  

  While these clashes are important, they hide the real changes taking place in the global governance system. Read the rest of this entry »

• G20: microfinance and poverty reduction

  Author: Scott French, Macquarie University

  The recent G20 summit held in Los Cabos, Mexico, focused on the plight of developing economies. The agenda included several items of interest for developing nations, including financial inclusion and microfinance.

  

  Better microfinance mechanisms will contribute to the reduction of global poverty and assist developing nations in sustaining their economies without foreign aid. Read the rest of this entry »

• Invest in infrastructure to restore confidence in the global economy

  Author: Andrew Elek, ANU

  A series of massive policy failures are to be blamed for the crisis of confidence in the West that now threatens the global economy.

  

  At the same time, policy failure is being compounded by the failure of global financial markets, with interest rates turning negative in real terms and huge gaps in infrastructure becoming increasingly evident — both in emerging economic giants and in the US.

  Read the rest of this entry »

• G20 infrastructure initiative: Keynesianism going global

  Author: Andrew Elek, ANU

  The World Bank recently published a valuable research paper (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5940 by Justin Yifu Lin and Doerte Doemeland) which presents the evidence needed to justify a globally coordinated initiative in carefully selected infrastructure investment.

  

  A G20 initiative in 2012 could make this happen. Read the rest of this entry »

• Asia’s global leadership at a difficult time

  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 the rest of this entry »