Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
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: 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: Robert D. Sloane, BU and Tibet Justice Center
In a recent article, Barry Sautman ascribes recent self-immolations in Tibet to a few disgruntled monks at a single monastery.
Their complaints, he says, reflect general social and economic issues rather than a genuine concern for the Tibetan people’s political and religious rights. Read more…
Author: Hugh White, ANU
Although he’s confident that Asia’s present regional order and institutions will keep Asia peaceful and harmonious as China’s power grows, Amitav Acharya does acknowledge that adjustments will be needed.
The question, then, is what kind of adjustments are required? Read more…
Authors: Brad Glosserman, CSIS, Peter Walkenhorst and Ting Xu, Bertelsmann Foundation
The most recent sign of the global order’s age and obsolescence was the BRICS summit held in New Delhi on 29 March 2012. Even though the group of countries that make up BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will not reorder global politics, their determination to articulate the grievances of emerging states should not be ignored.
Take, for example, their call for a new development bank to complement the World Bank by placing greater emphasis on the needs and priorities of developing economies as those nations themselves see them. Read more…
Author: Michael G. Roskin, Macau
Blind human-rights advocate Chen Guangcheng has given diplomacy a shove, causing a great racket that may startle the US out of its preferred ‘quiet diplomacy’ approach to human rights.
So far, this approach has allowed Beijing to ignore the issue of human rights violations. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
‘Pacific pivot’ has become the signature phrase to describe America’s new defence strategy.
This characterisation emerged around the time of US President Obama’s address to the Australian Parliament in November 2011 and the Pentagon’s release of a policy document, Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, a few months later. Read more…
Author: Wang Xiaolu, NERI
Economic imbalance in China — as indicated by the country’s very high investment rate, large export surplus and low proportion of domestic consumption — represents a long-term structural problem.
According to official statistics, the ratio of final consumption to GDP dropped sharply from 62.3 per cent to 47.4 per cent over the past decade. Read more…
Author: S. Mahmud Ali, LSE
International security literature has developed a new sub-genre focusing on the upcoming ‘Asian Century’.
Explanations of precisely what this term might mean still vary widely, but the changing power relations between the US and its presumed peer rival, China, lie at the core of the discussion. Read more…
Author: Frank Jotzo, ANU
The economic rise of Asia brings with it an unprecedented growth in energy use.
How that growth in energy demand will be met depends on technology development and policy for climate change and energy security. These choices will profoundly affect the prospects of energy exporters such as Australia. Read more…
Author: James Laurenceson, UQ
Five years on, the US economy remains sluggish after the bursting of a house-price bubble.
More recently, the focus has been on China — the world’s second-largest economy — and whether it too might be overwhelmed by a similar event. Read more…
Author: Louise Merrington, ANU
Although the disputed border between China and India is often highlighted as the major sticking point in Sino–Indian relations, in reality it has remained relatively peaceful since the end of the 1962 war, and the potential for overt military conflict in the region remains minimal.
Of much greater concern is the strategic quadrilateral relationship in South Asia involving China, India, the United States and Pakistan. Read more…
Author: Sandy Gordon, ANU
The Indian Ocean is Australia’s backyard — at least if you live in the west — and it plays a major role in transporting energy from the oil- and gas-rich Persian Gulf to Australia’s principal trading partners, China and Japan.
With each passing year, these and other East Asian powers become more dependent on the free passage of oil over the Indian Ocean. Read more…
Author: Carlyle A. Thayer, UNSW Canberra
Chinese civilian maritime surveillance vessels carried out a number of aggressive activities in parts of the South China Sea claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam in early 2011, raising regional tensions and sparking concern in the US and throughout the region about maritime security.
This concern now seems largely abated, after diplomatic efforts produced a somewhat unexpected positive development. Read more…
Author: Evan A. Feigenbaum, CFR
How many countries with nearly two decades of double-digit growth under their belt would look in the mirror and say: ‘It’s just not working anymore’?
I daresay, not many. But that is precisely what some Chinese leaders appear to be doing — a point most recently underlined in a new report, China 2030, published by the World Bank and China’s Development Research Center (DRC).