Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
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).
Author: Barry Sautman, HKUST
A wave of about 25 self-immolations in Tibetan areas of China has made the Tibet issue prominent again in global media.
Pro-Tibet independence groups say these successful — or horribly disfiguring — attempts at suicide result from ‘Chinese oppression’, and that the self-immolations have led to an increased security presence in Tibet and more repression of Tibetans. Read more…
Author: Benjamin Ho, RSIS
Much has been made of Asia’s rise to global prominence and the continent’s increasingly important role in global politics.
But what does this mean for ASEAN, whose regional presence has also received growing attention from the global community of late? Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
With the Greek rescue package finally in place, European leaders have, temporarily at least, succeeded in the job of retro-fitting the union with fiscal disciplines which impose more binding limits on national budgets and borrowing.
All but Britain opted in. The British government declared itself unwilling to yield British sovereignty. Read more…
Author: Vikram Nehru, Carnegie Endowment
Tensions continue to rise in the South China Sea following the Obama administration’s foreign policy ‘pivot’ toward Asia late last year.
There are many reasons for the pivot, but a principal motivation was to protect the freedom of navigation in the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea. Read more…
Author: Jabin T. Jacob, RSIS
In the 50 years since the 1962 Sino–Indian conflict over their disputed boundary, relations between the two countries have been radically transformed.
Bilateral trade is booming, while China and India are equally concerned over regional and global issues such as energy security, climate change, the reform of international organisations, and the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Read more…
Author: Nicholas Lardy, PIIE
The imminent rebalancing of China’s economy has been forecast repeatedly over the past several years.
With the shrinking of China’s external surplus during 2011, proponents of this argument have all but declared victory. Read more…
Author: Rodolfo C. Severino, ISEAS
For the second time in ASEAN’s history, Cambodia has taken over the chairmanship of this ten-nation association.
It first chaired ASEAN in 2002–03, when the country had been a member for only three years. Yet the world and the region have changed considerably in the last 10 years. Read more…
Author: Hugh White, ANU
Four months ago, as Australia’s parliamentarians rose to give President Barack Obama a standing ovation, it seemed they had already decided how best to navigate the profound strategic changes that must inevitably flow from the shift in relative economic weight from West to East.
Obama laid out in the starkest terms yet his determination that America will resist China’s challenge to US leadership in Asia, using all the elements of its power — including military force — to perpetuate a future for Asia framed by American values and interests. Read more…
Author: Kai Ito, ANU
Beijing has chosen to defy Washington’s embargo on Iranian oil.
While this does not bode well for putting an end to Iran’s uranium-enrichment program, the embargo also represents another worrying failure for US-China relations. Read more…
Author: Cheng Li, Brookings
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s current visit to the United States is important to both nations, but for different reasons.
Xi is expected to soon take over from Hu Jintao as leader of the world’s most populous country and second-largest economy. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
The debate about rebalancing China’s economy so that growth is driven more by domestic consumption than by investment and exports intensified with the onset of the global financial crisis.
China’s high level of net savings and external surpluses, and industrial-country reliance on the cheap international capital that accompanied them, was no longer sustainable. Read more…
Author: Yiping Huang, Peking University
The international community, and particularly policy makers in the United States, put great expectations on the contribution that China can make to global economic recovery by rebalancing its economy through promoting consumption growth.
The Chinese authorities broadly accept this priority and have put in place a number of policy measures that aim to achieve it. Read more…