Author: Yanrui Wu, UWA
After three decades of rapid growth, the Chinese economy is now at a crossroads, heading towards the next phase of development. While China’s economic growth has indeed been phenomenal, it has also been resource intensive and environmentally damaging.
For high growth to be sustained in the coming decades, the role of technological progress has to be boosted. This can either occur through technology transfer flows from abroad, or through indigenous innovation. While the former has been widely discussed, the latter has largely been under-documented. Read more…
Author: Mi Luo, Peking University
Internet usage is on the rise in China, especially amongst the younger generation. Faced with the problem of extensive online censorship, this generation has designed software packages to ‘scale the Great Firewall’ which blocks content deemed sensitive by the Ministry of Public Security.
What does this internet usage say about a burgeoning Chinese demand for democracy? A defining feature of a functioning democracy is the active involvement of ordinary people in discourse about the nation. Read more…
Author: Andy Yee, University of London
At the 12th ASEAN Summit in the Philippines three years ago, ASEAN leaders affirmed their commitment to an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 and to transform ASEAN into a region with free movement of goods, services, labour and capital. Earlier this year ASEAN committed to further regional integration when FTAs with Australia, New Zealand and China came into effect on January 1. While the long-term advantages of closer regional economic cooperation are immense, one cannot help questioning to what extent economic integration can develop Asia. A large part of ‘Factory Asia’ is developed at the expense of export reliance to the West and inequality within countries.
To fully realise the region’s potential, East Asian economies need to re-balance their development strategy away from exports to the West towards fostering local demand. Read more…
Author: Shiro Armstrong, ANU
The Asian region is diverse, dynamic and it faces immense challenges. Domestically most countries are experiencing rapid economic, social and political change and in the region there is a huge change taking place in the structure of power and influence.
The latest issue of the East Asia Forum Quarterly brings together essays from rising stars in the new region to address the changes taking place in the region and showcases the best from the new generation on Asia. Read more…
Author: Geoffrey K. See, Yale University
During my last visit to Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, a student told me that she wanted to be a business leader. I asked her why. She said that she wants to show that ‘women can be good business leaders’. I later quizzed her on politics and she responded by asking me if I was interested in such issues. When I said ‘Yes’, she said ‘Politics are for men only.’
Maybe she has a point. Not so much that ‘politics are for men only’, but rather that in bringing North Korea back into the international system, we should separate politics from business. Encouraging trade and investments in North Korea can only make the country more cooperative on other issues. Read more…
Author: Andrew Rothe, Macquarie University
The Mekong River is one of the largest and most important rivers in Southeast Asia. It is an important source of income and sustenance for many in the riparian countries including China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Through large-scale development over the past few decades the river has become a valuable source of power for China.
In 1957, a study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (UNECAFE) saw great potential in developing the Mekong River. This development has boomed in the last two decades with a focus on large-scale infrastructure programs. China’s eight dam cascade in southern Yunnan province is a good example of such large scale hydro-power and irrigation programs. The development of the Mekong provides notable benefits, from large-scale power production and the economic development of impoverished areas, to curbing the frequency and ferocity of seasonal floods. Read more…
Author: Boonwara Sumano, University of London
The future of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states is a source of considerable discussion, with economic recession, internal and interstate conflict, and environmental degradation remaining top concerns. This decade signals the increasing significance of another issue in the structure of member countries’ populations.
The ASEAN Statistical Yearbook 2008 reports that population in most ASEAN countries is declining. Read more…
Author: Jonathan Symons, Hong Kong Institute of Education
Climate change is a key threat to Asia’s future economic and political stability and Asian states are responsible for an increasing percentage of global emissions. China, as the world’s largest emitter, has been widely condemned for its intransigence at the 2009 Copenhagen negotiations. However, its defenders counter that China’s commitment to reduce emission intensity by at least 40 per cent between 2005 and 2020 is a comparatively ambitious promise.
This debate misses the point: that mitigation efforts premised on the negotiation of national emissions targets are doomed to fail. State interests and conceptions of fairness are too divergent for the existing negotiation framework to avert dangerous climate change. Read more…
Author: Miwa Hirono
To fulfil its international responsibilities, China’s argument goes, it has increased its involvement in non-traditional security issues, including post-disaster assistance. China has provided international post-disaster assistance since 2003, having dispatched rescue teams to Algeria, Iran, Pakistan, Aceh, Yogyakarta, and most recently, Haiti. China’s efforts, especially in Haiti, have attracted international praise. Its purportedly skilled and professional international rescue team was amongst the first that arrived in the disaster zone.
Post-disaster assistance, however, presents China with a significant political challenge. Read more…
Author: Xiujun Xu, CASS
The problem of anthropogenic climate change has become increasingly evident. The IPCC’s Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report shows the global surface temperature increased 0.74 °C in the past 100 years (1906-2005), mostly because of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. More drastically, China’s National Assessment Report on Climate Change predicts that average temperatures in China will rise by 2-3 °C over the next 50-80 years if no action is taken. Even if one is not completely convinced by the science, the likelihood of climate change occurring means that the most prudent course is to take action. Indeed, as the Copenhagen summit illustrates, most nation-states have already begun to take action.
An examination of China’s response to climate change shows that such action has had, and will continue to have, many serious consequences, both domestically and internationally. Read more…
Author: Ja Ian Chong, HKUST
Power transitions in international relations—real or perceived—are unsettling. This is especially so for non-leading states. Their interests depend on shifts in the international system that they cannot shape. Leading powers should, however, pay attention to how non-leading states react to expectations of change in the global political environment. Their reactions, especially when considered together, can exacerbate or moderate security dilemmas among the leading powers and has the potential to affect regional and even systemic stability.
Beijing and Washington should be particularly concerned that non-leading powers in the Asia-Pacific find much uncertainty in China’s rise as well as America’s future regional role. Read more…
Author: Peter Friedman, Akin Gump LLP
Much has been made about whether China is a rising power that can go the distance. The numbers posted by the world’s soon to be second largest economy indicate that China has already gone this distance and is positioned for more growth, but what happens behind the numbers is not always as clear-cut. China’s economic miracle, built largely on major capital investments and inexpensive labour, is now attempting to shift to the next level of economic development, built upon innovation and design or the value-add components of economic growth. China’s universities will be the source of much of the brainpower propelling China to this next level. But problems endemic to China’s higher education system, specifically plagiarism and the lack of academic integrity, will render this journey quite difficult.
When given English-language writing assignments, it is common for Chinese students to rely upon translating Chinese sources into English and passing it off as their own work, or simply copying and pasting directly from Wikipedia.[1] Read more…
Author: Matthew Dornan, ANU
The Nadarivatu hydro scheme may not be on the same scale as the Three Gorges Dam in China, but it is of similar importance for electricity generation in Fiji. When completed, it will generate 40 megawatts of power. This means that the Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA) will be well on its way to achieving its renewable energy target of 90 per cent of total generation. In total, the Nadarivatu scheme will replace 22,000 tonnes of expensive diesel and heavy fuel oil per annum.
So what is the problem? Unfortunately, the involvement of Sinohydro Corporation Ltd in Nadarivatu’s construction has raised significant labour and economic concerns within Fiji, and has contributed to unnecessary concern about the nature of China’s involvement in the Pacific region. Read more…
Author: Glenndale J. Cornelio
Serious change is coursing through the Philippines’ electoral system. On Monday May 10, the Philippines held its first ever automated national elections. This lends credibility to the next president, Noynoy Aquino. The election also involved all executive posts, from the national to the local level, and so was a rare opportunity for the electorate to pursue a fresh start by choosing its leaders well.
At the same time, in support of the incoming 15th Congress, the Secretariat of the House of Representatives has been preparing for the next legislative agenda. Read more…
Author: Roger Huang, Lingnan University
Myanmar (Burma) is at an important juncture this year as its first election in twenty years approaches.
Well known for its charismatic opposition leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi and the ruling, military-dominated State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), it comes as no real surprise that a series of recently announced electoral laws would effectively prevent Suu Kyi and other political dissidents from participating in the upcoming election. Read more…
