Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Kevin Placek, Melbourne
Having ruled Japan for the better half of a century, it is no surprise that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has found it difficult to adapt to its role as Japan’s major opposition party.
But with the prospect of further political gridlock, it may be time for the LDP to reconsider its strategy. Read more…
Author: Zhang Yunling, CASS
Since China’s reform and opening-up policies began in the 1970s, the country’s average annual economic growth rate has hovered around 10 per cent.
Currently, China’s gross domestic product is second only to the United States; it is the world’s largest exporter and importer and the largest holder of foreign exchange reserves. Along with China’s remarkable economic rise comes an increase in China’s role in both regional and global development and governance. Read more…
Author: Mukul Asher, NUS
With the end of 2011, Singapore’s policy makers have ample reason to be satisfied with their economic management, and the results of the long-prevailing business location growth model.
Singapore’s macroeconomic indicators, excepting the inflation rate, exhibited encouraging trends in 2011. Read more…
Author: Jagdish N. Bhagwati, Columbia University and CFR
As if undermining the WTO’s Doha Round of global free-trade talks was not bad enough (the last ministerial meeting in Geneva produced barely a squeak), the US has compounded its folly by actively promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
President Barack Obama announced this with nine Asian countries during his recent trip to the region. Read more…
Author: Wendy Dobson, University of Toronto
The euro crisis hijacked the G20 Summit in Cannes — even by late December Europe’s leaders still had not fully diagnosed the problem, but without an accurate diagnosis how can there be an effective prescription?
This missing link accentuates two challenges that Asian integration will face in 2012: the consolidation of regional architecture and the need for deeper structural adjustments. Read more…
Authors: Malcolm Bosworth and Greg Cutbush, ANU Enterprise
Like all good fairytales, APEC was formed ‘once upon a time’ to promote trade and investment in the Asia Pacific.
Members like Australia, New Zealand and Japan fought hard to ensure it would not become a myopic trade bloc that discriminated against and sought to divert economic activity away from others. Read more…
Author: Christopher Findlay, University of Adelaide
The weather was awful outside the WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva last week, but there was some sunshine within the convention centre.
Russia acceded as a member, along with Samoa, Montenegro and Vanuatu (the club still attracts new members, and as one minister said: ‘as far as I know, nobody has asked to leave’). Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
In Washington and Beijing last week there were important meetings that are likely to be influential in where the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations on regional trade arrangements lead down the track.
In Washington, the US administration called in ambassadors from the eight negotiating partners to up the ante on an early deal. Read more…
Author: Shiro Armstrong, ANU
In President Obama’s landmark speech in Canberra last month, an over-riding theme was that the United States welcomes China’s rise so long as it plays by the global rules.
Yet those rules are dynamic, and there is a need to have China involved in setting them given the scale of China and its importance to the regional and global economy, as well as to global security. Read more…
Author: Joel Rathus, ANU
The global financial crisis forced East Asian nations to get serious about regional architecture.
As global trade entered a precarious decline during the height of the crisis in 2008–09, one of the obvious areas of focus for East Asia was trade regionalism, aimed at making East Asia a more efficient production network and, over time, a final market in its own right. Read more…
Author: Hubert Wu, University of Melbourne
It is wrong to assess the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) against its short-term benefits — these may very well be non-existent. Instead, the deal’s true value hinges upon its chances of a medium-term expansion into Asia.
The TPP is an ambitious regional trade agreement under negotiation between ten economies: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, Vietnam and as of early November, Japan. The Agreement has concluded its ninth round of negotiations in Lima, Peru, with an unofficial round also occurring recently at the 2011 APEC summit in Hawaii.
Author: Donald K. Emmerson, Stanford University
Southeast Asian policy makers looking north to the Asian mainland and east across the Pacific see two major assets to their region: China’s biggest-in-the-world economy and America’s best-in-the-world military.
Of course, America is still important to Southeast Asia’s economy: the US and China each imported 10.1 per cent of the total value of ASEAN’s exports in 2009; and accounted for almost identical shares of FDI inflows into ASEAN: 10.8 per cent and 10.4 per cent respectively.
Author: Gary Hawke, NZIER
While in Honolulu for the APEC summit recently, President Obama announced a 12-month timeframe to complete negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Some have welcomed this development, but, in truth, it is a disappointing one. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
With the APEC Summit in Honolulu, US President Obama has launched a week of regional summitry that is set to lift America’s engagement in Asia and test new directions in regional diplomacy.
After APEC, Obama flies to Australia for a long heralded bilateral summit in Canberra, and then on to Indonesia, to take part — the first time for an American leader — in the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bali. Read more…
Author: Shiro Armstrong, ANU
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement got a big boost around the APEC meeting in Honolulu. A broad framework was announced, progress highlighted, and a 12 month deadline for a deal was set.
The TPP is the first trade agreement which President Obama did not inherit from his predecessors, and it is seen as a means of keeping the US engaged in Asia. Read more…