Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
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…
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Geethanjali Nataraj, NCAER
As developed countries struggle to recover after the global recession and try to confront the looming sovereign debt crisis in Europe, big emerging markets are now driving global growth.
Given the slow down in developed countries, emerging economies are trying to boost domestic demand to sustain growth — and this is particularly the case in China. Read more…
Author: Sheryn Lee, ANU
On 14 January, Taiwan’s incumbent president, Ma Ying-jeou, won a second term in office, obtaining 51.6 per cent of the popular vote while Tsai Ing-wen, his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opponent, managed 45.6 per cent.
Ma’s party, the Kuomintang (KMT), thus retained control of the Legislative Yuan, securing 64 of the 113 seats. 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: John Hemmings, CSIS, Honolulu
At both the APEC and ASEAN summits, attempts were made to deal with the building impasse over the South China Sea issue.
Tensions over the region have grown steadily since 2009, after China, Vietnam and Malaysia submitted their respective claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). China’s naval exercises in the region and apparent willingness to showcase its military capabilities in favour of its claims have also exacerbated these tensions. Read more…
Author: Brad Glosserman, CSIS, Washington DC
‘No, thanks’.
That, in summary, is Hugh White’s response to the recent announcement that the US would be sending marines on permanent rotation to Darwin.
White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the ANU, one of Asia’s most distinguished strategists, and a former Australian deputy secretary of defence. And he has been making the case for strategic reorientation in Canberra for a couple of years now. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
China’s spectacular industrial growth has been associated with equally spectacular growth in Chinese energy and resource consumption.
While Chinese energy efficiency (the amount of GDP produced per unit of energy consumed) has risen steadily, except for a few years early this decade, aggregate energy consumption has been lifted by a hugely energy-intensive phase of industrialisation and the spread of motorised transportation on a scale and at a speed that is unprecedented anywhere. Read more…
Author: Vikas Kumar, Azim Premji University
During her last visit to India in July, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged India to play a bigger role in Asia.
While this predates Clinton’s more recent suggestion that India, China and the US should work more closely together, it is still widely believed that heightened India–US cooperation is aimed at encircling China. And it appears the symbolic element of official India–US interactions is often mistaken for a sustainable strategic relationship. Read more…