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: Abdur Chowdhury, Marquette University
Joining the WTO in 2012 marks the culmination of a long period of transformation for Russia, which first applied for membership in June 1993, and finally had its terms of entry accepted on 16 December.
To join the WTO, Russia has had to overhaul its national laws to bring them into conformity with the global trade regime, and work out bilateral market-opening deals with all other members. Russia has agreed to slash tariffs, get rid of industrial subsidies and allow foreign companies greater access to its domestic market. 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: Kirill Muradov, HSE
With the conclusion of the APEC meetings in Honolulu in November, another yearly cycle is about to draw to a close.
Soon all eyes will turn to Russia as the next host, with the 2012 summit scheduled for early September in Vladivostok. Leading APEC will be Russia’s most significant multilateral undertaking since hosting the G8 in 2006. Observers are curious to see what a Russian agenda will entail and what goals will be set for APEC in 2012. Adding to this significance, APEC is the first — and only — major Asia Pacific forum where Russia can hold the chair. Read more…
Author: Andrew Elek, ANU
A revolution in information and communications technology since the 1990s has changed the nature of production, international commerce and the importance of integration.
Eager to engage their economies in global production networks, governments have moved unilaterally to lift most tariff and other policy barriers which inhibit trade at the border. Read more…
Author: Ding Dou, Peking University
Longstanding tensions over the value of the Chinese currency now seem on the verge of breaking out into action.
The US Senate recently voted three consecutive times on a bill designed to take punitive action against China over its alleged ‘under-valued’ currency. Read more…
Author: Masahiro Kawai, ADBI
According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) study Institutions for Asian Integration: Toward an Asian Economic Community (2010), Asia is supported by a dense web of 40 overlapping regional and sub-regional institutions that promote regional cooperation and integration at the intergovernmental level.
Yet with few formal or explicit commitments from members of these institutions, Asia remains ‘institution-light’. Read more…
Author: Sandy Gordon, ANU
India claims there is a strong connection between its need to lift an estimated 440 million people out of poverty, and its stance on trade liberalisation and climate change.
The country’s Planning Commission recently estimated India’s poverty rate at 37 per cent. Read more…
Author: Wang Yong, Peking University
Prior to joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), the common perception in China was that the WTO belonged to ‘the Club of the Rich’, where wealthy countries imposed rules on poor and weak developing ones.
Now, the WTO is one of the most widely recognised and respected international organisations within China. Read more…
Author: Nabeel A Mancheri, NIAS
China is the world’s largest depositor, producer, consumer and exporter of rare earths, controlling 97 per cent of the global supplies.
But with China’s export restrictions, the gap between demand and supply is growing because of the dearth of any other major supplying nation. Read more…
Author: Yiping Huang, Peking University and ANU
The current international economic system is defined by three key features.
First, the United States is a dominant leader in designing and enforcing the international economic rules.
Authors: Nadia Rocha and Robert Teh, WTO
Participation in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) has grown rapidly in recent years.
In 1990, there were only about 70 PTAs in force. Thereafter, PTA activity accelerated noticeably; by 2010 the number of PTAs in force was close to 300. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF
In East Asia, as elsewhere in the world, the risks that we continue to face in recovery from the global financial crisis, economically and politically, are a consequence not only of failure in national governance but also in the architecture of international governance, including regional architecture.
Failures that frustrated a coherent East Asian and international response to the big problems of the day (including payments imbalances, financial market reform, trade and exchange rate issues) in their global context. Read more…
Author: Wendy Dobson, University of Toronto
With no clear leader and few strong incentives for deep integration, Asian cooperation for the foreseeable future is likely to be intergovernmental, with little pooling of sovereignty to create supranational institutions or agree common rules and disciplines.
As Asia’s weight in the world economy grows, however, its interests will also be served by a strong commitment to global institutions. Read more…
Author: Raymond Trewin, ANU
Trade bans often signal a lack of ideas or an attempt to constrain market forces, driven by the more vocal or influential rather than evidence-based policy analysis.
The recent proposed ban on livestock exports to Indonesia seems a prime example of this situation, with a ‘NineMSN’ survey of the issue indicating more than 50 per cent of respondents are against the ban. Read more…