Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the PacificAuthor: Nicholas R. Lardy, PIIE. Washington
Virtually every dimension of China’s economic success over the past three-and-a-half decades can be attributed largely to the rise of markets and private businesses. Private firms account for almost all the growth in employment, most of the expansion of output and investment in manufacturing, and in recent years for over half of the growth in exports. Read more…
Author: Benedikt Buechel, Seoul National University
Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s return to power in December 2012, Japan’s diplomatic relations with South Korea have continuously worsened. Abe’s persistent stance on the Yasukuni Shrine, the Dokdo/Takeshima territorial dispute and the ‘comfort women’ issue has elicited fierce opposition from the South Korean government. While no rapprochement on any of these conflicts has been achieved, the Japanese government should be aware that its hawkish and revisionist rhetoric is hurting Japan’s reputation and risks driving the country into international isolation. Read more…
Author: Chheang Vannarith, University of Leeds
The recent state visit by Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to Cambodia represented part of the Thai military government’s uphill diplomatic battle to build and strengthen its legitimacy abroad. This visit occurred amid mounting diplomatic pressures from Europe and the US, calling for a rapid return to democracy. Read more…
Author: Claude Barfield, American Enterprise Institute
Are the stars aligning for both passage of a trade promotion authority bill by Congress and approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement?
Admittedly, it is a tough time to rally around President Obama. Read more…
Author: Maria O’Sullivan, Monash University
The recently signed refugee resettlement agreement between Australia and Cambodia has been a highly controversial development in Australian asylum seeker policy. The deal sets out conditions under which persons recognised as refugees by authorities in Nauru (operating as part of Australia’s offshore processing regime) will be voluntarily resettled in Cambodia. Read more…
Author: Peter Cai, Business Spectator
China is facing a new economic crisis, and it is not about mounting local debt or even a rapidly slowing property market. The crisis in the making is about family business succession in the world’s second-largest economy. Read more…
Author: Michael V. Gestrin, OECD
State-owned enterprises have played a relatively minor role in the era of investment-driven globalisation that began in the 1970s. As recently as 2007, when annual flows of foreign direct investment by multinational enterprises reached a record US$2 trillion, state-owned enterprises were sitting on the sidelines, accounting for only 3–4 per cent of international mergers and acquisitions, the main vehicles multinational enterprises use to acquire and control international operations. Read more…
Author: Corey Wallace, ANU
When Abe dissolved the lower house on 21 November 2014 and called a snap election for December, top leaders in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and New Komeito identified keeping 270 seats as the low-water mark, which would represent a loss of 56 seats. Given current economic conditions and the state of public opinion, a unified and confident opposition would probably extract such losses and would challenge the LDP–New Komeito coalition’s majority. But the opposition is still struggling to unify, so Abe and the coalition look reasonably safe. Read more…
Author: David Brewster, ANU
A sea change is occurring in Sri Lanka’s strategic orientation. Recent developments suggest that Sri Lanka is becoming China’s new best friend and security partner in the eastern Indian Ocean. This would represent a major change in Sri Lanka’s foreign policy and could have significant consequences for regional security. Read more…
Author: Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Chulalongkorn University
This geopolitical summit season has consolidated ongoing trends in international affairs. A still-rising China with global leadership aspirations, a resurgent Russia bent on restoring its superpower status, and sclerosis and dysfunction in Western countries is likely to dominate international politics for at least the next 20 years. In fact, we might only be at the beginning in this long time span where seismic global power shifts are taking place. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
Prime Minister Abe is subjecting his ruling coalition — and his nation — to an unnecessary election on 14 December 2014. Abe claims his decision is all about policy, but in reality it is all about politics. His stated rationale for calling the election is the need to secure voters’ endorsement of his administration’s decision to postpone the consumption tax rise to 10 per cent until April 2017. But his real reasons are based on cold calculations of political self-interest. Read more…
Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International
Australia and India have not always been the best of friends.
Seven Indian prime ministers from across the political spectrum and spanning three decades have come and gone without paying a state visit to Canberra, a record broken only now with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Australia following the Brisbane G20 Summit. Four unreciprocated visits were made by Australian prime ministers during the latter half of this period. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, East Asia Forum
Much energy has been expended on projecting the impact of the rise of Chinese economic power on its political and military might and the strategic contest with the United States. Read more…
Author: Mireya Solís, Brookings Institution
The 2014 APEC leaders’ summit witnessed a string of successes in Chinese trade diplomacy. Key among these successes was the endorsement of China’s signature trade initiative as APEC host: the realisation sooner rather than later of a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). Read more…
Authors: Alan S Alexandroff, University of Toronto, and Yves Tiberghien, UBC
For global governance watchers, this was the big week of the year. Between 7 November and 16 November, the world witnessed an APEC meeting in Yanqi Lake near Beijing complete with a bilateral China–Japan ‘breakthrough’ and a major US–China climate deal; an historic ASEAN and East Asia Summit held in Naypidaw, Myanmar; and a colourful G20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia.
Notwithstanding the chorus of those announcing growing disorder, global order seems better off after these summits. Read more…
