You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'International Economics' category.
This article can also be found at Brooks Foreign Policy Review, here.
by Collin Spears – Visiting Fellow, Center for New Politics and Policy
As discussed in Part I of this series, the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) will be a win-win for the signatories. The agreement will produce greater economies of scales, as it expands trade between members, which will result in an aggregate increase in competitive export products from China and ASEAN. However, it will not foreshadow European-style regional integration, at least not in the near future. The centrifugal force generated by the agreement will not only draw ASEAN closer to China, the regions manufacturing hub, but it will push those states outside the bloc to liberalize their own trade in order to stay competitive. While the United States is generally supportive of ASEAN, it is not in the strategic interest of the U.S. for it to be outside of an Asian economic bloc, especially one that will aid in cementing a strong Chinese leadership position in Southeast Asia. Implementation of this agreement has increased concerns among some analysts that the economic and perhaps, the political center of gravity of the region are shifting away from the United States and toward China.
The latest article is now up at Brooks Foreign Policy Review, here.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), founded 42 years ago, was created to provide a framework to advance regional stability in Southeast Asia at a time when the withdrawal of colonial powers had created a vacuum. This placed the newly independent states of the region in danger of succumbing to ethnic strife and communist insurgencies. Since the conclusion of the Cold War, ASEAN has embarked on a series of free trade initiatives, linking it to some of the Asian-Pacific regions most dynamic economies.
Article is also up at Brooks Foreign Policy Review, here.
In 2001, Former Singaporean Ambassador to the United Nations, Kishore Mahbubani asked a simple question, which was also the title of his book, “Can Asians Think?” Mr. Mahbubani sought to challenge, what he perceived as, Western paternalism. He believes that Asians do not need indefinite guidance by the Western world, because Asians are capable of independent thought, and just because these thoughts may differ from the West does not mean they are the result of defective thinking. A befitting question for the coming decade is, “Can Sub-Saharan Africans think?” For many Westerners it would seem the answer is, “No”, at least as far as Africa’s relationship with China.
In 2005, the Western media began to express “concern” with the increasing Chinese presence in Sub-Sahara Africa (Africa). During this period, many foreign policy observers began to promote the idea that China is plotting to take over Africa in some neo-colonialist attempt to gain unlimited access to natural resources. For example, Karin Kortmann, a German parliamentary state secretary stated in November of 2006, “our African partners really have to watch out that they will not be facing a new process of colonization” (Cheng 2007). The same year, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, Jack Straw, made similar allegations “Most of what China has been doing in Africa today is what we did in Africa 150 years ago” (Stevenson 2006). This Sinophobic boilerplate is hyperbole, but the narrative suggests that the average African is impotent and their leaders are all iniquitous or ineffectual.
Part II of the previous article is now up at Brooks Foreign Policy Review, here.
Main site is here.
China and the Global Recession: Part II – Relations with the United States
BFPR ANALYSIS
By Collin Spears, Chief Foreign Policy Correspondent,
Washington D.C. Bureau
In 2001, the Bush Administration characterized China as a “strategic competitor” to the United States. This may still be an accurate depiction of U.S. – Sino relations, at least as it applies to certain aspects of the multifarious relationship between the two nations. Financially, China and the U.S. have long been symbiotic. Despite the mutual benefits attained from this situation, there have been numerous points of contention, issues that have only been aggravated by the global financial crisis. The U.S. and China will have to find politically palatable ways to work though some of these differences, because the future economic viability of both nations depends on it.
Main site is here.
China and the Global Recession: Part I – The Domestic Situation
BFPR ANALYSIS
By Collin Spears, Chief Foreign Policy Correspondent,
Washington D.C. Bureau
The consensus of mainstream China analysts is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a unified entity that is destined to guide China into a new golden where it will enjoy global superpower status. This sanguine narrative is maybe challenged as the current global economic recession has served to elucidate the genuine fragility of China’s political economy. Stability in the immediate future, let alone, decades from the present, is not a fact to be taken for granted, but a likely possibility to be continuously observed and evaluated.
I wrote a few times about the changing family dynamic in Japan and the rise of the woman worker. Despite Japan’s shrinking and aging population the article makes clear the crime rate is low, unemployment is very low for a developed nation (less than 4%) and the country is still quite middle class. It does not sound like a crisis, it sounds like Japan is going the way of some less dynamic and mature European countries. It is becoming what I like to call a “museum country”, it is stagnating.
So what can Japan do? Further deregulate and import more foreigners? That might be a long term solution, but I’m not sure the social cost outweigh the benefits for most Japanese people.
I believe one of the key problems in Japan is how decisions are made. Japanese people, since the Late Tokogawa Period (and likely before) have be very high on consensus. They do not tend to like strong independent leaders making controversial and difficult decisions. They do not like this in CEOs and they especially do not tend to like this in Prime Ministers, therefore these positions are historically weak. Some of the issues that plague Japan need a strong leader, but due to the way the political and economic establishment has been historically structured this individual or “new generation” of leaders is unlikely to manifest.
——————–
For Japan, a Long, Slow Slide
Declines in Productivity, Population Combining to Stifle Economic Growth
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 3, 2008; A17
TOKYO — As the United States frets noisily about a recession, Japan is quietly enduring a far more fundamental economic slide, one that seems irreversible.
This country, which got rich quick in a postwar miracle of manufacturing and alarmed Americans by buying up baubles such as Rockefeller Center, is steadily slipping backward as a major economic force.
Fifteen years ago, Japan ranked fourth among the world’s countries in gross domestic product per capita. It now ranks 20th. In 1994, its share of the world’s economy peaked at 18 percent; in 2006, the number was below 10 percent.
- ‘Iron Lady’ bids public farewell – Wu taitai gone already? I was looking forward to reading more about her after the last Sino-EU summit. Maybe she can consult for some African nations. This woman is a bulldog, and I mean that in a respectful way. Not just anyone could lead the negotiation for China ascension to the WTO.
-S Korean military on alert following attacks by hackers – I’m not really surprised Chinese hackers attacked South Korea as there have been some major “beefs” between the two nations over interpretation of overlapping ancient histories.
-Overseas Vietnamese eyed for hi-tech sector – Saigon Hi-tech Park is trying to recruit overseas Vietnamese tech workers to make up for the shortage of domestic talent. As one would expect there are growing pains.
-China to Switch to Lethal Injections – China said they will stop shooting people in the head and use lethal injection, which is funny due to the fact America is debating if “lethal injection” is cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment is against the U.S. constitution.
-Li Yinhe on the recent porn crackdowns – An interesting post on porn crackdowns in China.
This is surprisingly a good article. So is China buying into the argument that greater appreciation of the Yuan is good for everyone, or is this a hollow show of good face to appease critics? The article is likely correct that the Chinese government will appreciate slowly if they do intend to do that so as to maintain greater control, but the point about speculation is ominous. What is more disturbing to the CCP is the thought of massive unemployment in export related industries leading to even greater social instability, as rural migrants have nowhere to go. They can not go to the city to work and the value of agricultural products at home could fall due to greater foreign competition. Remember that most Chinese still live in rural areas, not large cities.
———————
China appears to allow faster appreciation of yuan
By Keith Bradsher
Friday, December 28, 2007
HONG KONG:
The yuan has risen faster against the dollar this week than at any time since the end of the Chinese currency’s peg to the dollar in 2005, feeding speculation that the Chinese government has begun allowing a brisker pace of appreciation.
The currency, also known as the renminbi, rose 0.9 percent this week. That included an increase of 0.18 percent on Friday to close at 7.3041 to the dollar in Shanghai trading.
