Today Trends

Author: Mark Tokola, Korea Economic Institute of America On 16 August 2023, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that China had wrongfully imposed duties on US imports. Despite this, China continues to impose its illegal duties, pending its appeal to the defunct Appellate Body. China is exploiting a situation that the United States created. The security exception, Article XXI, was included in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to allow for otherwise illegal measures taken purely for security reasons. The Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have all made clear that the US position is that a country’s use of Article XXI cannot be challenged in the WTO. Russia supports the US view, but China, the European Union and South Korea are among those who argue that the WTO has a right to investigate whether a country has made a plausible link between its use of Article XXI and an actual security interest. The specific wording of Article XXI implies that there are st...

Author: Giulia Ajmone Marsan, ERIA Indonesia and India devoted significant efforts to boost innovation and entrepreneurship throughout their Group of 20 (G20) presidencies in 2022 and 2023, respectively. For both countries and other developing economies, innovation is key to boosting productivity and transitioning to higher-income knowledge-based economies. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization Global Innovation Index 2023, India has moved up in its ranking from 48th to 40th position since 2020, with Indonesia moving from 85th to 61st position in the same timeframe. Both countries are recognised for their vibrant entrepreneurship culture and funding availability for start-ups and scaleups. But their weaknesses include a limited circulation of talent and — in India’s case — limited participation of women with advanced degrees in the labour market. The increased performance of India and Indonesia reflects a broader change in the global innovation landscape . ...

Authors: Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia, and Alan Alexandroff, Global Summitry Project The 9–10 September 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi showed increased buy-in to global governance from India and the Global South. It will be remembered as the moment that the G20 effectively became the G21, with the addition of the African Union as a representative of its 55 member states.   Clearly it was India’s show. India organised more engagement events and popular mobilisation than any country before. The G20 was designed both to signal India’s greater role in global affairs and to serve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political agenda at home. India’s G20 presidency did demonstrate how the principle of rotating hosts can renew the G20’s entrepreneurial energy, even though actual success requires relentless diplomacy and compromise among all members. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s surprising decision to skip this G20 summit and to send Premier Li Qiang in his stead has at...

Author: Chin Huat Wong, Sunway University On 16 September — Malaysia Day — hundreds of people gathered in downtown Kuala Lumpur to protest against a controversial ‘discharge not amounting to acquittal’ recently granted to Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Originally facing 47 charges of corruption, criminal breach of trust and money laundering, Zahid is an embarrassment to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim who positions himself as an anti-corruption champion. Zahid’s discharge , applied for by the prime minister-controlled Attorney General’s Chamber , raised questions. Among these are how far Anwar — who denied his personal involvement in Zahid’s case — would go in compromising the reformist and multiculturalist platform of his coalition, Alliance of Hope ( Pakatan Harapan , PH), to keep his post-election coalition government afloat until December 2027. The bigger question is whether Malaysia’s majoritarian political system still works after the end of the one-party dominance ...

Author: Marian Seliga, J&T Banka Western nations and multinational corporations, severely impacted by COVID-19 restrictions and supply chain disruptions, are reevaluating their approaches towards China. While many Western businesses view China as a vital market, there is considerable uncertainty about the Chinese economy’s potential recovery. Amid the backdrop of uncertain economic trends in China and globally, the interactions between the world’s two largest economies, China and the United States, hold significance. Relations are continuing to deteriorate. Chinese President Xi Jinping even accused the United States of trying to hinder China’s technological advances in March 2023. Geopolitical tensions also exist, particularly over the Taiwan issue. While a military resolution to the matter remains largely hypothetical, the dynamics within the business community demonstrate that political tensions tend to take a backseat to economic considerations. Since China lifted its res...

Authors: I Nyoman Sutarsa, ANU and Luh Virsa Paradissa, Gadjah Mada University In 2009, the Indonesian government enforced mandatory health spending to establish equitable health systems and enhance social security. The Law on Health (Law No. 36/2009) required governments to allocate at least 5 per cent of the national budget and 10 per cent of the local government budget to the health sector. But the new Law on Health (Law No. 17/2023), passed in August 2023 , has abolished this obligatory health spending — sparking concerns regarding its potential negative impact on health equity. The magnitude of these consequences will hinge on the approach taken by governments in implementing new health expenditure mechanisms. Before 2009, most Indonesian health expenditures came from out-of-pocket (OOP) payments, causing significant disparities between the wealthiest and poorest segments of society. Only 26 per cent of Indonesians were covered by government and private health insurance sc...

Author: Faris Abdurrachman, New York University The International Monetary Fund’s June 2023 assessment of Indonesia’s export ban policy has reignited debate on Indonesia’s downstream industrial policy. Advocates emphasise its substantial impact on export revenues and value addition, while critics pinpoint the fiscal cost and the market distortions caused by the policy. A more nuanced assessment suggests the merits of both perspectives. Indonesia’s experiment with downstream industrial policy began with the 2009 Mining Law signed by former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which mandated the domestic processing of all mineral commodities mined in the country. But the policy was only implemented in 2014 for nickel and bauxite amid widespread opposition from the mining sector. It was in nickel that Indonesia found its success. Before banning nickel ore export in 2014, Indonesia predominantly exported raw nickel ore which is minimally processed into nickel matte. The country’s nic...

Authors: Huw Roberts, University of Oxford and Emmie Hine, University of Bologna Rapid developments in generative artificial intelligence (AI) — algorithms used to create new text, pictures, audio, or other types of content — are concerning regulators globally. These systems are often trained on personal and copyrighted data scraped from the internet, leading to privacy and intellectual property fears. They can also be used to generate harmful misinformation and disinformation . On 15 August 2023, a new Chinese law designed to regulate generative AI came into force. This law, the latest in a series of regulations targeting different aspects of AI, is internationally groundbreaking as the first law that specifically targets generative AI. It introduces new restrictions for companies providing these services to consumers regarding both the training data used and the outputs produced. Despite these new restrictions on companies, the evolution of the draft text, combined with chan...