Today Trends

Author: Naohiro Yashiro, Showa Women’s University Japan’s new qualified invoicing issuer rules were introduced in October 2023 to improve the integrity of the value-added tax system, but various obstacles are hindering its implementation. There is a significant amount of scepticism regarding the new system, with many questioning whether it is primarily intended to increase taxes. Consumption tax was first introduced in Japan in 1989. The rate was successively raised to 10 per cent in 2019, accounting for 35 per cent of the government budget — both national and local. The consumption tax has remained significant and stable over business cycles but has been criticised by the public for many years, who note that it is not fair compared to the progressive income tax and puts a heavy burden on lower income households. Still, the virtue of the consumption tax is its horizontal equity. One can hide their sources of income, but no one can escape the consumption tax burden. Equity becomes m...

Author: Gabriela Bernal, UNKS Isolated from the international community and in urgent need of weapons and ammunition to continue its fight in Ukraine, Russia has chosen to double down on its alliance with North Korea. Although Moscow and Pyongyang have been allies for decades, recent developments point to deepening military cooperation, which may prolong the war in Ukraine and increase provocations on the Korean peninsula. Russia reaffirmed its intentions on 26 October 2023, when the Kremlin pledged to ‘continue to develop close relations in all areas’ with Pyongyang. Similarly, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui warned on 28 October that North Korea’s relations with Russia will act as a ‘powerful strategic’ element if security in the region is endangered as a result of US-led trilateral military alliance with South Korea and Japan. The deepening of the North Korea–Russia alliance took off in July 2023 when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un welcomed a Russian delegation t...

Author: Sayuri Shirai, Keio University Japan’s exchange rate environment made a big turnaround in 2022, when the yen began to depreciate sharply. When it exceeded 145 yen against the US dollar by September 2022, and then 150 yen in October, the Ministry of Finance conducted two rounds of foreign exchange interventions. Partly due to a decline in long-term interest rates in the United States from November 2022, the exchange rate returned to below 140 yen. The response from the Bank of Japan (BoJ) also contributed to the appreciation, leading to the yen reaching 130 against the US dollar by early 2023.   But the yen is still considered undervalued compared to Japan’s economic fundamentals — which are around 100 to 110 yen. The extreme depreciation of the yen resumed from May 2023. Since early 2022, the yen has declined by an average of about 20 per cent against major currencies. Against the US dollar, the yen depreciated by around 30 per cent. This is partly attributable t...

Author: Long Le, Santa Clara University Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and rising US–China trade tensions, Vietnam leapfrogged South Korea to become the United States’ sixth largest trade partner by import value in 2022. This jump represents an important pivot in Vietnam’s economy — Vietnam’s biggest export to the United States is no longer textiles and garments, but high-tech products. By the end of 2023, many flagship Apple products will have been assembled in Vietnam. Rather than competing against China’s ‘world factory’ tag, Vietnam has branded itself as an additional manufacturing destination to China within the global supply chain ecosystem. In so doing, Vietnam has subsumed some of China’s tech export market share and has been declared the biggest beneficiary of the US–China economic decoupling. Vietnam has provided a much needed ‘neutral’ environment for foreign fintech firms to de-risk and reroute their exposure from the US–China great power rivalry — including Apple’s shift...

Author: Editorial Board, ANU Later this week, Anthony Albanese will become the first Australian prime minister to visit China since Malcolm Turnbull met Xi Jinping at the Hangzhou G20 Leaders’ Meeting in 2016. Back then it seemed that Australia–China relations were on the rise. But in the years that followed, Australia’s security agencies and mainstream press were convulsed with alarm about a wave of ‘foreign interference’ marked by efforts by the Chinese party-state to pursue its interests through domestic political channels in Australia. It went from bad to worse under Turnbull’s successor Scott Morrison, who made ‘standing up’ to China a central part of his political brand, attempting to use the issue to wedge Mr Albanese — who led the then-opposition Labor Party — on national security. When Morrison’s foreign minister Marise Payne put Australia at the forefront of calls for an international investigation with ‘weapons inspector-like powers’ into the Chinese origins of COVID-1...

Author: James Laurenceson, UTS When Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits China this week, he’ll be able to celebrate a figure that previous Australian leaders could only dream of. Over the past year, China has imported more than AU$200 billion worth of Australian goods and services. In August 2023, the Australian Bureau of Statistics put the annual value of goods exports at AU$194 billion and services at AU$9.5 billion. In 2016, the last time an Australian prime minister visited China, the combined figure was less than half the current level at AU$95.6 billion. Besides buoyant commodity prices and the emergence of new areas of trade such as lithium, exports have reached a record high because the disruptive measures imposed by Beijing in 2020, affecting barley, coal, lobsters and more, have been steadily removed. Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell says that under the Albanese government’s watch, by September 2023 AU$20 billion of ‘trade impediments’ had been red...

Author: Santosh Mehrotra, University of Bath India’s demographic dividend began in the early 1980s and will end by 2040. In contrast, China’s dividend ended in the mid-2010s, but it took full advantage of its 9–10 per cent annual growth rate for three decades. Both countries had similar gross national incomes (GNI) per capita in 1980, but in 2022, China’s GNI per capita in terms of purchasing power parities was around Int$20,300, while India’s was Int$8,200. Until its demographic dividend ends, India needs to ensure a consistent annual GDP growth of at least 8 per cent to generate sufficient non-farm jobs for its young population. India achieved 7.9 per cent growth on average over 2004–14, despite the 2008 global financial crisis. Over this period, the population grew on average 1.4 per cent per annum and GNI per capita grew on average 5.5 per cent per annum. Between 2004–5 and 2011–12, the economy created on average 7.5 million new non-farm jobs every year. This kept youth and to...

Author: Anjana Karumathil, Indian Institute of Management Crimes against blue-collar platform workers are rising in India . Platform workers are a rising segment of India’s working population, using platforms like Uber, Upwork or Swiggy to deliver goods and services. In January 2023, Uber driver Priyanka Devi was attacked by two assailants who stole her belongings, slashed her neck and left her bleeding. A week later, a Swiggy delivery agent was attacked by a customer’s dog and passed away after jumping from the third floor to save himself. In February 2023, a customer stabbed a Flipkart delivery agent to secure an iPhone. Most platforms denied knowledge of or responsibility for the events and made no changes to prevent further tragedy. Priyanka Devi reported that Uber did not contact her for days, and that it was only media attention that forced them to do so. Uber executives blame Priyanka for not pushing the in-app emergency button during the attack. These events are a mani...

Author: Collin Koh, NTU In September 2023, Southeast Asia witnessed a series of high-intensity joint military training exercises concentrated around the South China Sea. This included the Indonesian and US-led Super Garuda Shield exercise and the Amphibious and Land Operation exercise held by the Philippines, Australia and the United States. These drills focused on enhancing warfighting capabilities and involved extra-regional partners. The ASEAN Solidarity Exercise in Natuna 2023 (ASEX-01N), hosted by Indonesia in September 2023, was the first joint military exercise exclusive to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The exercise was called a major accomplishment as ASEAN member states considered to be ‘pro-Beijing’ such as Cambodia attended. This is not the first intra-ASEAN military drill held against a backdrop of tensions in the South China Sea. The ASEAN Multinational Naval Exercise (AMNEX) took place in Thailand in 2017, shortly after the South China Sea arbi...