Today Trends

Author: Shinji Takagi, Asian Growth Research Institute The International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays a central role in the international monetary system. As the lynchpin of the global financial safety net, it provides financial support to countries in crisis. A pattern has recently been repeated in several emerging market economies facing balance of payment difficulties, from Sri Lanka to Pakistan. This pattern typically involves an initial denial by national authorities, followed by an inevitable acknowledgement of the need for IMF assistance. To continue playing this role, the IMF must remain adequately resourced. The IMF has three mechanisms to secure needed resources for countries in crisis. First, the IMF assigns each member country a quota — the member’s contribution to the revolving pool of resources. Governments in need of financial support borrow from the pool in the form of a ‘drawing’. The IMF’s quota has been periodically augmented through reviews and currently stands a

Author: Devon Whittle, Watson Farley & Williams After a year of negotiations and an additional four months of legal scrubbing the first agreement negotiated as part of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) has been released. The IPEF Agreement Relating to Supply Chain Resilience gives us the first concrete insights into what IPEF could add to the region’s economic architecture. The agreement brings welcome attention to the issues facing supply chains, but effective implementation will be key to realising the agreement’s potential. The Supply Chain Agreement contains a laundry list of the parties’ plans to make supply chains stronger and more resilient. This includes everything from increasing transparency, to facilitating investment and to encouraging the use of digital standards. While mostly laudable aims — particularly considering the challenges in reaching consensus among the diverse range of IPEF participants — much of the language is broad and non-bi

Author: Editorial Board, ANU Western countries’ efforts to enhance their partnerships with India have been embroidered with the rhetoric of a shared commitment to democracy and the ‘rules-based order’ — two things which, it’s implied, distinguish India from China. How awkward, then, that Asia’s democratic behemoth, the new friend of the ‘rules-based order’, is now caught with a Western liberal democracy in a diplomatic crisis that has uncanny echoes of some countries’ run-ins with Beijing’s wolf-warrior diplomacy, over issues that have a lot to do with clashing views of free speech and the rule of law. It’s been almost a month since Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told his parliament that Canadian intelligence agencies were looking into credible allegations of Indian state involvement in the murder of a Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, accused by India of involvement in terrorism, in the suburbs of Vancouver. Much of the discussion of this case has to take place under th

Author: Kim Richard Nossal, Queen’s University When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government had ‘credible allegations’ regarding India’s involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen, he added to the spiralling doom loop that has been roiling India–Canada relations. In the aftermath of the murder, which was caught on the security cameras of the gurdwara that Nijjar headed, Canadian authorities gathered human and signals intelligence pointing to the involvement of Indian officials, including communication intercepts of Indian diplomats in Canada. Some intelligence was shared with Canada by another member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Given its shock at discovering that a supposedly friendly government had been involved in the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil — it was hardly surprising that Can

Author: Dron Parashar, Canberra In September 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged in front of the Canadian Parliament that India was involved in the killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar. These allegations have come at a time when Australia, along with its Western partners, is actively courting India to create a counterbalance against China. India was quick to deny Trudeau’s accusations , calling them ‘ absurd and motivated ’. This is a new low for relations between the two countries that have had constant disagreements over the handling of the Khalistan movement since the 1985 Kanishka bombing . The breakdown is a jarring development for the West. Unsurprisingly, Australia’s response to the controversy has been cautious. The intent to strengthen economic and security ties between Australia and India has never been clearer. The excitement in this partnership is such that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese even called Indian Prime Minister Modi ‘b

Author: Manggi Habir, ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute Tesla’s decision to set up its electric vehicle (EV) car manufacturing in neighbouring Malaysia was a blow to Indonesia’s efforts to lure investments for building an end-to-end EV supply chain ecosystem. Indonesia’s nickel downstreaming policies aim to use the country’s vast nickel reserves and ore production to add value by processing raw ore into higher-grade nickel intermediates. These higher-grade nickel intermediates are essential components used in the production of stainless steel and nickel cobalt manganese (NCM)-based EV batteries. In terms of attracting investment, Indonesia’s nickel downstreaming policies have produced results. In 2020, Indonesia banned the export of raw nickel ore to attract investment, largely in nickel smelters. A year later, the country received downstream investments and commitments from Chinese companies totalling some US$30 billion. As of July 2023, there were already 43 nickel smelters operatin

Author: Nguyen Hoang Thuy Tien, Tokyo International University The United States is increasingly concerned about the geopolitical complications posed by China’s expanding presence in the Pacific in the past decade. But Washington must prioritise gaining the trust of the Pacific Island countries to ensure meaningful commitment to the region — without Beijing’s initiatives being the key motivation for cooperation. The Pacific Islands play a pivotal role in the Indo-Pacific Strategy and are a vital region to US security and prosperity. The Pacific Islands also lead in the collective effort against climate change — a pressing global security challenge. The region is a strategic nexus between Asia, Australia and the United States that is crucial for trade, maritime security and regional ties. But cooperation with the Pacific may be hampered by the Pacific Islands’ lack of confidence in the United States, as US engagement in the region is often perceived as a reaction to China’s Paci

Author: Daungyewa Utarasint, NYU Abu Dhabi Thai politics were in a muddled state prior to 22 August 2023. Following the general election in May, there was much speculation about who would become the next prime minister and how the old establishments would leverage their political power to achieve their desired outcome. According to most Thai news sources, it was widely believed that the prime minister’s seat would be assumed by Prawit Wongsuwan, the former deputy prime minister, leader of the Palang Pracharat Party and a key figure behind numerous clandestine political deals. Rumours were rife about whether there was a special deal between the monarchy and the autocrats. Three months after election day, the covert political warfare between Thailand’s populist Pheu Thai Party, the alliance of conservative political parties including Palang Pracharat, and the military-appointed senators finally came to light and undermined Prawit’s shot at power. On 22 August, Thailand witnessed two

Author: Stephen Nagy, International Christian University, Tokyo Deep economic cooperation in the areas of manufacturing, technology and finance has coexisted awkwardly with decades-long political and territorial disputes between Japan and China. This has led Japan to develop economic relations with China through a policy that separates politics and economics or seikei bunri . Amid intensifying US–China strategic competition, China’s track record of economic coercion and its long-term objectives to secure its own ‘core interests’, Japan has become more concerned about its economic reliance on China. The seikei bunri principles for engaging with China economically are giving way to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s new ‘economic realist’ diplomacy. Policy approaches to address concerns about the impact of politics on Japan’s economic security include selective diversification of supply chains away from China, reshoring, friend-shoring and national technological development.