Today Trends

Author: Henry Gao, Singapore Management University It has become more commonplace for trade agreements in the Asia Pacific to include a variety of digital trade provisions. To understand the salient features of these agreements, it is helpful to map out their main baseline features. Doing so also indicates where digital trade agreements may be going or need to go.  This mapping covers all free trade agreements (FTAs) with chapters on e-commerce or digital trade since 2000 by the main players in the region — China, South Korea, Japan, India , Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia. It also covers the mega-FTAs in the region — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership , the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, and the EU–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) — as well as two standalone digital trade agreements, the Digital Economy Partnership Agreemen...

Author: Yu Yongding, CASS China’s GDP growth rate has been falling since the first quarter of 2010. After more than 40 years of breathtaking growth, it is not surprising that China’s economy has lost some steam. Having fallen steadily from 10.6 per cent in 2010 to 6 per cent in 2019, it remains to be seen whether China’s growth will continue to decline and at what level it will stabilise. Some in China argue that the decline in economic growth was an inevitability caused by long-term structural factors. Others argue that to avoid a financial crisis, China prioritised lowering its debt leverage ratio, even at the expense of growth. But, while recognising the role played by structural problems, the continuous decline in China’s GDP growth rate is to a large extent attributable to China’s premature abandonment of expansionary fiscal and monetary policy due to the overblown fear of financial instability. The steady decline in the growth rate does not demonstrate the inevitability of C...

Author: Kishore Mahbubani, Asia Research Institute, NUS Populations in Western countries are angry. Western elites, who are supposed to lead their societies in the right direction, are instead leading them in the wrong direction on Ukraine. There is a wiser course of action. This wiser course of action is based on a simple principle — that the perfect is the enemy of the good. G7 countries should accept imperfect solutions that will make their people happier. That will also help the billions of poor people in the Third World who are suffering from higher food and energy prices. Moral priority has to be given to the sufferings of the poor — the bottom 10 or 20 per cent of the world’s population. The greatest American political philosopher of recent times, John Rawls, emphasised that the most just society was the one that took care of the bottom 10 per cent. As he outlined in his seminal work, A Theory of Justice , any social or economic inequalities, if they are to satisfy the princ...

Author: Editorial Board, ANU Among the few rock-solid rules of international politics is the principle that when the voters are in the presidential swimming pool, it’s time for a change of leadership. After a remarkable popular uprising against a government blamed for an unnecessary economic catastrophe, former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned on 14 July. The dramatic exit was a prelude to the anticlimactic appointment of a new president by parliament, which put its support behind Ranil Wikremesinghe, a long-time Rajapaksa ally. Rajapaksa’s administration was not solely responsible for Sri Lanka’s economic woes, as Chulanee Attanayake argues . Policy failures by successive governments, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine crisis, put the economy under extreme strain. ‘But a series of misplaced and ill-advised policies made by his government exacerbated a crisis that had been years in the making’. The new government now embarks upon negotiati...

Author: Neil DeVotta, Wake Forest University On 20 July 2022, Sri Lanka’s parliament voted to make Ranil Wickremasinghe the country’s eighth Executive President until November 2024. That is when Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the island on 13 July, would have completed his term. Gotabaya’s humiliating exit stemmed from ferocious island-wide protests precipitated by Sri Lanka’s worst ever post-independence economic crisis . Wickremasinghe’s appointment is controversial. He was once considered a highly credible presidential candidate. Yet most Sri Lankans believe he now lacks legitimacy to be president, which is why they opposed his candidacy. Wickremasinghe’s election is procedurally legitimate. But it is politically less so. He won less than 31,000 votes during the August 2020 parliament elections and his United National Party (UNP) failed to win a single seat. The UNP is a storied party that negotiated Sri Lanka’s independence and Wickremasinghe is related to nearly all its impo...

Author: Chulanee Attanayake, NUS Once the heroes of Sri Lanka who defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Rajapaksa regime ended with former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigning from his post. He fled the country following nationwide protests and unrest that broke out on 9 July 2022. Rajapaksa’s administration is not solely responsible for Sri Lanka’s economic woes. Policy failures by successive governments, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine crisis, put a strain on the economy. But a series of misplaced and ill-advised policies made by his government exacerbated a crisis that had been years in the making. Stories of mismanagement and allegations of corruption will taint the Rajapaksa administration’s legacy. The uprising resulted from months of protests demanding the Rajapaksa family step down from Sri Lankan politics. Former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and finance minister Basil Rajapaksa resigned from their posts and left parliament following t...

Author: Martin Miszerak, Renmin University In May 2022, China’s Vice Premier Liu He signalled the government’s intention to end its ‘regulatory rectification’ campaign — a raft of regulations imposed on the education, ride-sharing and technology sectors. He is the top economic advisor to Chinese President Xi Jinping — so his message must have been approved by Xi, who seems to have finally awoken to the damage the year-long crackdown has wrought on investor sentiment. The Heng Seng index dropped by 23.7 per cent between December 2020 and mid-May 2022, a result partly explained by the regulatory crackdown. While the worst appears to be over, the deeper issues caused by the campaign remain unresolved. One interpretation of the regulatory crackdown is that the campaign is part of Xi’s strategy to steer China towards a Maoist model of governance in which the private sector is significantly downsized and private companies are ‘likely to lose what is left of their independence and becom...

Authors: Christina Dasom Song and Yves Tiberghien, UBC South Korea’s new President , Yoon Suk-yeol, has broken from his predecessor’s cautious balancing of Seoul’s trade relationship with China and security alliance with the United States. South Korea joined the Quad Summit in May 2022, signalling its desire to join the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, and recently joined the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). This foreign policy shift is due to hardening public opinion against China since 2017. Still, South Korea’s trade interdependence with China and the costs of aligning more closely with Washington and Japan will force Yoon to act cautiously. The roots of this deep public opinion shift go back to China’s massive economic and political retaliation against South Korea’s 2017 deployment of the US’ THAAD missile defence system. Since this retaliation, public sentiment toward China fell from 56 per cent in 2016 to 34 per cent in 2018. Another May 2022 survey showed S...

Author: Seth Hays, International Trademark Association Trade in counterfeit goods is approximately 2.5 per cent of global trade (US$461 billion) — and over 80 per cent of these counterfeits are manufactured or traded in the Asia Pacific. Digital trade in Southeast Asia alone will grow to US$1 trillion by 2030. But as trade moves online and e-commerce grows, so too does trade in counterfeit goods. What is unclear is the scope of this problem and the extent to which e-commerce counterfeits will negatively impact consumers and business innovation. To better manage digital trade , Asia Pacific countries should adopt smart measures to prevent the trade in counterfeit goods, fostering trust in e-commerce. The Asia Pacific is the focus of the world’s most innovative and expansive trade agreements. The high-standard Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) includes seven countries in the Asia Pacific, while the broad reach of the Regional Comprehensive Partnership (RC...

Author: Riyani Sidek, GAIA Public support for the government during a crisis gives political leaders the freedom and resources to implement life-saving measures — particularly against COVID-19. Trust is critical for sustaining public behaviour that is consistent with effective pandemic management. While the ‘ rally round the flag effect ‘ united Taiwan against COVID-19 and promoted compliance with public health measures, the opposite effect was felt in Malaysia. With a population of around 23.8 million people, Taiwan has been applauded for its pandemic management after recording a relatively low COVID-19 infection rate compared to the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 . From March to early May 2003, public confidence in Taipei’s management of the SARS outbreak was low due to inadequate public health and protective measures. The lack of trust in the Taiwanese government during the SARS outbreak led to many quarantine orders being recklessly violated by ...