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Today the established cooperation between China and Kazakhstan has reached the strategic partnership level. Also, the two neighboring countries are partners in the international large-scale projects as the SCO and the New Silk Road Initiative. This paper claims that these projects are mostly lead by China. Moreover, it is argued that the SCO is aimed to solve the security issues and the New Silk Road Initiative embodies the economic agenda of the bilateral relations. Kazakhstan's role and position is significant due to different reasons, while the Kazakhstani public remains cautious about the Chinese activity in Kazakhstan. The two named mechanisms are eventually focused on economical and cultural leadership of China among the secured multilateral cooperation in the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asia's middle powers face a trilateral dilemma stemming from their relationships with the U.S. and China. This paper uses the Australian example to examine the dilemma. It shows that Australia has bound itself to the U.S. because of domestic political factors, cost considerations, a belief that it can keep its interests separate, and its perception of regional threats. The paper then argues that others are likely to resolve their trilateral dilemmas in ways that make the regional strategic dynamic more competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aggregates the state of India–China economic relations with a specific focus on trade at the borders. It explicates the potential for economic activity at the border regions to generate self-sustaining and/or externally linked local development for both countries. By an examination of the existing trade and investment policies and practices, it shows how geographical contiguity is yet to be transformed into opportunity along the India–China border, a practice consistent both with the history of these regions as well as with the blueprints being drawn up for the future of these regions. Informed by the Liberal school of IR theory, the paper studies border trade through the paradigmatic optic of being an important, yet underutilized, avenue of dyadic interaction, and makes a case for upgrading the status of border trade in the overall schema of bilateral trade relations between India and China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Robust economic growth across the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has lifted millions out of poverty. Nevertheless, there are concerns about whether growth will be derailed in the future. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of growth slowdown for the ASEAN economies which are at different levels of development. We aim to answer two questions: First, are determinants of economic slowdown likely to differ across income groups? Second, what are the probabilities that economies in ASEAN will experience a growth slowdown in the near future? We construct a sample of 107 economies including ASEAN economies, Greater China economies, as well as sub-national economies of India and Indonesia. The sample spans the period 1993-2013. We first classify these economies into four different income groups: low-income economies, lower-middle-income economies, uppermiddle- income economies and high-income economies using the criteria proposed by Felipe (2012). Next, we adopt the methodology of Eichengreen et al. (2012) to create a dummy variable representing the occurrence of growth slowdown episodes in each income group. We then run income group-specific logistic regressions to identify the determinants of growth slowdown and use Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) techniques as a robustness check for our empirical findings. Using the regression results, we compute economy-specific predictive probabilities of growth slowdown over the period 2012-2017. Overall, the level of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and human capital formation appear as important determinants of growth slowdown in all income groups. However, aside from these two variables, growth slowdown tends to be associated with different factors at different levels of development. Most notably, FDI inflows is an important determinant of growth slowdown for low-income and lower-middleincome economies while employment in the tertiary sector affects the probability of growth slowdown of lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income and high-income economies. Furthermore, we find that on average, ASEAN economies have a one-in-five chance of experiencing growth slowdown over the period 2012-2017. In terms of policy implications, the economy-specific predictive probabilities we compute may serve as early warning signs for policy-makers. Meanwhile, results from the regression analyses provide a roadmap for policy intervention to combat the risk of growth slowdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of mega-regionalism in the Asia-Pacific has become a significant development for the region itself as well as the global trading system. Europe, in particular, has a great deal at stake in this process. This paper considers the economic costs of EU exclusion from Asia-Pacific economic cooperation initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the nineteenth century, with the advance of British colonial activities, British corporate laws had been transplanted to maritime Asia with varying degrees of vigour. In British Hong Kong, these laws often clashed with native customs. Through a reconstruction of the legal disputes found in urban Hong Kong, this paper discusses how British and Chinese business traditions interacted with each other during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before assessing the historical implications and consequences of these legal decisions, this paper will also explore whether the Chinese institution of tong is compatible with British law in urban Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to address an imperative topic in Asian economic development: the relationship between China's economic expansion and Asian economic growth. It tries to answer the all important query, whether China's economic ascent is a threat or an opportunity for the Asian economies. Due to the size of its economy, its openness and the rapidity of its GDP growth, China is swaying the individual Asian economies as well as the regional economy. When a significant-size economy is growing almost three times as rapidly as the global economy, the neighboring economies cannot possibly expect to remain impervious. Various issues are analyzed in the paper, including foreign direct investment inflows and impacts, regional production networks, plausible scenarios for China and the remaining Asian economies, and strategy for coping with China's rapid development. Although some Asian economies and some sectors will face adverse effects—short- or long-term—of China's rapid growth, the apocalyptic predictions are grossly overdone. For the most part, the impact of China's rapid growth can be mutually beneficial. This is the conclusive idea of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the conflicts between the West and Asia in the age of globalization and its concomitant ideology of liberal values. It concludes that while the material wealth of the West is welcome everywhere, Asia has resisted, and will continue to resist, the attempts to homogenize Asian culture. The paper argues that the West should accept differences in human rights, ecological policies and forms of governments, and limit itself to the equalization of opportunities for commerce and trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the evolution of APEC and the rejection of Japan's 1997 AMF proposal reflect a failure of Japanese and US leadership. Not only have the two countries failed to exercise either individual or shared regional leadership. Instead, both have used their considerable structural power negatively to block the other's proposals for regional collective action, rather than positively to exercise leadership. After developing the concepts of leadership and blocking power, the paper provides case studies of the APEC and AMF. It concludes that if a post-hegemonic US no longer has the willingness and/or the ability to undertake collective action single-handedly, and if in a post-Cold War world neither the US nor Japan has sufficient incentives to bridge their differences and sacrifice some interests to achieve a unified stance, then continued stalemate and under-supply of regional collective goods can be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Chinese government’s ‘belt and road’ initiative – the Silk Roads vision of land and maritime logistics and communications networks connecting Asia, Europe and Africa – has its roots in sub-national ideas and practices, and that it reflects their elevation to the national level more than the creation of substantially new policy content. Further, the spatial paradigms inherent in the Silk Roads vision reveal the reproduction of capitalist developmental ideas expressed particularly in the form of networks, which themselves have become a feature of contemporary global political economy. In other words, the Silk Roads vision is more of a ‘spatial fix’ than a geopolitical manoeuvre. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper contributes to the debate on globalization and the great divergence with a comprehensive analysis of the integration of Asia in the world market from 1800 to the eve of World War II. We examine the patterns of convergence in prices for a wide range of commodities between Europe and the main Asian countries (India, Indonesia, Japan and China) and we compare them with convergence between Europe and the East Coast of the United States, hitherto the yardstick for the 19th century. Most price convergence occurred before 1870, mainly as a consequence of the abolition of the European trading monopolies with Asia, and, to a lesser extent, the repeal of duties on Atlantic trade. After 1870, price differentials continued to decline thanks to falling freights and to better communication after the lay-out of telegraph cables. There was only little disintegration in the inter-war years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper frames the trade relationship between China and Malaysia within the context of ASEAN and the impending RCEP. Specifically trade potentials are derived for the bilateral partnership within the two structures to identify whether China's external options under the RCEP affect her relationship with Malaysia. Potentials for trade expansion between China and Malaysia, estimated through a three-dimensional panel gravity model, are found to be marginally lower under the RCEP structure relative to ASEAN. More importantly, trade potentials appear exhausted for major products traded under both contexts. This suggests a change (decline) in the trade posture of the China-Malaysia partnership, as relative advantages are most likely to be altered under the expanded matrix of Chinese relations with RCEP members. In coping with the larger matrix structure, both nations should innovate new forms of bilateral cooperation, beyond trade, to enhance their strategic partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as inputs for its analysis the trade flows between Colombia and a selected group of the East Asian countries, the export-import trade for each country, the intra-industry trade taking place in those countries and the Colombian national competitiveness situation. From that infor-mation it is inferred that Colombia is still following the Dependency path which means that trade with the most developed Asian countries may fall in the circumscription of exporting primary sector products. Only if Co-lombia seeks to enter in the intra-industry trade sectors in the Asian mar-kets with competitive products, will be able to diversify its export basket and break the pattern imposed by dependency. Therefore, the priorities for Colombia are mainly achieving high national competitiveness and produ-cing competitive products, but right now competitiveness is still weak and this demands upgrading its competitive factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will discuss the work of the premier British cartographer of the early eighteenth century, Herman Moll, and his depictions and descriptions of the Muslim areas of South Asia (Mughal India and the Indonesian archipelago in particular). Moll was a strong proponent and propagandist of British overseas expansion, South Asia being one area of particular interest to him. His maps disseminated and popularized information and perspectives brought back by European merchants, travelers, and pirates and were meant to be purchased by (mainly) British merchants, elites, and wealthy commoners interested in understanding Muslim Asia and the opportunities and challenges for British economic and political interests in that part of the world. Moll's visual and graphic vocabulary highlighted European commercial and political contact with the societies and empires of South Asia. His maps functioned as strategic documents about British engagement with Muslim South Asia and showed the possibilities and limits of significant cross-cultural encounters during his active cartographic period (ca. 1700 to ca. 1730), a time when an emerging British Empire encountered well-developed indigenous empires in South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the current and prospective implications of Asia's energy consumption revolution for regional stability. Adopting a comparative and historical approach, I argue that Japanese energy security anxieties worked to reinforce regional alignment patterns in East Asia for nearly two decades following the Shanghai communiqué, thereby strengthening regional stability. Conversely, the post-Cold War period has seen in China and India's rise the emergence of Asian energy super-consumers that are not formally aligned with the United States, but that are increasingly dependent on imported energy supplies to fuel their industrialization. This newfound dependence on energy imports has seen both countries follow Japan's longstanding example in securitizing energy as a policy issue. In the context of an already more contested Asia, this trend towards energy securitization has aggravated regional tensions and will continue to do so unless greater efforts are undertaken bilaterally, regionally and globally to foster more effective forms of energy cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Recently, Asian and Latin American countries have engaged in a series of negotiations to liberalize trade and investment flows. This paper analyzes the potential impact of a free trade agreement (FTA) between countries of both regions, applying a world dynamic general equilibrium model (MIRAGE). An important feature of the model is that it includes a new way of modeling bilateral investment flows and bilateral investment agreements. This is especially important given that investment plays a major role in the economic relations of the two regions. Our results show that most countries will benefit from the agreement; nevertheless, the gains of Latin American countries will be higher, especially when all Asian countries participate. In addition, Latin America benefits from increased FDI inflows, mainly from developed Asian countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper identifies emerging trends in the world economy during the next decade. The first is that China will overtake the U.S. in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), ending more than a century of U.S. leadership as the world''s largest economy. The second is that Developing Asia, excluding Japan, will overtake the G7, a group of the seven largest industrialized economies established in 1975–76. Finally, India will overtake Japan, Russia will overtake Germany, and Brazil will overtake the U.K., leading to a New World Economic Order: China, the U.S., India, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Brazil. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Consequent upon the realization that in the modern era, nations have most frequently had more to gain through cooperation and integrated economic relationship than through exclusive economic spheres, the states in East Asia have put in motion a process of shift from regionalization to regionalism. The construction of an East Asian Economic Community was proposed. The proposal anticipates the inclusion of the ten member countries of the ASEAN and Japan, Korea and China. The motivating forces behind this proposal are to increase mutual trade, and to construct a regional group that will offer the participating members trading and economic advantage in the world.But assailing this move has been plethora of problems. Questions of whether the aspiration for an East Asia Community will be forlorn and if the undeniable centrifugal forces that challenge the transformation of the dream into a living reality will be eclipsed, defines the aim of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are claims that China's influence on ASEAN is direct in that she has encouraged more exports to flow into her huge markets and changed trade flows amongst member countries. Demand and supply are deemed to have therefore become more China-centred. This paper looks at the plausibility of China as a 'factor' that influences bilateral intra-ASEAN trade flows through demand (exporting country) and supply (partner country). The key finding of the study is that China's trade association with the region increases intra-ASEAN exports. China is therefore the most practical choice for the ASEAN+1 FTA to initiate deeper trade integration within the region. China, as the 'core' country of the ACFTA can provide complementarities in the export performance of ASEAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper introduces a new framework for projecting potential growth of the world economy, emphasizing the contribution of information technology. We first analyze the sources of economic growth for the world economy, seven regions, and fourteen major economies during four periods—1989–1995, 1995–2000, 2000–2004, and 2004–2008. The contribution of investment in information technology has increased in all regions, but especially in industrialized economies and Developing Asia. We then project the potential growth rates of labor productivity and GDP for 122 economies over the ten-year period 2009–2019. Relative to historical growth for 1989–2008, we project lower growth rates for productivity and GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper charts the growth and patterns of free trade agreement (FTA) activity in the Asia-Pacific, discussing the extent to which there has been evolution and learning in FTA practice among Asia-Pacific states, with attention to the most notable trends in technical policy content and the different ideational approaches to formulating agreements. This sets the broad context for considerations of the current and likely future paths of FTA convergence, harmonization, and transformation in the Asia-Pacific. It is argued that new options for economically rational and politically feasible bilateral FTA partnerships within the Asia-Pacific region are running out. One response has been to explore more seriously options for forming wider plurilateral and regional agreements within the Asia-Pacific. However, a number of constraints and hindrances will work against such FTA convergence and harmonization. The longer term transformation of existing, mostly bilateral FTAs into different or expanded types of agreement has stronger prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel and simple measure of the world's economic centre of gravity. Over the recent decades, this centre has shifted towards Asia, but is still located in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing theoretical insights offered by the Copenhagen School, in conjunction with a critical assessment of environmental security, the intention of this paper is to examine the ways in which Australia's 're-engagement with Asia' is getting increasingly securitized through both speech acts and practices relating to climate change and energy security. These acts and practices are dictated and driven by the state-centric 'national security' discourses on the one hand, and by the geo-economic imperatives of fossil fuel-driven models of economic growth and energy security on the other hand. The key question, in our view, then becomes: What are the actual or potential linkages (and contradictions) between Australia's self-image as an energy superpower, alongside its increasingly embraced normative role as a responsible international (and even Asian) citizen committed to effectively mitigating climate change? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This collection of papers focuses on the domestic and international politics of Australia's recent engagement with Asia. The theme of Asian engagement appears to be of particular pertinence to the current study of Australian politics given numerous pronouncements that we are entering an 'Asian century' during which key Asian economies will gain greater ascendancy and certain Asian states will come to play a more prominent role in global politics. We employ the idea of 're-engagement' in order to show how engagement with Asia has been turned to again and again by Australian governments, albeit in different political and strategic contexts. This collection aims to consider the politics of re-engagement from a number of different theoretical positions, as well as from a number of different perspectives (be it international relations/foreign policy, domestic politics, identity politics, or from the perspective of bilateral Asian partners). Emphasis is placed not simply on the foreign policy prerogatives behind re-engagement but also on the implications of the 'Asian century' for domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biggest developing countries in the world in terms of territory size, population and GDP are located in the continents of Asia and Latin America. In these regions, there are also the most emerging-market economies with great potential for sustaining high growth rates in the coming decades (so called the BRICs) like China, India and Brazil. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the present, the major developing countries in Asia and in Latin America, such as China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico, etc have gone through various stages of development. paper makes an analysis of globalization's influences, the strengths and weaknesses of the system of WTO, participation of Asian and Latin American developing countries in the negotiations of Doha Round, development strategies to be adopted by these economies and also some important implications for building new balance in international agenda of 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental importance of an integrated international multimodal transport system has been clearly recognised. The identification and development of well functioning transport relations on the basis of existing transport corridors and networks requires properly defined, formalised, and coordinated joint actions among the relevant countries, international institutions and organisations. The geographical position of Lithuania has determined that the country is crossed by the two European transport corridors approved at the Conferences of the European Transport Ministers in Crete and Helsinki, creating ability for Lithuania in trade between EU and Asia. Paper presents an overview of recent changes in world economy and international trade emphasizing the growing importance of European -- Asian relations. Then analysis of existing transport links assuring possible ways for freight movements between these two regions are examined and method for the comparison of transportation alternatives based on corridor utility is presented. Finally, some key development trends towards the strengthening of Lithuanian transport system role in the context of European-Asian trade relations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, essentially since the Asian crisis of 1997-98, the economic integration of Northeast Asia has been marked by three overarching trends. Economic relations have become: 1) more institutionalized; 2) more "Asian;" and 3) more China-centric. These macro-trends are demonstrated and analyzed in the paper. But by way of anticipation, numerous counter-cutting facts need also to be kept in mind. In essence, recent trends, notable as they are, have by no means reversed three counter-realities: 1) economic ties are still largely driven, less by governments and formal arrangements, than by corporations in search of profits and production efficiencies; 2) despite growing economic interdependence across Northeast Asia and between that sub-region and Southeast Asia, Japan, China and South Korea remain heavily linked to global, and particularly US, markets; and 3) though China is an ever important hub in Northeast Asian trade and investment, Japan remains by far the most powerful economic player in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian economic crisis ravaged numerous economies in the late 1990s. Significant social and political disruption followed the fall in Asian currency prices. The newly industrialized states of Asia were particularly hard hit, yet some also experienced swift turnarounds, reaching pre-crisis currency rates and economic output. The enduring puzzle of the crisis is the role of bureaucratic-business ties as a background cause of the crisis and determinant of governmental policy responses. In this paper, we adapt Tsebelis' veto player model to include bureaucracy as a formal actor in the adjustment process. We argue that states that minimized the control of developmental bureaucracies over finance and direct managerial decision-making weakened the institutional capacity of bureaucrats to veto adjustment policies, both before and after the 1997 crisis. Moreover, we find that a tradition of strategic regulatory guidance is associated with favorable economic performance, provided that bureaucrats had subjected private firms or state-owned enterprises to competition (or even business failure) historically, and where the risks associated with financial decisions were not socialized by the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with an account of the Asian crisis, its creation and management by international financial institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank), and the gender impact of their stabilization and structural adjustment programs. Next we consider the new debate on reforming the IMF and the World Bank and restructuring the international financial architecture to prevent crises and manage them more effectively. Finally, we consider the gender ramifications of these changes. Since feminists have been absent from this debate, we examine issues essential to the formation of a gender-conscious international financial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since mid-1997 East Asia, which had long been acclaimed as the driving force of the global economy, has been wracked by financial turmoil. The international policy response has been led primarily by the International Monetary-Fund with the full support of both the United States government and the European Union. Those who predicted that IMF policy prescriptions would quickly bring the Asian economic crisis under control have seriously underestimated the depth of the recession that has hit the region. This paper offers an explanation of the causes of the crises and, in doing so, provides a critique of the international policy response. It begins with an examination of the way that the crisis exemplifies the terminal collapse of Southeast Asia's fast-track development model through case studies of Thailand and the Philippines. The second part offers a critical analysis of the IMF policies which have not only institutionalized stagnation in the region but have been used overtly by the Clinton administration (and the EU by default) to promote the trade and investment objectives of the leading states in the global economy. The third part examines the implications of IMF-directed structural adjustment and suggests that with the strategic withdrawal of capital, East Asia may be on the threshold of a prolonged era of recession. The conclusion argues that the very severity of the crisis demands the serious consideration of a range of alternative political and economic strategies that will be essential for the pursuit of a model of sustainable development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1990s, the idea of a trilateral or tripolar world order based on the economically most advanced macro-regions North America, Western Europe and East Asia — the new Triad — has gained much acceptance in Asian and European policy-making circles. Though the triangle imagery is still quite far from what seems to be reality, it provided the major rationale for the creation of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process which was designed to strengthen the 'weak leg' in the triadic interregional relationship. The paper analyses the role of ASEM in the construction of the new Triad and identifies five functions of ASEM in this context. It concludes that the recent Asian economic crisis tends to undermine the rationale on which ASEM was built, at least temporarily, whereas ASEM itself may not lose its importance for the countries involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]