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The rise of China as an economic and political 'driver' of the global economy may presage a new phase of globalization. This paper postulates the emergence of this new phase - a 'Global-Asian Era' (GAE) - as a 'working hypothesis'. It suggests that such an era is likely to be distinct from any of the earlier phases of globalization, and China's global footprint, in terms of its business, economic and political actions and their geopolitical implications, is likely to be markedly different from what has gone before. The paper sketches the reasons for these differences before turning to a discussion of the nature and dynamics of a possible future GAE. Paying particular attention to the developing world, the paper then explores some of the evidence that could be marshalled in support of the hypothesis. It outlines a series of vectors (trade, aid and energy security) along which it is possible to discern some of the ways in which an emergent GAE could be seen as impacting on the developing world. The paper argues that, at least for these vectors, a China-driven GAE is likely to provide dangers as well as opportunities for national development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - In recent years, "trade up" argument has gained momentum. It argues that international integration can benefit developing countries' environments by fostering the adoption of voluntary environmental standards, such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 certification. Based on this argument, a social marketing program that encourages greenness among buyers, especially downstream industrial buyers (for example, auto industry) in developed countries could motivate firms in developing countries go green. The purpose of this paper is to provide an investigation on whether "trade up" is a real hope, and what is required to make it real. Design/methodology/approach - Theoretical modeling and case studies. Findings - This paper finds that international trade does gear up the adoption of ISO 14001 standards in China through increasing pressures from international green customers. However, our analyses suggest that the adoption of ISO 14001 certification does not necessarily improve firms' compliance with existing environmental regulations in China. The actual impact depends on how stringently environmental agency carries out inspections. We also find that in China, ISO 14001 certification motivates little, if any, environmental performance improvement beyond bottom-line environmental regulations. Research limitations/implications - This finding suggests that the "trade up" argument as well as a social marketing strategy targeting international buyers (including downstream industries) need to be scrutinized carefully before being used to guide practice. Originality/value - Few efforts have been made to explore the actual impacts of ISO 14001 certification in developing countries. This paper fills this gap. It provides empirical support for Andreasen's argument that social marketing should be applied more broadly to achieve the desired impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Beijing Consensus" (BC) as a concept has been utilised to distinguish China's economic development experience from the "Washington Consensus" (WC), the policy toolkit offered to developing countries by Washington-based international organisations. This paper posits that recent Chinese initiatives in the international political economy constitute the building blocks of an emerging BC with potential to significantly influence developing countries' economic development trajectories. In order to have a better understanding of the emerging BC and its relation with China's economic development experience, the main elements of the Chinese economic development experience are compared to the WC and Post- WC (PWC), and an early critical analysis of the BC is provided. This analysis illustrates that China does not try to export its economic development model to other countries; the BC has similar and distinguishing features compared to the WC and PWC; and while the BC offers some opportunities to developing countries, it also involves some contradictions and challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's participation in the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been a rollercoaster of milestones and frictions. China has emerged as a leading trading nation, which has contributed to the expansion of world trade. Some of its trading partners, however, and most vocally the United States, complain that China has reached its new status by eluding its WTO commitments. Under President Trump, the United States reacted strongly against China, almost bringing the WTO (but not China!) to its knees. These actions have been criticized in different ways: Some underline their unilateral character (and the ensuing legal issues they raise), whereas others focus on the regime-neutrality of the WTO, which should, in principle, be able to accommodate Western liberal democracies, developing countries, and socialist countries like China equally. In this short Article, we argue that staying idle is no solution to the China issue and that addressing it through unilateral actions is no solution either. Both approaches would only deepen the current WTO crisis. In our view, the only viable solution for the WTO system requires adding new disciplines to the existing multilateral rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vigorous growth of the Chinese economy together with its increasingly successful role in international trade may have profoundly impacted developing countries. This study examines the large increase in the international trade exposure of the Brazilian economy during 2000–2012 to assess the impacts of import competition on its manufacturing formal and informal labor markets. In this period, import penetration grew by more than 20 percent in Brazil, and the share of the import penetration originating in China increased from 3 to 20 percent. At the same time, the share of informal workers in manufacturing declined from 27 to approximately 15 percent. Employing a switching regression model and Brazilian household survey data, this study finds that a greater industry-level Chinese and 'rest of the world' import penetration increases the likelihood of jobs becoming informal at different intensities, and these effects are smaller in unskilled-labor intensive industries and manufacturing states. Additionally, both types of import penetration positively impact the average informal wage. In contrast, the estimates suggest that a larger Chinese import penetration reduces average formal wages, while imports from elsewhere have the opposite effect. The results also indicate that the magnitude of the effects on wages are moderated by the unskilled labor intensity of the industry and whether the worker is located in a manufacturing state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between international trade and politics is very close, but we know little about the effects of summit visits on trade. This article divides summits into visits by top‐level and secondary leaders, based on manually collect and collate data; inspects the outward and inward visits between China and other countries and examines the relationship between summit visits and bilateral trade using panel data covering 163 countries from 2001 to 2014. The study finds that (1) both inward and outward visits promote exports, although the effect on imports is unclear; (2) the higher the level of the summit leaders, the greater the promotion effect (the visit effect of China's top‐level leaders is especially prominent); (3) reciprocal summit visits between China and developing countries have a greater trade promotion effect; (4) the promotion effect of China's leaders on exports has time‐leading and ‐lagging effects, and the effect of summit visits is different for different categories of export products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Processing trade is an important exporting mode for many countries developed by the export‐oriented industrialisation such as 1960s Japan, 1990s Korea and 2000s China. Exporters who rely on processing trade for foreign profits do not enjoy much market power, and hence care more about exchange rate changes. We develop a model to illustrate how processing trade affects exporters' responses to exchange rate fluctuations. The model suggests that the elasticity of export price with respect to exchange rate for processing‐trade exporters is greater than that of the ordinary‐trade exporters, while the elasticity of export quantity of processing‐trade exporters is smaller compared to their ordinary‐trade counterparts. Most developing countries' governments offer processing‐trade exporters better tax/tariff reduction policy to encourage exporting, which grants processing‐trade exporters additional advantage to adjust more on export price and less on quantity when facing changes in exchange rate and therefore causes their different responses to exchange rate fluctuations. We find strong empirical supports by studying the data from China, which is the largest developing country and biggest processing‐trade exporter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lin G. C. S. Scaling-up regional development in globalizing China: local capital accumulation, land-centred politics, and reproduction of space, Regional Studies. Drawing on insights from political economy and Third World political ecology, this study identifies a new process of regional development in globalizing southern China where municipalities have engaged in a land-based and city-centred development as a means of original capital accumulation. Global capitalism and reshuffling of the socialist political economy have given rise to a strategy to scale-up the urban region and reproduce space for locally controlled development. Subsequent gain in growth and competitiveness has been accompanied by increased inequality and social discontents. Greater attention needs to be devoted to the social and political origins of regional development. [image omitted] Lin G. C. S. Un amenagement du territoire a l'echelle en Chine au moment de la mondialisation: l'accumulation du capital local... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on land use planning topics, including "Historical Amnesia: New Urbanism and the City of Tomorrow," "More Than Sector Theory: Homer Hoyt's Contributions to Planning Knowledge" and "Methodology for the Survival Analysis of Urban Building Stocks."