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East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 12, Number 1, 2020 »
Publication date: March 2020
The changing geopolitical context compels middle powers to act. Countries have responded by forming explicit alliances, building upon hedging strategies or altering their leanings from one great power to another. The need for collective action is more urgent than ever to deal with emerging regional and global challenges.
This issue of East Asia Forum Quarterly looks at middle powers and the range of priorities they have. Some are focused on their domestic priorities while others are more eager to shape the political, economic and security dimensions in the region. Our contributors offer a variety of perspectives on the challenges that middle powers face and identify the call of middle-power vision in defending the rules-based order.
EAFQ 12.1 is dedicated to Aileen S.P. Baviera, founding president of Asia Pacific Pathways to Progress, who died on 21 March 2020, from pneumonia related to COVID-19.
East Asia Forum Quarterly grew out of East Asia Forum (EAF) online, which has developed a reputation for providing a platform for the best in Asian analysis, research and policy comment on the Asia Pacific region in world affairs. EAFQ aims to provide a further window onto research in the leading research institutes in Asia and to provide expert comment on current developments within the region. The East Asia Forum Quarterly, like East Asia Forum online, is an initiative of the East Asia Forum (EAF) and its host organisation, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) in the Crawford School of Economics and Government in the College of Asia & the Pacific at The Australian National University.
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The Jingshan Report »
Opening China’s Financial Sector
Authored by: China Finance 40 Forum Research Group
Publication date: January 2020
The Jingshan Report is a collection of research papers on key issues for China’s financial opening, including reform of the RMB exchange rate regime, management of cross-border capital flows and financial support for the Belt and Road Initiative. Authored by leading experts in the relevant fields, the report examines the evolution, current status and problems with the financial opening policy over the past four decades, and puts forward policy recommendations on how to steadily push forward China’s financial opening.
East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 11, Number 4, 2019 »
Publication date: November 2019
The idea that countries can pursue prosperity and security as separate streams of the national interest has passed. Economics and security have always been enmeshed, although we assumed otherwise. The nature of the relationship between the two is changing fast. The narratives that surround the change find it difficult to keep up with the facts.
The world has become more multipolar, with remarkable growth outside the established powers in the North Atlantic. And big countries—not just the United States and China, but other G20 members like Brazil, Turkey, Russia and the United Kingdom—have become more nationalist and brazen in asserting what they perceive to be their economic and security interests over those of others. The US–China relationship is increasingly characterised by strategic competition in both the economic and security domains.
At the same time, digital technology has not just transformed products, firms and markets, it has opened them to cyber disruption and attack, resulting in a cross-over of security into the economic and social domains.
This issue of the East Asia Forum Quarterly explores what is happening, why and how to respond to the change. These essays argue for careful thought and active engagement by governments, business and the broader community. Genuine dialogue and problem-solving between the economic and security parts of universities and government is a good first step to frame the problem broadly, keep perspective and find solutions.
East Asia Forum Quarterly grew out of East Asia Forum (EAF) online, which has developed a reputation for providing a platform for the best in Asian analysis, research and policy comment on the Asia Pacific region in world affairs. EAFQ aims to provide a further window onto research in the leading research institutes in Asia, and to provide expert comment on current developments within the region. East Asia Forum Quarterly, like East Asia Forum online, is an initiative of the East Asia Forum and its host organisation, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research in the Crawford School of Economics and Government in the College of Asia & the Pacific at The Australian National University.
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Made in China Journal: Volume 4, Issue 3, 2019 »
Edited by: Ivan Franceschini, Nicholas Loubere
Publication date: September 2019
Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realise that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.
— Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (1918-1956)
With these words, Soviet star dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exalted the transformative role of the gulag—where he had been imprisoned for eight years—in reconfiguring his soul. Just like his account of life in the labour camps played a fundamental role in shaping public perceptions of the Soviet labour camps, our views of the Chinese detention system are also widely shaped by the writings and testimonies of former political prisoners, whether victims of the mass campaigns of the Mao era or more recent crackdowns against dissident voices. Reading these accounts, detention easily assumes the tragic connotations of martyrdom, and detainees come to be surrounded by a halo of heroism. But what about those uncountable prisoners who are detained for common crimes or less-noble causes? What about the reality of murderers, thieves, drug addicts, and prostitutes? Is prison a blessing for them too?
This issue of the Made in China Journal aims to provide a more balanced account of Chinese experiences of detention by examining situations as diverse as reeducation camps in Xinjiang, forced detox camps for drug addicts, involuntary hospitalisation of people with mental health problems, the contested legacies of labour camps from the Maoist past, and the latest reforms in the fields of Chinese criminal justice. Such grim analyses are also key to understanding the upheavals that are currently taking place in Hong Kong. We should not forget that the popular mobilisations of these past months began in response to attempts by the Hong Kong authorities to pass an extradition bill that would have established a new case-by-case model to transfer fugitives to any jurisdiction that the former British colony lacks a formal agreement with, including mainland China. Reading the accounts included in this issue of the journal, it is not difficult to understand why this became a flashpoint.
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Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform: Volume 26, Number 1, 2019 »
Edited by: William Coleman
Publication date: September 2019
Agenda is a refereed, ECONLIT-indexed and RePEc-listed journal of the College of Business and Economics, The Australian National University. Launched in 1994, Agenda provides a forum for debate on public policy, mainly (but not exclusively) in Australia and New Zealand. It deals largely with economic issues but gives space to social and legal policy and also to the moral and philosophical foundations and implications of policy.
Subscribe to the Agenda Alerting service if you wish to be advised on forthcoming or new issues.
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East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 11, Number 3, 2019 »
Publication date: August 2019
When Shinzo Abe was given a second chance at the Japanese prime ministership in 2012, Japan was in the throes of a period of intense domestic turmoil. After six prime ministers in six years, the nation was in desperate need of political stability. Abe has not only delivered that but is now set to become the longest-serving prime minister in modern Japanese history.
Abe commenced his second term with an ambitious policy program focused on reinvigorating the nation’s stagnant economy, amending the constitution to achieve a more ‘normal’ defence and security policy, and engaging proactively in regional and global affairs.
To what extent has Abe achieved these policy goals? How has he utilised the immense political capital accrued throughout his leadership tenure? And what will be the legacy that Abe leaves when his prime ministership ultimately comes to an end? In this issue of East Asia Forum Quarterly, scholars from both inside and outside Japan grapple with these questions.
East Asia Forum Quarterly grew out of East Asia Forum (EAF) online, which has developed a reputation for providing a platform for the best in Asian analysis, research and policy comment on the Asia Pacific region in world affairs. EAFQ aims to provide a further window onto research in the leading research institutes in Asia and to provide expert comment on current developments within the region. The East Asia Forum Quarterly, like East Asia Forum online, is an initiative of the East Asia Forum (EAF) and its host organisation, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) in the Crawford School of Economics and Government in the College of Asia & the Pacific at The Australian National University.
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The Chinese Economic Transformation »
Views from Young Economists
Edited by: Ligang Song, Yixiao Zhou, Luke Hurst
Publication date: July 2019
The Chinese Economic Transformation, the 19th volume in the China Update book series, provides an opportunity for young economists to share their views on various issues relating to the Chinese economic transformation. More than half of the contributors to this book are female scholars. Some of the contributors are rising stars in the studies of the Chinese economy and economic transition, and some only recently received their PhDs and are on their way to establishing themselves in the field of China studies. But they have one thing in common: to passionately observe, study and research what is going on in the Chinese economic transformation during the reform period; and, by so doing, make contributions to the policy debates on, and general understanding of, the Chinese economy.
The chapters in this volume include an in-depth probe into challenges in capital and credit allocation due to financial friction and policy distortions; investigating the causes of growth slow-down in China and suitable policy responses; the evolution of the household registration system and its impact on off-farm employment and the integration of rural and urban labour markets; the growth, scale and characteristics of nonstandard employment; the development of rural e-commerce and its economic impact; innovation performance of listed enterprises in China; financial services liberalisation and its impact on firms’ performance; financing support schemes for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the effect on banks’ credit allocation to SMEs; the potential costs of US–China trade conflict and ways to mitigate them; gender income gap in China’s labour market; causes of blockage of Chinese overseas direct investment and strategies to reduce the probability of encountering obstacles; and the role of state capital in the iron ore boom in Australia.
The great variety of topics in this year’s Update allows readers to understand the current shape of the Chinese economy and to think deeply about policies and necessary reforms for future growth and development.
Made in China Journal: Volume 4, Issue 2, 2019 »
Publication date: June 2019
We shall sing the great masses shaken with work, pleasure, or rebellion: we shall sing the multicolored and polyphonic tidal waves of revolution in the modern metropolis; shall sing the vibrating nocturnal fervor of factories and shipyards burning under violent electrical moons; bloated railroad stations that devour smoking serpents; factories hanging from the sky by the twisting threads of spiraling smoke; bridges like gigantic gymnasts who span rivers, flashing at the sun with the gleam of a knife; adventurous steamships that scent the horizon, locomotives with their swollen chest, pawing the tracks like massive steel horses bridled with pipes, and the oscillating flight of airplanes, whose propeller flaps at the wind like a flag and seems to applaud like a delirious crowd.
— Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Manifesto of Futurism (1909, translated by R.W. Flint)
Although the smoking serpents of erstwhile have been replaced by the sinuous lines of aseptic high-speed trains, and steamships have long disappeared from the horizon, these words penned by an Italian poet at the beginning of the twentieth century are a surprisingly apt description of the infrastructural frenzy that has overcome China in recent history.
Rushing to catch up after the political turmoil of the twentieth century, over the past four decades the Chinese authorities have been remoulding the urban and rural landscapes in the service of economic growth. Starting from the township and village enterprises and special economic zones of the 1980s, factories have sprung up everywhere in China, boosting a new industrial revolution that has carried the country’s economic miracle well into this century. This was before the Party-state decided that it was time to launch a new green tidal wave of revolution in the now-postmodern metropolis, in an attempt to sever the pillars of spiralling smoke that used to link these plants to the sky (but in so doing, also forcing an entire working class to set their eyes to the ground).
New highways and high-speed railways now crisscross the country, enabling the great masses shaken with work, pleasure, and (little) rebellion to travel with an ease and a speed never experienced before. Bridges of unprecedented length span rivers and seas, bringing together places and people that do not always desire to be connected. If there is a place where the futurist utopia of the early twentieth century has come to fruition, it is China. It is to this infrastructural fever that we dedicate this issue of the Made in China Journal.
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East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 11, Number 2, 2019 »
Publication date: June 2019
The global debate on China is becoming more polarised. Is the Chinese economy robust or on the brink of collapse? Does the concentration of power in the hands of President Xi reflect a weaker or more confident China? Is the Belt and Road Initiative a platform for improving global infrastructure, or a strategy to make developing countries more dependent on China? And is Beijing succeeding in its overseas influence campaign, or has China’s global influence diminished in the face of a backlash?In this special issue of East Asia Forum Quarterly, experts from within and outside China force us to confront the complicated, evolving, and often contradictory forces shaping Chinese society, politics, economics and global affairs.
East Asia Forum Quarterly grew out of East Asia Forum (EAF) online, which has developed a reputation for providing a platform for the best in Asian analysis, research and policy comment on the Asia Pacific region in world affairs. EAFQ aims to provide a further window onto research in the leading research institutes in Asia and to provide expert comment on current developments within the region. The East Asia Forum Quarterly, like East Asia Forum online, is an initiative of the East Asia Forum (EAF) and its host organisation, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) in the Crawford School of Economics and Government in the College of Asia & the Pacific at The Australian National University.
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Dog Days »
Made in China Yearbook 2018
Edited by: Ivan Franceschini, Nicholas Loubere
Publication date: April 2019
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2018 was the year of the ‘earthly dog’. In the middle of the long, hot, and feverish dog days of the summer of 2018, some workers at Shenzhen Jasic Technology took their chances and attempted to form an independent union. While this action was met by the harshest repression, it also led to extraordinary demonstrations of solidarity from small groups of radical students from all over the country, which in turn were immediately and severely suppressed. China’s year of the dog was also imbued with the spirit of another canine, Cerberus—the three-headed hound of Hades—with the ravenous advance of the surveillance state and the increasing securitisation of Chinese society, starting from the northwestern region of Xinjiang. This Yearbook traces these latest developments in Chinese society through a collection of 50 original essays on labour, civil society, and human rights in China and beyond, penned by leading scholars and practitioners from around the world.