The aftermath of the Brexit referendum has intensified the debate on alternative templates for the UK’s relationship with the European Union. The “Norway option”, an arrangement that allows Norway access to the single market without being a member of the EU, is often proposed as a transitional station on the journey towards Brexit’s final destination.
ASEAN member states do not count for much in the global economy on their own. Indonesia, the biggest economy in Southeast Asia, has a GDP of US$861 billion, but that is still smaller than the economy of Tokyo.
Yet combined, the GDP of ASEAN member states is about US$2.6 trillion. If ASEAN were a single country, it would be the seventh largest economy in the world. In addition, in 10 years’ time, ASEAN is expected to overtake the United Kingdom and France to be the fifth largest economy — after the United States, China, Japan and Germany.
Despite the old adage that ‘good fences make good neighbours’, sometimes it is impossible, for a variety of reasons, to build good ‘fences’ in the sea. This is certainly the case in the South China Sea, where territorial claims are complicated by geography.
While the recent ruling by the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague on the dispute between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea has theoretically ‘cleared the air’ on some aspects of maritime boundary-making, in practical terms it may not have helped the situation.
Until its 2012 APEC chairmanship and APEC Summit in Vladivostok, Russia was not a proactive participant in East Asia. Rather, it was still striving for comprehensive involvement in the network of regional institutions such as APEC, ASEAN dialogue partnership, the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the East Asia Summit.
The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is widely considered a game changer not only for Pakistan, but also for the Asian region. CPEC is a major stimulus for Pakistan, ensuring rapid economic growth with massive infrastructure development and flows of foreign direct investment (FDI).
CPEC aims to connect Gwadar Port in Pakistan to China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang via a network of highways, railways and pipelines. Connectivity with Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa under CPEC will shape the entire region’s economic agenda.
Australia and China, though they are two vastly different nations, already have a huge and joint political, economic and social investment in the success of their bilateral relationship.
On 12 July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration rendered its decision on the Philippines v. China case over disputes in the South China Sea. Capturing worldwide attention, the ruling was made largely in Manila’s favour.
Yet overshadowed by this event was another milestone in Manila’s foreign relations: the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Vietnam.
The Republican and Democratic National Conventions have confirmed that each presidential candidate has very different foreign policy outlooks. At the heart of each platform are different fears, threat perceptions and understandings of the United States’ place in the world — including its commitment to its treaty allies.
A recent release of confidential documents from WikiLeaks has finally relieved the silence surrounding the negotiations of an important but fairly obscure multilateral trade agreement.
Australia, the US and the European Union have been quietly negotiating the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) since 2013, but until now there has been silence around the process and substance of the negotiations.
The European Union and ASEAN have very different models of economic integration. Yet ASEAN and its members worry about what Britain’s exit from the European Union may mean for the future of ASEAN. Brexit provides a powerful motivation to get the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) agenda right.
