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291. BRICSAM and the Non-WTO

Author:
Agata Antkiewicz and John Whalley
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
We discuss recent regional trade and economic partnership agreements involving the large population, rapidly growing economies (BRICSAM: Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, ASEAN, and Mexico). Perhaps 50 out of 300 agreements that exist worldwide involve BRICSAM countries; most are recently concluded and will be implemented over the next few years. Along with extensive bilateral investment treaties, mutual recognition agreements, and other country to country (or region) arrangements they are part of what we term the non-WTO. This paper aims to document and characterize the agreements and analyze their possible impacts. Agreements differ in specificity, coverage and content. In some treaties there are detailed and specific commitments, but these also co-exist with seemingly vague commitments and (at times) opaque dispute settlement and enforcement mechanisms. Whether these represent a partial replacement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) process for newly negotiated reciprocity based on global trade liberalization or largely represent diplomatic protocol alongside significant WTO disciplines is the subject of this paper.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, Asia, South Africa, Brazil, and Mexico

292. Why Is the World Bank Still Lending?

Author:
Adam Lerrick
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
World Bank money is building schools in China's impoverished western provinces, but the bill for interest charges is being mailed to the United Kingdom, attention Chancellor of Exchequer Gordon Brown. Mexico, Chile, and Brazil will soon be lining up for the same deal. This is but the latest scheme designed to preserve the World Bank's lending role at a time when the need and demand for its services are falling. Major middle-income countries, the cream of the bank's lending portfolio and where more than 80 percent of Latin Americans live, are curbing their borrowing and paying down their balances, setting off alarms at the bank. Net loan flows have shifted from a positive $10 billion in 1999–2001, to a negative $15 billion in 2002–2004.
Topic:
Debt, Development, Economics, and Third World
Political Geography:
China, United Kingdom, Brazil, Latin America, Mexico, and Chile

293. Rising Spatial Disparities and Development

Author:
Ravi Kanbur and Anthony J. Venables
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Amidst a growing concern about increasing inequality, the spatial dimensions of inequality have begun to attract considerable policy interest. In China, Russia, India, Mexico, and South Africa, as well as most other developing and transition economies, there is a sense that spatial and regional disparities in economic activity, incomes and social indicators, are on the increase. Spatial inequality is a dimension of overall inequality, but it has added significance when spatial and regional divisions align with political and ethnic tensions to undermine social and political stability. Also important in the policy debate is a perceived sense that increasing internal spatial inequality is related to greater openness of economies, and to globalization in general.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Demographics, and Development
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, South Africa, and Mexico

294. President Bush's Muddled Policy on Taiwan

Author:
Ted Galen Carpenter
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The Bush administration has gone from one extreme to the other with regard to U.S. policy on Taiwan. During the early months of his administration, the president gave a seemingly unconditional pledge to defend Taiwan from attack by mainland China—going significantly further than his predecessors had. He followed that assurance by approving the largest arms sales package to Taiwan in nearly a decade. In marked contrast to the Clinton years, high-profile visits by Taiwanese leaders to the United States have been encouraged, despite Beijing's protests.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

295. Firm Size, Technical Efficiency and Productivity Growth in Chinese Industry'

Author:
Dic Lo and Yuk-Shing Cheng
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
Since the mid-1990s, China's state leadership has adopted a policy of nurturing the competitiveness of large state-owned industrial enterprises. The implications of this policy have been a matter of debate in the literature. This paper seeks to provide some useful input into the debate. With a view of investigating into the potential of long-term development of large enterprises, we estimate the “sequential production technology” in computing the Malmquist productivity index for various size-groups of enterprises in Chinese industry. Our findings indicate that large enterprises did register the fastest productivity growth and improvement in technical efficiency in the 1994-97 period. It thus appears that large-scale, mainly state-owned Chinese enterprises have exhibited the potential of m a king noticeable improvements and the relevant state policy does have its justification.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
China

296. China's Nexus of Foreign Trade and Economic Growth: Making Sense of the Anomaly

Author:
Dic Lo
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
Using a range of specifications that are standard in the relevant literature, this paper finds that China's rapid and sustained economic growth in the reform era has tended to be negatively correlated with its export growth and positively correlated with its import growth. This finding runs counter to widely -held perceptions on China's nexus of foreign trade and economic growth, and thus presents a serious challenge for interpretation. On the basis of some further regression analyses, and drawing on a number of applied studies on the subject matter, the paper argues that the finding is plausible and of complex ramifications. The conclusion which this paper arrives at, therefore, is that the Chinese experience has tended to be a case of strategic integration into the world market, rather than conforming to the standard neoclassical thesis of trade regime neutrality.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
China

297. Assessing the Role of Foreign Direct Investment in China's Economic Development: Macro Indicators and Insights from Sectoral-Regional Analyses'

Author:
Dic Lo
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
The objective of this paper is to assess the role of FDI in China's economic development with reference to the broader literature on FDI and late development. Three main findings come out from the analyses in the paper. First, it is found that FDI tends to promote the improvement in allocative efficiency, while having a negative impact on productive efficiency. Second, insofar as FDI does promote overall productivity growth, this tends to be a matter of cumulative causation rather than one of single-direction causation. Third, in the context of a comparative analysis of two distinctive regional models, it is found that the economic impact of FDI tends to be more favourable in the inward-looking, capital-deepening pattern of development (the 'Shanghai model') than that in the export-oriented, labour-intensive pattern (the 'Guangdong model'). Further analyses, however, suggest that the 'Shanghai model' has its intrinsic problems of sustainability. The scope for applying it to China as a whole is thus judged to be limited.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and Shanghai

298. A New World Map in Textiles and Clothing

Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
The textile and clothing industries provide employment for tens of million of people, primarily in developing countries, and accounted for USD 350 billion in merchandise exports in 2002, or 5.6% of the world total. The current rules governing world trade in textiles and clothing will change drastically at the end of 2004, when countries will no longer be able to protect their own industries by means of quantitative restrictions on imports of textile and clothing products. What will this mean for cotton growers in Burkina Faso and Turkey, fashion retailers in France and the United States, or shirt factories in Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic or China?
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Bangladesh, United States, China, Turkey, and France

299. CERI: The socio-political effects of forced migrations linked tomajor hydraulic projects in China. The example of the Three Gorges dam.

Author:
Florence Padovani
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The study of the population movements caused by the major Chinese hydraulic projects reveals the true extent of the change which has come about in relations between the State and society in China. The construction of the Three Gorges dam-which led to considerable controversy both within China and beyond - is a prime case in point.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

300. The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: China in the limelight

Author:
John Bowan
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
Beijing's successful bid for the 2008 Olympic Games gives China a unique opportunity to signal its emergence as a leading player in the mainstream of international affairs. The Games will provide a unique opportunity to showcase to the international public, as well as to foreign governments and international business, China's technical and organisational capabilities, its cultural and social achievements, and its standing and potential as a global economic power and partner. The ongoing strong commitment to the Games by the national Government, and the rapid and efficient progress made to date by the Beijing Olympic organisers, are impressive; from a technical point of view, China's challenging Olympic project is on track. The Games will make some limited contribution to the extraordinary economic and technological development China is making, particularly in environmental protection. Similarly, the Games have the potential to make some incremental contribution to improving human rights in China. Their significance as a force for change in this area should not be overestimated, however, and the evidence is that the Olympic influence on China's human rights has so far been limited. Despite the good cooperation at the Olympic level that has developed between China and Taiwan in recent years, the hosting of the Games would not stand in the way of drastic action by China if Taiwan pursued independence beyond the limits of its tolerance. Australia's cooperative Olympic links with China, developed during Beijing's bid, add a valuable dimension to the strong and important relationship between the two countries.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, and Development
Political Geography:
China and Asia