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Begin New Search Political Geography Asia Author C. Fred Bergsten

1. Pacific Asia and the Asia Pacific: The Choices for APEC

Author:
C. Fred Bergsten
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum comprises 21 developed and developing economies that surround the Pacific Rim. The organization was created in 1989 and holds annual Leaders' Meetings that bring together its heads of government. In this policy brief, I assess the record of the APEC over the 20 years of its existence and discuss the world environment in which APEC is likely to be operating in the next 20 years, with a particular focus on the major change in global institutional arrangements implied by the replacement of the Group of Seven/Eight (G-7/8) by the Group of Twenty (G-20) as the chief steering committee for the world economy and, within that group and other international economic organizations, the increasingly central role of an informal and de facto Group of Two (G-2) between China and the United States.
Topic:
International Relations, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and Australia/Pacific

2. China and Economic Integration in East Asia: Implications for the United States

Author:
C. Fred Bergsten
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
East Asia is clearly, if gradually and unevenly, moving toward regional economic integration. Market forces are leading the process, as firms construct production chains across the area that exploit the comparative advantage of its individual countries. Governments are now moving to build on those forces, and consolidate them, through a series of formal agreements to intensify their economic relationships and start creating an East Asian Community.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, East Asia, and Asia

3. Toward a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific

Author:
C. Fred Bergsten
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) has proposed that the APEC Leaders at Santiago on November 20-21 “agree to further examine the feasibility and potential scope and features of a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).” President Ricardo Lagos of Chile, the host of the APEC summit, has endorsed the concept. I believe that APEC should actively pursue the FTAAP idea. It offers the best prospects of any available strategy for catalyzing a successful outcome of the Doha Round and thus revitalizing the World Trade Organization (WTO). By forging a new transpacific initiative, it can counter the very real risk of disintegration of the Asia-Pacific region that is evident in the progress of Asia-only cooperation on one side of the ocean and a Free Trade Area of the Americas on the other side. It is the best possible device to reenergize APEC's progress toward its own signature trade liberalization goals and thus those of APEC as an institution. It offers a unique win-win-win opportunity that should be seized, beginning at Santiago and then at Pusan a year from now.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Politics, and World Trade Organization
Political Geography:
America and Asia

4. The New Asian Challenge

Author:
C. Fred Bergsten
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The initial postwar challenge from East Asia was economic. Japan crashed back into global markets in the 1960s, became the largest surplus and creditor country in the 1980s, and was viewed by many as the world's dominant economy by 1990. The newly industrialized countries (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) followed suit on a smaller but still substantial scale shortly thereafter. China only re-entered world commerce in the 1980s but has now become the second largest economy (in purchasing power terms), the second largest recipient of foreign direct investment inflows, and the second largest holder of monetary reserves. Indonesia and most of Southeast Asia grew at 7 percent for two or more decades. The oil crises of the 1970s and the financial crises of the late 1990s injected temporary setbacks but East Asia has clearly become a third major pole of the world economy, along with North America and Western Europe.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Europe, Israel, Taiwan, East Asia, Asia, North America, Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong