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21. Scaling up Private Investment in Low-Carbon Energy Systems through Regional Cooperation: Market-Based Trade Policy Measures

Author:
Kaliappa Kalirajan, Huong Thi Thu Tran, and Yochang Liu
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
This study aims to analyse the possibility and challenges of encouraging private sector investment in low-carbon energy systems in Asia, particularly across the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member countries, and to suggest an effective policy framework that governments could apply to improve the development and dissemination of low-carbon energy goods and technologies. The research questions examined in this study are: What type of policy measures affect trade in low-carbon energy systems transition, particularly the renewable energy transition? How can investment signals and incentives be reframed to scale up private finance in renewable energy through regional cooperation? The objective is to investigate and provide several market-based feasible trade policy and investment policy tools for both national and regional markets that governments could adopt to accelerate the speed of private financing of the low-carbon energy industry, particularly the renewable energy industry.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Markets, Trade, and Renewable Energy
Political Geography:
South Asia, East Asia, Asia, and Southeast Asia

22. Egypt Takes Another Step Toward China

Author:
Haisam Hassanein
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Port projects and other outreach may help President Sisi check off some of his policy goals, but giving China such a foothold could threaten a number of U.S. interests in the region. On August 5, Egypt signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese company Hutchison Ports to establish a Mediterranean container terminal in Abu Qir. President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi himself attended the signing ceremony, where he praised the company’s global reputation in the field and emphasized the importance of executing the project in accordance with the highest international standards. The project is in line with Sisi’s track record of seeking Chinese help to fulfill his ambitious domestic and foreign agenda. Hutchison is one of the world’s leading port networks, operating terminals in twenty-seven countries; in Egypt, it operates the country’s two main commercial ports, Alexandria and El Dekheila. The company’s representatives commended the opportunity for direct investment in Abu Qir and announced that they will be training more than 1,500 Egyptian engineers and other workers for jobs at the terminal. According to them, the facility will be able to handle up to 1 million containers annually once completed.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Economic growth, and Trade
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, Asia, North Africa, Egypt, and United States of America

23. China's Economic Choices

Author:
David Orsmond
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
China’s economic growth has fallen to its slowest rate since 1990, and this deceleration looks set to continue unless China implements the kinds of deep reforms behind the successful economic transitions of Japan and Korea. China’s economic growth has fallen to its slowest rate since 1990, and this deceleration looks set to continue. Key factors include weakening demographics, inefficient investment, maturing export markets and declining productivity growth rather than the current trade dispute with the United States. To reverse that trend, China will need a wide-ranging policy approach that mimics the policies implemented by Japan and Korea at a similar economic stage. While there are considerable political and economic obstacles to such reforms, if it manages to continue its rapid catch-up to advanced economy incomes the potential returns for both China and the world are significant.
Topic:
Reform, Economy, Economic growth, Trade Wars, and Trade
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Australia, and United States of America

24. Averting a Global Calamity? Trump and Xi at the G20

Author:
John Edwards
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The outlines of a trade deal between the United States and China are there. But without a return to the negotiating table, the dispute could rapidly escalate, magnifying the damage to world growth. With the Osaka G20 meeting looming, Chinese analysts and policymakers visited in Beijing are pessimistic about the prospects for a trade deal with the United States. If they are right, global financial markets are in for a much wilder shock than anything yet seen in this quarrel. Yet much of a deal has already been agreed, while the consequences of not reaching a deal have become increasingly dire.
Topic:
International Relations, International Trade and Finance, Trade Wars, and Trade
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

25. The Chinese Are Doing What the Mongols Did Before Them, Only Better

Author:
Emil Avdaliani
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA)
Abstract:
The vast attention paid to China’s Belt and Road Initiative misses the historical precedents on which it is based. Hearkening back to the nomadic understanding of geography of medieval times, the Chinese are following through on what the Mongols, and later Tamerlane, attempted: to unify the Eurasian landmass by establishing trade routes and encouraging commercial activities from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.
Topic:
History, Soft Power, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Trade
Political Geography:
China and Asia

26. WTO'ing a Resolution to the China Subsidy Problem

Author:
Chad P. Bown and Jennifer A. Hillman
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The United States, the European Union, and Japan have begun a trilateral process to confront the Chinese economic model, including its use of industrial subsidies and deployment of state-owned enterprises. This paper seeks to identify the main areas of tension and to assess the legal-economic challenges to constructing new rules to address the underlying conflict. It first provides a brief history of subsidy disciplines in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization (WTO) predating any concerns introduced by China. It then describes contemporary economic problems with China’s approach to subsidies, their impact, and the apparent ineffectiveness of the WTO’s Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures to address them. Finally, it calls for increased efforts to measure and pinpoint the source of the problems—in a manner analogous to how the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development took on agricultural subsidies in the 1980s—before providing a legal-economic assessment of proposals for reforms to notifications, evidence, remedies, enforcement, and the definition of a subsidy.
Topic:
Economics, World Trade Organization, Tariffs, and Trade
Political Geography:
Japan, Europe, Asia, North America, United States of America, and European Union

27. US-China Trade War: Both Countries Lose, World Markets Adjust, Others Gain

Author:
Sherman Robinson and Karen Thierfelder
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The terms of the US-China trade war change often, but the tariff escalations have inflicted documented economic damage on both countries. Expanding the conflict will only increase the damage and reverberate across the world economy. This Policy Brief uses a computable general equilibrium model of the global economy to analyze three scenarios that could unfold in coming months. The first scenario is the current situation (as of June 2019). Two additional scenarios assume implementation of proposed US tariffs and Chinese responses. The models project the situation after the two countries and the rest of the world adjust across a time horizon of three to five years. For the United States, higher tariffs raise prices and reduce demand for consumers and producers. For China, the tariffs raise the prices of consumer goods but have less direct impact on producers, because the Chinese have exempted some intermediate inputs. US exports and imports decline under all three scenarios. But China can successfully divert its exports away from the United States and escape maximum economic damage.
Topic:
Economics, Global Markets, Finance, Trade Wars, and Trade
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

28. Protectionism under Trump: The China Shock, Intolerance, and the "First White President"

Author:
Marcus Noland
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
In 2016, the United States elected an avowedly protectionist president. This paper uses US county-level electoral data to examine this outcome. The hypothesis that support for protectionism was purely a response to globalization is rejected. Exposure to trade competition encouraged a shift to the Republican candidate, but this effect is mediated by race, diversity, education, and age. If the turn toward protectionism is due to economic dislocation, then public policy interventions could mitigate the impact and support the reestablishment of a political consensus for open trade. If, however, the drivers are identity or cultural values, then the scope for constructive policy intervention is unclear.
Topic:
Economy, Trade, Donald Trump, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

29. From Failed Economic Interfaces to Political Levers: Assessing China-South Korea Competition and Cooperation Scenarios on North Korean Special Economic Zones

Author:
Théo Clément
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
While North Korea has developed Special Economic Zones for several decades now, these zones have attracted little attention from foreign investors, due to a mix of lack of economic reforms in the DPRK, the tense geopolitical situation, and China’s peculiar economic engagement towards North Korea. With the denuclearization process and North-South dialogue moving forward, this situation could change as South Korea’s announced policy of economic engagement with the North could provide Pyongyang the opportunity to play Beijing against Seoul to maximize its interests and attract foreign investment in Special Economic Zones from partners keen to maintain close ties with the DPRK.
Topic:
Economics, Bilateral Relations, Investment, Trade, and Denuclearization
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and Korea

30. China, Like the US, Faces Challenges in Achieving Inclusive Growth Through Manufacturing

Author:
Robert Z. Lawrence
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
For more than three decades the goal of becoming “the factory of the world” has been at the core of China’s development strategy. This strategy, in combination with high rates of domestic investment and low rates of consumption, made Chinese production the most manufacturing intensive in the world. But as its wages have risen, China’s competitiveness in the most labor-intensive manufacturing industries has eroded. Its ability to assemble products remains a major source of its exports, but it has also tried to shift toward more sophisticated value-added production domestically. Chinese domestic spending has shifted away from investment toward more consumption as citizens’ incomes have grown. Like Americans, Chinese people are also spending more on services than on manufactured goods. All these changes are fundamentally altering the structure of China’s production, reducing the role of manufacturing, and increasing the skill levels of workers in manufacturing. This Policy Brief reviews the challenges posed by these developments for China’s long-term goal of achieving more inclusive growth. It presents evidence that commonly held perceptions that Chinese manufacturing employment growth is robust are wrong. In fact, such growth has peaked and China is now following the pattern of structural change that is typical of a more mature emerging economy, in which the share of employment in manufacturing declines as workers are increasingly employed in services.
Topic:
Economic growth, Manufacturing, and Trade
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America