Our Asia-Pacific region is continuing to drive global economic growth as the new financial year sets off. But beneath this layer of business as usual, life is unsettled and fractious.
The settings that formerly provided stability are in play, from the governance of global institutions to the guarantees of security.
Some seek out those who appear to promise strong leadership, while others reject their opportunism.
Within our region, three forces are driving that underlying destabilisation.
First, economic nationalism is on the rise, especially in the US and China. In this area at least Donald Trump has been consistent for years — he takes a crudely mercantilist view of international economic relations. Xi Jinping was wildly applauded by the cognoscenti at Davos 18 months ago for his rhetorical championing of economic globalism.
But Xi’s China too remains in certain respects protective, as with the “Made in China 2025” campaign, and continuing barriers to investment there. In recent years, Beijing has also directed economic boycotts to back political campaigns, against countries including Japan, France, Norway, The Philippines, and most energetically, South Korea.
Please click here to read the full “Age of uncertainty for Asia Pacific” in The Australian, written by Griffith Asia Institute Industry Fellow, Rowan Callick.
