geopolitics
The leaders of three of Asia’s biggest economies will aim to advance a free-trade agreement and economic cooperation, putting territorial rows and military tensions aside at an expected trilateral summit in April, Chinese diplomatic observers said.
The intensification of negotiations between the EU and Japan came in response to broader geopolitical developments such as the rise of China, Trump, and Brexit.
The impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on regional trade integration should also be seen in light of trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Its resurrection represents a critical step towards building a trading system in which Washington’s abandonment of the region doesn’t immediately fall uncontested into China’s hands.
Donald Trump is flexing the United States’ economic muscle in East Asia by introducing a web of new-generation bilateral trade deals to contain China’s challenge. But Beijing is fighting back by political means.
With its New Silk Road mega-project, China is building on old traditions. But hard-core geostrategic interests, not nostalgia, are guiding Beijing’s investments. Miodrag Soric reports from Tbilisi, Georgia.
Maldivian Foreign Minister’s visit signals possible thaw in ties strained over FTA with China.
Both and Japan are pursuing their own initiatives to call shots in Asia, which may have ramifications for businesses and economies in the Mena region.
Now that the agreement has been signed between China and Maldives, India has said it expected the Indian Ocean archipelago nation to be sensitive to New Delhi’s concerns.
Mainland affairs minister intrigued by Trump references to ’Indo-Pacific’.
At the fifth Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels, Armenia and the European Union signed a new framework agreement, dubbed the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement.
In November 2016, the Maldives said that it would sign its first free trade agreement soon, ostensibly with India. A year later, the island country has indeed signed its first FTA, but with China.
As Canada, Mexico, and the United States focus on the next round of negotiations on NAFTA, governments in the rest of the Americas are grappling with a more fundamental question about trade. Who will be their dominant trade partner in the future: the US, Europe, or China?
Australia has reiterated the importance of New Zealand to its foreign policy direction with particular emphasis on the role it sees New Zealand playing in its economic engagement with Pacific island countries.
The conflict between ‘rules-based’ and ‘US-centred’ in Australia’s new foreign policy road map
The APEC Leaders’ summit meeting, which took place in Danang, Vietnam, crystallized the new geopolitics of trade in Asia.
New Zealand appears to have joined a mysterious "regional initiative" at the request of the United States, but the matter is being kept under wraps.
Trump declared his 11-day swing through Asia a success before heading home, saying that “all countries dealing with us on trade know that the rules have changed.”
Japan and the United States are sailing toward a joint strategy focused on the Indian-Pacific region as one way of containing the maritime advances being made by China into the East China Sea and South China Sea.
China is becoming increasingly wary about negotiations over the 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, which includes Japan but not the United States following the latter’s withdrawal.
