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Asia


Trade in trouble: how Asia can lead
The US - China trade dispute has disrupted trade and investment flows, stifling global and regional trade growth.
The EU’s human rights and free trade conundrum
Today the EU looks to be perfectly happy to expand trade with authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records when the economic gains are sufficiently large.
Corporate sector in China’s Belt & Road: Impact on people’s access to land and water
China has been receiving flak for its conditional investments and loans that are resulting in land and resource grabbing in Asia and Africa.
ISDS reforms shove human rights under corporate red carpet
“We call on our governments to either address the real reasons why ISDS is fundamentally flawed or to abandon its ‘reform’ agenda that is designed to reinforce and re-legitimise a self-serving investment dispute system.”
Briefer: Mega-FTAs and its implications on Asian Workers
Cross-regional mega-FTAs are now being preferred over bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements as imperialist powers compete for cheap labor, sources of raw materials, and markets.
Cambodia and EAEU fortify ties, consider FTA
Cambodian officials pleaded last week with representatives of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to include more Cambodian products into the bloc’s joint tariff scheme during a high level diplomatic meeting in Moscow.
TPP’s regulatory capitalism and China’s Belt and Road challenges
The revived TPP 11 operates as a significant alternative to China’s approach, embodied in the Belt and Road Initiative.
To counter China’s BRI, India joins US, Japan to boost connectivity in Indo-Pacific
India has joined hands with Japan and United States to build infrastructure for promoting connectivity in Indo-Pacific region, ostensibly to counter the Belt and Road initiative of China.
UK vies for post-Brexit Asia trade as EU lines up FTAs
Indonesia set to be crucial battleground for negotiations
Shifting trade winds: US bilateralism & Asia-Pacific economic integration
Certain long-standing provisions of trade agreements, specifically ISDS, are worthy of reconsideration.
In the economic power struggle for Asia, Trump and Xi Jinping are switching policies
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.
Taiwan eyes ’important role’ in alternative Asian sphere of influence
Mainland affairs minister intrigued by Trump references to ’Indo-Pacific’.
New Zealand part of mystery initiative at request from United States
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’s trade barbs push Asian nations closer to China’s orbit
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.”
China’s free trade agreements in South Asia
China is steadily laying the groundwork for its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative program.
Bilateral agreements: Where’s the US?
National Pork Producers have let the administration know that the U.S. should focus on the Asian-Pacific area, starting with Japan.
US in trade talks with Asian nations to replace TPP, commerce secretary says
The new trade discussions target multiple countries in Asia, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters at the 2017 SelectUSA investment summit
Pacific Alliance looks to Asia as NAFTA, TPP face uncertainty
Pacific Alliance countries are in talks to expand the trade bloc outside Latin America and into high-growth Asia as the future of established deals, such as NAFTA and the evolving Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), hang in the balance.
Beyond investment protection: group warns of intensified corporate attacks vs people’s rights as ASEAN leaders meet in PH
The People Over Profit network together with local civil society organizations in the Philippines warn of intensifying corporate attacks on people’s rights and join calls for an independent, sovereign and peaceful Southeast Asian region.