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Australia has a solution to Indonesia’s soaring food prices

Indonesia suffers from some of the highest food prices in Southeast Asia. Over the past decade, government policies focussed on food self-sufficiency have contributed to this problem. As its economic policies are thrust into the spotlight upon its first-time leadership of the G20 grouping, Indonesia

By Kyle Springer

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Economic diplomacy: Retro shopping beats the supply chain crisis

These Birks were made for walkin’ In the end it seems, like politics, all trade is local. It has been a big year for reshoring, diversification, logistics log jams and, as Joe Biden memorably told his voters, “something called supply chains”. And all that has filled plenty of media and

By Greg Earl

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Economic diplomacy: Free trade vs economic resilience

Santa clauses The value of global goods trade during the biggest pandemic in a century last year dropped about a third less than it did during the biggest financial crisis in a generation in 2008. But internet searches about “economic resilience” are running more than twice as high these days

By Greg Earl

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Markets and resilience in the face of economic coercion

Australia’s stern statement at a World Trade Organisation review of China’s trade policy last month emphasised that Beijing’s trade disruptive measures may be targeted at Australia, but present a serious problem for all. The implications, the statement said, “go beyond their impact on

By Victor Ferguson, Darren Lim, Scott Waldron

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China’s economic sanctions made Australia more confident

China has singled out several Australian industries with economic sanctions since May last year, imposing hefty tariffs on Australian barley and wine exports, while throwing up barriers to other products including timber, lobster and coal. Beijing’s action has largely been seen as a response to

By Ye Xue

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Economic diplomacy: Los Angeles port pips China as Christmas grinch

Delivery guy When Joe Biden first elevated “something called supply chains” to the global bully pulpit of a White House press briefing back in February it wasn’t hard to guess who the unnamed culprit was. “We shouldn’t have to rely on a foreign country – especially one that doesn’

By Greg Earl

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The scope to negotiate with China on the CPTPP

China’s recent request to begin talks to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) was a surprise. With geopolitical tensions at a high, China is now formally seeking to join the very trade pact often seen as designed to counter it. For Australia, a leading CPTPP

By Roland Rajah, Stephen Grenville

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WTO dispute settlement: why Australia bothers

I have three propositions about Australia’s participation in World Trade Organisation dispute settlement to put to Interpreter readers. Proposition one: the WTO dispute settlement system has never been of more relevance to AustraliaAustralia has been relatively restrained in its use of the system

By Ravi Kewalram

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Australia’s real leverage in China’s CPTTP bid

When China applied earlier this month to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the renamed 11-nation trade pact spanning Asia and the Pacific, Beijing seemed to hand Australia the rare diplomatic gift of leverage. Australia, like other existing members of

By Hugh Piper

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Australia-India trade deal: An early harvest or cherry picking?

There is a new mood of optimism around the most recent effort to revive the Australia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) being spearheaded by Australian Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Dan Tehan and his Indian counterpart, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.

By Justin Brown

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The right climate for Indonesia-United States cooperation

Indonesia is feeling a little ignored. The recent visit by US Vice President Kamal Harris to Vietnam and Singapore led to speculation that Indonesia was not a priority for the Biden administration. “Snubbed again, Joe?” read one local headline. A few weeks beforehand, US Defence Secretary Lloyd

By Eko NM Saputro

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Candour, at last, on China – but then what?

The most important foreign policy speech by a cabinet minister so far this year was delivered last Monday. That Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was the speaker was a little surprising. A little less surprising was that he identified an ascendant, muscular China as a first order threat to the country’s

By Hugh Piper

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Australia’s essential need: not seaborne trade but seaborne supply

Tom Shugart’s Lowy Institute analysis of the rising maritime capabilities of China’s armed forces presents a bleak prospect for the imbalance between China’s growing offensive capabilities and Australia’s long-term ability to deter China from employing them against Australian territory and

By James Goldrick

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Economic diplomacy: After Kabul, Australia looks to India

Suitcase intelligence Bob Carr recalls in his Diary of a Foreign Minister how a senior Australian intelligence official told him bluntly in 2013 that the war against the Taliban was failing. “We spent a billion dollars in Uruzgan province … We could have achieved the same result if I had been

By Greg Earl

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Australia and India: A time to refocus on trade talks

Australia’s former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has just completed a packed visit to India from 2–6 August as Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s special trade envoy. Abbott should have reason to be encouraged by his interactions and his meetings with a cross section of decision-makers in India,

By Anil Wadhwa

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When the chips are down: Biden’s semiconductor war

Export control policy in the semiconductor sector – an industry that supplies the world’s computer, smartphone, appliances and medical equipment industry with electronic chips – was at the forefront of Donald Trump’s tech war against China. The addition of China’s top chipmakers, such as

By Tian He

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Sweet and sour: Taiwan’s pork and pineapple battles

In August, Taiwan will hold a referendum on whether to reinstate a ban on US pork containing the additive ractopamine. This could introduce a sour taste into otherwise positive Taiwan–US relations. But it’s not the only food-related political challenge on the menu. The reaction to China imposing

By Melissa Conley Tyler, Liam Gibson

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Australia sweeps the table in the UK trade deal

Australian trade negotiators often enter talks with difficult demands and a comparatively weak hand. Agriculture, where they seek concessions from the other side, is politically sensitive meaning they are asking their counterparts to do what is hard. In exchange, they have little to offer because

By Dmitry Grozoubinski

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Economic diplomacy: Trade deals for a fast-growing family

Worker vs worker vs student Almost five million Kiwis have always been at least cousins. And Scott Morrison’s distinctive contribution to regional security has been his embrace of about 10 million other islanders as “our Pacific family”. But in a week of rhetoric about international

By Greg Earl

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Australia keeps calm while China carries on

Now that the Morrison government has cancelled Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement with China, Australia is bracing for retaliation from Beijing, probably by way of further trade sanctions. When that retaliation arrives, what should Australia do about it? There’s an old saying that “living

By Sam Roggeveen

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Taiwan: Renewing a southbound vision

For all the talk of cross-Strait military tensions – which are real – in the economic realm, Taiwan’s fortunes have been bound to those of China. Recognising the need to diversify, when Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016, she initiated what was dubbed a “New Southbound Policy”, with the

By Kannan R. Nair

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Economic diplomacy: Supply chains, ASEAN wanes, and Japan’s coal dump

Two worlds When the US and Japan kicked off a bid to take control of the next generation of mobile technology during a summit of their leaders last week, they also pushed the global debate over supply chains into a new orbit. A key part of US President Joe Biden’s and Japan’s Prime

By Greg Earl

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Why our economy can afford to stand up to China with Belt and Road veto

Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

By Roland Rajah

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Will the Five Eyes stare down China’s economic coercion?

Next month brings the inauspicious one-year anniversary of China ramping up a campaign of trade punishment against Australia. Wine, barley, beef, lobster and coal have all been targeted. And there’s no end in sight. Weary Australian government ministers could be forgiven for taking

By James Laurenceson

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The big bark but small bite of China’s trade coercion

Beginning last May, China has hit Australia with a barrage of trade sanctions in a fairly overt attempt at economic coercion. It’s still early days, but it’s worth taking stock of what the economic impact has been so far. The fact that China’s trade sanctions have taken place

By Roland Rajah

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With Xinjiang cotton, Beijing is taking on the world

When China’s nationalist outrage machine took aim at Swedish fashion giant H&M in late March, one could be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu. Campaigns to boycott foreign products in China are nothing new: it has been barely a year since the country went after the National Basketball

By Kris Cheng, Holmes Chan

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Why Aussie exporters won’t be toasting China or the US

Lock the doors When the China trade numbers were released on Tuesday, you could hardly blame Australia’s 2500 winemakers if they locked themselves in the cellar with a nice bottle of red. They certainly have plenty to drink. Only three months ago, Chinese customers drank 50% of Australian red

By Greg Earl

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A “beggar-thy-neighbour” approach keeps seafarers stranded

When a business manager is willing to spend US$200,000 to send home five employees whose contracts have expired and bring five colleagues to replace them on the spot, later telling a reporter the cost was the least of their worries, you can be sure a crisis is involved. In this case, it is on the

By Sandra Tsui

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What RCEP can tell us about geopolitics in Asia

Much of the economic gains from the newly signed mega trade deal known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will come from mitigating what is called the Asian “noodle bowl effect”. The deal will harmonise what have to date been separate rules of origin across the region into

By Rocky Intan

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RCEP revives the art of the deal

News that 15 governments had signed the text of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement did not force either Covid-19 or the presidential transition in Washington off the front pages. It probably attracted the attention it did because it was a virtual signing ceremony – a

By Dick Grant

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Biden’s clean energy plan versus China’s green tech dominance

A man who has earned a reputation for compromise and dealmaking over his half-century in Washington, Joe Biden has also won the presidency by presenting himself as a national unifier, while simultaneously putting forward a policy agenda that some consider to be the most progressive in American

By Elliott Zaagman

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Crew-change crisis risks supply chains – and lives

Twenty-four crew members of the Al Messilah, a livestock carrier under Kuwaiti flag, tested positive last week for Covid-19 at Fremantle Port in Western Australia. They are among the few cases where maritime crews have tested positive. Despite assumptions that ships are an especially

By Christiaan De Beukelaer

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Global trade policy at a lull, but for how long?

Like a sailing ship caught in the doldrums, the international trade policy world seems stagnant and listless. Is there any fresh wind to be detected? Can we create some movement? In this coronavirus–dominated environment, nothing much is happening. The trend in global trade itself is not easy to

By Dick Grant

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China and the Rules‑Based Order

Seven experts debate China’s approach to the rules‑based international order

By Ben Scott, Nadège Rolland, John Culver, David Kelly

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Australia, all is not lost despite China’s trade tantrums

When Canberra called for an international, independent inquiry into Covid-19 in April, Beijing deployed trade restrictions measures against Australian beef and barley the next month. And so when the Australian government responded firmly to China imposing a sweeping national security law in Hong

By James Laurenceson

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China sours on Australia’s wine

On Monday this week, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced it has commenced an investigation into whether Australia has been subsidising winemakers. This follows a parallel investigation launched two weeks ago to examine allegations that Australian winemakers have also been “dumping” their

By Victor Ferguson

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A post-pandemic trade revival

Albert Einstein once said that “in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity”. For an open trading nation like Australia, the pandemic is an unparalleled crisis. The nation is facing its worst downturn since the Great Depression, along with recessions in key trading partners, severe

By Madeleine King

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Business, government must engage on international trade policy

Originally published in The Australian

By Dmitry Grozoubinski

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The World Trade Organization: An Optimistic Pre-mortem in Hopes of Resurrection

At a time when stability and predictability are needed most, the body at the heart of the rules-based trading system — the World Trade Organization — is reeling from far more than just a paralysed Appellate Body and antagonistic Trump administration

By Dmitry Grozoubinski

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Managing Chinese economic risks means more than diversification

There is growing support for diversifying Australia’s economic ties with China in order to reduce the risks of economic coercion. The main bilateral economic ties are through exports, imports and investment. Australia’s risks of economic coercion from China mainly come via exports. China buys 33

By Heath Baker

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The world can still prosper from free trade

Did anyone notice that the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the revised NAFTA, entered into force on 1 July? If not, do not be too concerned, as the Covid-19 crisis has probably affected that as well. Still, this deal is (without getting too much into the weeds of whether it is

By Dick Grant

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Costly cargo: The plight of seafarers in a pandemic

Amid the many consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of seafarers around the world are now locked onboard their ships with expired contracts and unable to get home. In a normal month, approximately 100,000 seafarers leave their ships and are replaced by others, but travel

By Sam Bateman

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China eyes African prospects to iron out trade tension with Australia

Growing Sino-Australian diplomatic and trade disputes have led to Chinese import bans on certain Australian products, but iron ore – Australia’s biggest export to China – has largely been kept out of the fray. Although China did impose new import procedures that could potentially hold up

By Cornelia Tremann

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Indonesia: Still caught between trade and protectionism

The entry into force of an ambitious Indonesia-Australia trade deal on Sunday is a boost to the bilateral relationship, coming after nearly a decade of difficult negotiations. No two neighbouring G20 economies trade as little as Australia and Indonesia, and the investment relationship is similarly

By Ben Bland

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Economic diplomacy: Asian investment, super tension & the WTO hot seat

ASEAN rising Australian businesses in Southeast Asia are showing continued faith in regional economic integration despite the relatively lacklustre cross border political cooperation so far seen in response to the pandemic. A new survey of Australian-connected businesses on

By Greg Earl

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Getting back to harvest: The way forward after China’s barley tariff

China’s decision to impose heavy tariffs on Australian barley and the alleged connection with Australia’s call for an independent international investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic has been widely and intensively reported in recent weeks. What is more important now is to

By Weihuan Zhou

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Economic diplomacy: Mood shift afoot

Retail therapyWhen even the normally unflappable Trade Minister Simon Birmingham bluntly tells business to reduce ties with the country that has underpinned the Australian economy for two decades, a mood shift is afoot. It took some prodding, but Birmingham finally broke cover at the end of his ABC&

By Greg Earl

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In beef over barley, Chinese economic coercion cuts against the grain

Last weekend news broke that the Chinese government was considering imposing large tariffs on Australian barley exports. Now, China-bound exports from four Australian meat processors have been suspended. Following Australian calls for an independent inquiry into the early handling of Covid-19,

By Darren Lim, Victor Ferguson

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New Zealand: Running the marathon

Earlier this week, New Zealand moved out of total lockdown into a phase of continuing control on social movement, but with an opening of widespread economic activity. Schools reopened partially. It is estimated that about half a million people returned to work after a stand down of five weeks.

By Dick Grant

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Statesman Turnbull steps up: Secret letters, taming Trump, due credit

Big boys time From media baron Rupert Murdoch to leadership rival Peter Dutton, Malcolm Turnbull’s new memoir* released this week is partly built on his self-assessment that he can size up a bully better than most. “The one thing I’d learned with bullies is that sucking up to them is

By Greg Earl

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