Trade
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 –…
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…