Asia Europe Journal最新文献

The significance of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for Europe is increasing. The diplomatic initiative “16 + 1,” comprising China and 16 Central, East and Southeast European economies (CESEE), expanded to a “17 + 1” format in April 2019, when Greece officially joined the cooperation forum. This expansion revived interest in Chinese activities aimed at better physical and digital connectivity in Europe and their effects. The article descriptively shows a geographical division of Chinese infrastructure development activities in Europe: the “17 + 1” region is targeted more intensively by Chinese construction projects. Moreover, roughly 90% of all construction contracts with the “17 + 1” region are attributable to connectivity sectors, while Chinese activities in other European regions are more diversified. In Europe, the Western Balkans are expected to economically benefit the most from the BRI, as they show particularly high deficiencies in infrastructure, and so far, have limited access to EU grants. Economic effects of infrastructure projects, however, trickle through European production and supply chains, affecting a larger number of countries than information on projects would suggest. EU initiatives presented since 2018 may help to increase complementarity between Chinese and European infrastructure development plans and reduce associated risks, such as unsustainable debt or new trade barriers arising from increased competition for Chinese investments. The BRI is about to change physical and digital connectivity within Europe, while the EU has yet to become an active player engaging in the initiative, in order to enable improved connectivity in Europe to drive economic convergence and not political divergence.

Abstract

Many pundits and media believe that China under Mr. Xi Jinping is politically and economically illiberal with concentration of political power to Xi himself and the expansion of state capitalism. This article believes that China is still in transition and the Daobi (倒逼) mechanism, namely, a planned strategy of introducing foreign competition and international rules to advance domestic reform, takes effect. The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) is a milestone that could possibly contribute to structural economic and even political changes in China. This article centres on the Daobi mechanism and explains how the synergies among CAI, domestic socioeconomic changes and Chinese leaders’ self-consciousness may set the agenda of China’s domestic reform.

Since 2011, the European Union’s (EU) free trade agreements (FTAs) include a Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapter which provides for environmental and labour commitments. Nevertheless, the ratification and implementation of these commitments remain insufficient. It is therefore essential to analyse whether the EU has become more ambitious in enforcing the TSD chapter. To analyse the chapter’s enforceability, the EU’s FTAs with South Korea, Canada and Japan have been compared. The comparative analysis was based on three elements: the labour and environmental commitments, institutional mechanisms and the enforcement procedure. Concerning the latter, the ongoing EU-Korea dispute settlement case over workers’ rights in South Korea is the leading example. Until the Commission reveals more assertive enforcement plans, it can be said that the EU has not become more ambitious in enforcing its TSD chapter. Since no major changes were detected in the comparative analysis, several interviewees proposed enforcement mechanisms.

This paper explores the impact of infrastructure on trade connectivity among ASEAN and three Asian countries—India, China, and Japan. Our study is mainly motivated by the increased infrastructure investment and trade among these countries in recent years. The main results of trade network analysis include high trade density and interconnectedness among ASEAN, India, China, and Japan. There are specific “trade intensive paths” among the few countries in the group. It highlights the “export hubs” or main “suppliers of intermediate goods” in the region. Further, the paper analyzed the nexus between trade connectivity and infrastructure by applying the panel fixed effects method and Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood. Moreover, the robustness of the results is tested by estimating two-stage least square. Hard infrastructure, foreign direct investment plays a crucial role in bringing the nexus to trade connectivity. Reducing trade barriers and improving infrastructure quality are essential for deepening regional trade integration.

The European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) is an ambitious regional trade agreement, signed by both parties in 2019 and ratified by the European Parliament in February 2020. Like many other ‘new-generation’ RTAs, this agreement is well known for its WTO + and WTO-X provisions. This paper analyzes typical WTO + and WTO-X provisions of the EVFTA, focusing on their concepts, contents and legal enforceability. This paper argues that environmental and human rights protection provisions, which are ‘grafted’ into the regional trade legal system under the form of WTO-X provisions, do not have the same legal value as WTO + provisions. As a result, the EVFTA remains mainly a trade agreement and cannot be counted upon as the sufficient condition to establish harmonization between pillars of sustainable development.

The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) that was borne but not formally blessed by China and the European Union in late December 2020 is unlikely to survive in its current form, if it survives at all. In fact, there is good reason to believe that the CAI is DOA – dead on arrival – due to EU sanctions and Chinese countersanctions related to China’s persecution of its Uyghur minority; criticism of the negotiated agreement; and changing political calculations by Beijing and among EU member states.

Abstract

As the EU officials and their Chinese counterparts emphasised the end of 2020 as the date for a successful conclusion of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI, the Agreement), the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were sceptical. However, after discussions, with Lithuania appearing to be the most visible opponent of CAI among the Baltic nations, all three eventually upheld the proposal. Understanding that the ratification of CAI is unlikely after the mutual exchange of sanctions between the EU and PRC in March, 2021, the report nevertheless examines the roots of the Baltic position as a case study of inter-EU bargains, inspects what factors contributed to the Baltic position on the issue of CAI, presents the national pro- and counter-arguments to CAI along the domains of geo-politics, values, and economy, and brings up the dilemmas that remain unsolved.