Trans Pacific Relations

This broad-based study of Western-Asian relations considers images of and actions by the United States, along with Britain and Germany, in the course of dealings with Asian nations such as China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Other case studies focus on inter-Asian relations between Japan and Korea; China and Japan; and Thailand and Vietnam. The essays encompass a wide range of recent scholarship, including cultural, economic, demographic, and intellectual approaches to military and diplomatic themes. Western influence, primarily American, in Asia grew consistently during the 20th century. While interaction often occurred on unequal terms, this study reveals the ability of Asians to assert their agency in the face of such immense Western power. The collection as a whole offers a window on relations across the Pacific in numerous spheres of activity over the course of one hundred years. As such, it introduces and adds to our understanding of the depth and variety of trans-Pacific relations.

This volume provides comprehensive chapter-by-chapter assessment of one of the world's most important regional trade agreements, the TPP/CPTPP.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between 12 Pacific Rim countries has generated the most intensive political debate about the role of trade in the United States in a generation. The TPP is one of the broadest and most progressive free trade agreements since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The essays in this Policy Analysis provide estimates of the TPP's benefits and costs and analyze more than 20 issues in the agreement, including environmental and labor standards, tariff schedules, investment and competition policy, intellectual property, ecommerce, services and financial services, government procurement, dispute settlement, and agriculture. Through extensive analysis of the TPP text, PIIE scholars present an indispensable and detailed "reader's guide" that also sheds light on the agreement's merits and shortcomings. In Rich People Poor Countries, Caroline Freund identifies and analyzes nearly 700 emerging-market billionaires whose net worth adds up to more than $2 trillion. Freund finds that these titans of industry are propelling poor countries out of their small-scale production and agricultural past and into a future of multinational industry and service-based mega firms. And more often than not, the new billionaires are using their newfound acumen to navigate the globalized economy, without necessarily relying on political connections, inheritance, or privileged access to resources. This story of emerging-market billionaires and the global businesses they create dramatically illuminates the process of industrialization in the modern world economy.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks attempt to link together at least nine countries in three continents to create a 'high-quality, twenty-first century agreement'. Such an agreement is intended to open markets to competition between the partners more than ever before in sectors ranging from goods and services to investment, and includes rigorous rules in the fields of intellectual property, labour protection and environmental conservation. The TPP also aims to improve regulatory coherence, enhance production supply chains and help boost small and medium-sized enterprises. It could transform relations with regions such as Latin America, paving the way to an eventual Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, or see innovations translated into the global trade regulatory system operating under the WTO. However, given the tensions between strategic and economic concerns, the final deal could still collapse into something closer to a standard, 'twentieth-century' trade agreement.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a big deal in the making. With the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations at an impasse, the TPP negotiations have taken center stage as the most significant trade initiative of the 21st century. As of December 2012, negotiators have made extensive progress in 15 negotiating rounds since the talks began in March 2010, though hard work remains to finish the deal in the coming year or so. Despite this effort, however, the TPP is not well understood. In part, the reason lies in the dynamism of the TPP initiative. Unlike other free trade pacts, the growing membership as the talks have proceeded and the broad range, complexity, and novelty of the issues on the agenda have made it difficult to track the substantive detail and progress of the talks. This Policy Analysis aims to remedy this problem by providing a reader's guide to the TPP initiative. It first assesses how much the TPP countries are alike and like-minded in their pursuit of a comprehensive trade deal. It then examines the current status of the talks, the major substantive sticking points, and the implications of Canada and Mexico joining the talks as well as prospective membership of other countries. The Policy Analysis then looks ahead to how the TPP could advance economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region and the implications for trade relations with China.