Trade policy in Asia is dangerously unbalanced. It rests on a shaky leg of discriminatory bilateral and regional FTAs. Its other WTO leg has gone to sleep: most Asian countries have neglected the WTO in favour of FTAs. Its regional-cooperation arm is limp: grand visions for regional economic...

The World Trade Organization deadlock, US-China trade war, and the Belt and Road Initiative are having a profound effect on global economic governance. This paper examines several questions: what are the systematic conflicts that have triggered this crisis of WTO deadlock and trade war? What...

Free trade agreements (FTAs) have been proliferating in Asia for more than a decade. International fragmentation of production and the resultant cross-border production networks have been growing for a much longer period. Although FTAs are not necessary for the formation of production networks,...

Trade policy in Asia has switched from non-discriminatory unilateral liberalisation, reinforced by GATT/ WTO commitments, to discriminatory FTAs. The paper surveys the FTA activity of the major regional players: China, India, the ASEAN countries, Japan and South Korea. It concludes that emerging...

In late 2006, Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, announced a new EU policy on free trade agreements (FTAs). This is contained in the European Commission's Global Europe Communication. The core of this new chapter in EU trade policy is planned FTAs with three Asian partners, India, ASEAN...

Bilateral and regional cooperation initiatives in Asia have been growing in importance over the last five years.These accords span the real and financial sectors; rather than following the more typical pattern of "trade first,money later", recent policy initiatives involve the simultaneous...