The global implications of China's rise as a global actorIn 2005, a senior official in the George W. Bush administration expressed the hope that China would emerge as a "responsible stakeholder" on the world stage. A dozen years later, the Trump administration dramatically shifted course, instead calling China a "strategic competitor" whose actions routinely threaten U.S. interests. Both assessments reflected an underlying truth: China is no longer just a "rising" power. It has emerged as a truly global actor, both economically and militarily. Every day its actions affect nearly every region and every major issue, from climate change to trade, from conflict in troubled lands to competition over rules that will govern the uses of emerging technologies. To better address the implications of China's new status, both for American policy and for the broader international order, Brookings scholars conducted research over the past two years, culminating in a project: Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World. The project is intended to furnish policy makers and the public with hard facts and deep insights for understanding China's regional and global ambitions. The initiative draws not only on Brookings's deep bench of China and East Asia experts, but also on the tremendous breadth of the institution's security, strategy, regional studies, technological, and economic development experts. Areas of focus include the evolution of China's domestic institutions; great power relations; the emergence of critical technologies; Asian security; China's influence in key regions beyond Asia; and China's impact on global governance and norms. Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World provides the most current, broad-scope, and fact-based assessment of the implications of China's rise for the United States and the rest of the world.

The first book to weave Eurasia together through the perspective of the oceans and seas "A detailed account of the growing importance of the Chinese, Indian, and Russian navies and how this competition is playing out in waters stretching from the Indo-Pacific area to the Arctic and the Mediterranean."-Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs "It is a must-read for scholars, policymakers, and anyone interested in the great power competition."-Yongzheng Parker Li, Pacific Affairs "[E]xtremely thought-provoking and well researched."-Bruce A. Elleman, Russian Review Eurasia's emerging powers-India, China, and Russia-have increasingly embraced their maritime geographies as they have expanded and strengthened their economies, military capabilities, and global influence. Maritime Eurasia, a region that facilitates international commerce and contains some of the world's most strategic maritime chokepoints, has already caused a shift in the global political economy and challenged the dominance of the Atlantic world and the United States. Climate change is set to further affect global politics. With meticulous and comprehensive field research, Geoffrey Gresh considers how the melting of the Arctic ice cap will create new shipping lanes and exacerbate a contest for the control of Arctic natural resources. He explores as well the strategic maritime shifts under way from Europe to the Indian Ocean and Pacific Asia. The race for great power status and the earth's changing landscape, Gresh shows, are rapidly transforming Eurasia and thus creating a new world order.

The World Trade Organization was established in the 1990s, superseding the GATT and providing a stronger institutional foundation for international trading arrangement among countries. As an international organization it faces a number of challenges, including achieving agreement over trade in services, bringing in new members from the economies in transition and developing countries, making the strengthened dispute settlement mechanism effective, and bringing about an increasingly open multilateral trading system. This volume analyzes the challenges and opportunities confronting the WTO. Several chapters address the WTO's institutional capacity directly, through such issues as the way national policies may influence or constrain the WTO, the difficulties of achieving coherence with the World Bank and the IMF, and the resources available to the WTO's secretariat in relation to the tasks it faces. Other papers in this volume consider more contemporary policy issues facing the WTO, including how to bring services trade into an open multilateral framework, how dispute settlement mechanisms can be improved, and how other concerns, such as labour standards and environmental issues may be addressed. Two papers focus on the WTO's relationship to developing countries and countries in transition, and an introductory chapter provides an overview of the WTO's operation. The text presumes no technical background in economics.

A prominent authority on China's Belt and Road Initiative reveals the global risks lurking within Beijing's project of the century "A reality check on Beijing's global infrastructure project."-Peter Neville-Hadley, South China Morning Post "For all the hype and hand-wringing over how the [Belt and Road] could usher in the Chinese century, Hillman's engaging mix of high-level analysis and fieldwork in more than a dozen countries paints a much more nuanced picture."-Keith Johnson, Foreign Policy China's Belt and Road Initiative is the world's most ambitious and misunderstood geoeconomic vision. To carry out President Xi Jinping's flagship foreign-policy effort, China promises to spend over one trillion dollars for new ports, railways, fiber-optic cables, power plants, and other connections. The plan touches more than one hundred and thirty countries and has expanded into the Arctic, cyberspace, and even outer space. Beijing says that it is promoting global development, but Washington warns that it is charting a path to global dominance. Taking readers on a journey to China's projects in Asia, Europe, and Africa, Jonathan E. Hillman reveals how this grand vision is unfolding. As China pushes beyond its borders and deep into dangerous territory, it is repeating the mistakes of the great powers that came before it, Hillman argues. If China succeeds, it will remake the world and place itself at the center of everything. But Xi may be overreaching: all roads do not yet lead to Beijing.

The Political Economy of the World Trading System is a comprehensive textbook account of the economics, institutional mechanics and politics of the world trading system. This third edition has been expanded and updated to cover developments in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) since its formation, including the Doha Round, presenting the essentials of trade negotiations and the WTO's rules and disciplines.
The authors focus in particular on the WTO's role as the primary organisation through which trading nations manage their commercial interactions and the focal point for cooperation on policy responses to the rapidly changing global trading environment. It is the forum in which many features of the globalisation process are considered, and it currently faces an unprecedented set of challenges. The increasing importance of countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa in international trade relations, the revealed preference towards regionalism, intensification of trade conflicts, the role of business groups and NGOs in trade policy formation and negotiations, and pressures for more leadership in an institution threatened by paralysis are examples of issues that are discussed in some detail; all are critical for the operation of the system and for international business in the coming decade. This edition also includes numerous real-world examples to illustrate how the WTO impinges on business, workers and households, written from the perspective of managers and business associations.
An insider's view of the institutional history of the WTO allows the authors to use a variety of conceptual tools to analyse the working of the WTO in a non-technical manner. Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of each chapter and an extensive bibliography make the volume suitable both for introductory and postgraduate courses on international economics and business, international relations, and international economic law.

On 31 July 2003, the Senate and, on July 24, the House passed H.R.2739 (United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act) which is to implement the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The FTA would, with a phase-in period, eliminate tariffs on all goods traded between the United States and Singapore, cover trade in services, and protect intellectual property rights. The agreement has received support from the business community and consumer organisations but has been criticised by labour and some environmental interests. Some of the specific concerns raised deal with the restrictions on penalties for unresolvable disputes over labour and environmental issues, the Integrated Sourcing Initiative, potential capital controls, temporary visas, and access for U.S. exports of chewing gum. Since Singapore is a relatively small economy, the economic effects of the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, by themselves, are not likely to be great. The debate over implementation of the FTA is falling between business and free trade interests who would benefit from more liberalised trade, particularly in services, and labour or anti-globalisation interests who oppose more FTA's because of the overall impact of imports on jobs and the general effects of globalisation on income distribution, certain jobs, and the environment. Specific provisions of the agreement also have generated debate. This book discusses the problems and issues that the Free Trade Agreement has brought up.

A detailed examination of WTO agreements regulating trade in goods, discussing legal context, policy background, economic rationale, and case law. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has extended its institutional arsenal since the Kennedy round in the early 1960s. The current institutional design is the outcome of the Uruguay round and agreements reached in the ongoing Doha round (begun in 2001). One of the institutional outgrowths of GATT is the World Trade Organization (WT0), created in 1995. In this book, Petros Mavroidis offers a detailed examination of WTO agreements regulating trade in goods, discussing legal context, policy background, economic rationale, and case law. Each chapter examines a given legal norm and its subsequent practice. In particular, he discusses agreements dealing with customs clearance; "contingent protection" instruments, which allow WTO members unilaterally to add to the negotiated amount of protection when a certain contingency (for example, dumping) has occurred; TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) and SPS (Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measures) agreements, both of which deal with such domestic instruments as environmental, health policy, or consumer information; the agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIM); sector-specific agreements on agriculture and textiles; plurilateral agreements (binding a subset of WTO membership) on government procurement and civil aviation; and transparency in trade relations. This book's companion volume examines the GATT regime for international trade.

The Polar North is known to be home to large gas and oil reserves and its position holds significant trading and military advantages, yet the maritime boundaries of the region remain ill-defined. In the twenty-first century the Arctic is undergoing profound change. As the sea ice melts, a result of accelerating climate change, global governance has become vital. In this first of three volumes, the latest research and analysis from the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, the world's leading Arctic research body, is brought together. Arctic Governance: Law and Politics investigates the legal and political order of the Polar North, focusing on governance structures and the Law of the Sea. Are the current mechanisms at work effective? Are the Arctic states' interests really clashing, or is the atmosphere of a more cooperative nature? Skilfully delineating policy in the region and analysing the consequences of treaty agreements, Arctic Governance's uncovering of a rather orderly 'Arctic race' will become an indispensable contribution to contemporary International Relations concerning the Polar North.

As the ice around the Arctic landmass recedes, the territory is becoming a flashpoint in world affairs. New trade routes, cutting thousands of miles off journeys, are available, and the Arctic is thought to be home to enormous gas and oil reserves. The territorial lines are new and hazy. This book looks at how Russia deals with the outside world vis a vis the Arctic. Given Russia's recent bold foreign policy interventions, these are crucial issues and the realpolitik practiced by the Russian state is essential for understanding the Arctic's future.Here, Geir Honneland brings together decades of cutting-edge research - investigating the political contexts and international tensions surrounding Russia's actions. Honneland looks specifically at 'region-building' and environmental politics of fishing and climate change, on nuclear safety and nature preservation, and also analyses the diplomatic relations surrounding clashes with Norway and Canada, as well as at the governance of the Barents Sea. The Politics of the Arctic is a crucial addition to our understanding of contemporary International Relations concerning the Polar North.

All of the GCC countries-Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates-are undergoing historic socio-economic transitions. They are facing enormous strains on public finances and challenging economic outlooks, due to fluctuating oil prices, demographic pressures, high unemployment rates, and a lack of economic diversification. These countries also are likely to feel the rising impact of climate change, and global policies to deal with it, over the coming decades. In addition, seemingly unstoppable shifts in the long-standing international order, notably the rise of China and uncertainties about U.S. leadership, have potentially serious implications for the Middle East and beyond. This policy-oriented book of essays by noted scholars and experts considers the key trends shaping Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic, to climate change, economic disruptions, demographics and other domestic concerns, and shifts in the global order. The book's chapters address such questions as: How will global megatrends impact the GCC? How can GCC states adjust and diversify their economies to meet the dual challenges of fluctuating oil prices and climate change? How can these states adjust their labor markets to absorb and support women and youth? How will inter GCC disagreements impact the region moving forward? And how will GCC relations with international actors shift in the coming years? This timely book, with its comprehensive analyses and policy recommendations, will be of interest to a wide range of readers interested in the GCC region, including policymakers, academics, and researchers at think tanks and nongovernmental organizations.

How do we measure and truly grasp the sweeping social and environmental effects of an oil-based economy? Focusing on the special economic zones resulting from China's trading partnership with Nigeria, Enclaves of Exception offers a new approach to exploring the relationship between oil and technologies of extraction and their interrelatedness to local livelihoods and environmental practices. In this groundbreaking work, Omolade Adunbi argues that even though the exploitation of oil resources is dominated by big corporations, it establishes opportunities for many former Nigerian insurgents and their local communities to contest the ownership of such resources in the oil-rich Niger Delta and to extract oil themselves and sell it. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Enclaves of Exception makes clear that, although both the free trade zones and the now booming local artisanal refineries share the goals of profit-making and are enthusiastically supported by those benefiting from them economically, they have yielded dramatically the same environmental outcome for communities around them that included pollution with precarious effects on the health of the populations in the regions, and displacement of population from their livelihood practices.

How do we measure and truly grasp the sweeping social and environmental effects of an oil-based economy? Focusing on the special economic zones resulting from China's trading partnership with Nigeria, Enclaves of Exception offers a new approach to exploring the relationship between oil and technologies of extraction and their interrelatedness to local livelihoods and environmental practices. In this groundbreaking work, Omolade Adunbi argues that even though the exploitation of oil resources is dominated by big corporations, it establishes opportunities for many former Nigerian insurgents and their local communities to contest the ownership of such resources in the oil-rich Niger Delta and to extract oil themselves and sell it. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Enclaves of Exception makes clear that, although both the free trade zones and the now booming local artisanal refineries share the goals of profit-making and are enthusiastically supported by those benefiting from them economically, they have yielded dramatically the same environmental outcome for communities around them that included pollution with precarious effects on the health of the populations in the regions, and displacement of population from their livelihood practices.

The transformation of the BRIC acronym from an investment term into a household name of international politics and into a semi-institutionalized political outfit (called BRICS, with a capital 'S'), is one of the defining developments in international politics in the past decades. While the concept is now commonly used in the general public debate and international media, there has not yet been a comprehensive and scholarly analysis of the history of the BRICS term. The BRICS and the Future of Global Order, Second Edition offers a definitive reference history of the BRICS as a term and as an institution-a chronological narrative and analytical account of the BRICS concept from its inception in 2001 to the political grouping it is today. In addition, it analyzes what the rise of powers like Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa means for the future of global order. Will the BRICS countries seek to establish a parallel system with its own distinctive set of rules, institutions, and currencies of power, rejecting key tenets of liberal internationalism, are will they seek to embrace the rules and norms that define today's Western-led order?

From cooperation to a new cold war: is this the future for today's two great powers?. U.S. policy toward China is at an inflection point. For more than a generation, since the 1970s, a near-consensus view in the United States supported engagement with China, with the aim of integrating China into the U.S.-led international order. By the latter part of the 2010s, that consensus had collapsed as a much more powerful and increasingly assertive China was seen as a strategic rival to theUnited States. How the two countries tackle issues affecting the most important bilateral relationship in the world will significantly shape overall international relations for years to come.In this timely book, leading scholars of U.S.-China relations and China's foreign policy address recent changes in American assessments of China's capabilities and intentions and consider potential risks to international security, the significance of a shifting international distribution of power, problems of misperception, and the risk of conflicts. China's military modernization, its advancing technology, and its Belt and Road Initiative, as well as regional concerns, such as the South China Sea disputes, relations with Japan, and tensions on the Korean Peninsula, receive special focus.

How multinationals contribute, or don't, to global prosperity.Globalization and multinational corporations have long seemed partners in the enterprise of economic growth: globalization-led prosperity was the goal, and giant corporations spanning the globe would help achieve it. In recent years, however, the notion that all economies, both developed and developing, can prosper from globalization has been called into question by political figures and has fueled a populist backlash around the world against globalization and the corporations that made it possible. In an effort to elevate the sometimes contentious public debate over the conduct and operation of multinational corporations, this edited volume examines key questions about their role, both in their home countries and in the rest of the world where they do business. Is their multinational nature an essential driver of their profits? Do U.S. and European multinationals contribute to home country employment? Do multinational firms exploit foreign workers? How do multinationals influence foreign policy? How will the rise of the digital economy and digital trade in services affect multinationals? In addressing these and similar questions, the book also examines the role that multinational corporations play in the outcomes that policymakers care about most: economic growth, jobs, inequality, and tax fairness.

Trade, especially international trade, is an important component of business that can be instrumental to the prosperity of a country or region. The various economic expansions into the South American region, in particular, have become increasingly scrutinized for their industrial and capital policies and how they impact the local communities as a whole. Open and Innovative Trade Opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of international trade relations within Latin American countries. While highlighting topics including international relations, local governance, and global economics, this book is ideally designed for entrepreneurs, government officials, business owners, researchers, policymakers, academicians, students, and international business professionals.

The world's governing structures are higgledy-piggledy: disorderly, heads and tails in any or every direction. Such disorder fosters deficient governance. Decisions by noncooperating nations can generate damaging crossborder outcomes. Muddles destabilize mutual well-being.Public debate is often mired in superficial arguments about "globalization." This insightful book by economist Ralph C. Bryant instead emphasizes that the world's nations need to craft better middle-ground compromises to improve governance and manage increasing integration. Individual nations, Bryant argues, should fashion a balance between local autonomy and external openness, avoiding the extremes of rigid localism and unfettered openness. And nations need to act together collectively. Cooperative governance can encourage orderliness that mitigates disarray undermining mutual goals. The global challenge of the coronavirus pandemic is a vivid reminderthat international cooperation is becoming progressively more essential. Do nations and their leaders have sufficient foresight to use borders not as barriers but as catalysts for international cooperation? Could national migration policies find sustainable middle ground between the unrealistic extreme of unfettered freedom for people to cross borders and the inhumane exclusion of foreign refugees? Could augmented cross-border cooperation mitigate dangers from recurring financial instability? Could the world community foster collective actions to reduce the severe risks of global climate change? The answer to such questions can and should be yes. Wiser cross-border collective action nurtures a mutually supportive order offsetting the threats of disorder that may otherwise prevail. A healthy evolution of our planet requires requires! more orderly national governance and more ambitious cross-border cooperation.

Japan's challenges and opportunities in a new era of uncertainty. Henry Kissinger wrote a few years ago that Japan has been for seven decades "an important anchor of Asian stability and global peace and prosperity." However, Japan has only played this anchoring role within an American-led liberal international order built from the ashes of World War II. Now that order itself is under siege, not just from illiberal forces such as China and Russia but from its very core, the United States under Donald Trump. The already evident damage to that order, and even its possible collapse, pose particular challenges for Japan, as explored in this book. Noted experts survey the difficult position that Japan finds itself in, both abroad and at home. The weakening of the rules-based order threatens the very basis of Japan's trade-based prosperity, with the unreliability of U.S. protection leaving Japan vulnerable to an economic and technological superpower in China and at heightened risk from a nuclear North Korea. Japan's response to such challenges are complicated by controversies over constitutional revision and the dark aspects of its history that remain a source of tension with its neighbors. The absence of virulent strains of populism have helped to provide Japan with a stable platform from which to pursue its international agenda. Yet with a rapidly aging population, widening intergenerational inequality, and high levels of public debt, the sources of Japan's stability its welfare state and immigration policies are becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Each of the book's chapters is written by a specialist in the field, and the book benefits from interviews with more than 40 Japanese policymakers and experts, as well as a public opinion survey. The book outlines today's challenges to the liberal international order, proposes a role for Japan to uphold, reform and shape the order, and examines Japan's assets as well as constraints as it seeks to play the role of a proactive stabilizer in the Asia-Pacific.