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This paper examines the strategic arguments articulated in calls for the teaching and learning of Asia in schools. “Asia literacy” is currently framed as a necessary “solution” for Australian education, but acceptance of this “solution” into the mainstream educational policy agenda has been problematised as a neoliberal and neocolonial construct. Subsequent policy debate indicates the dominance of an economic rationale that is seemingly impossible to resist. This paper suggests that critical policy approaches can be used to identify alternatives to these dominant frameworks, which imagine Asia literacy in alternate ways. Re-imagining the “solution” offers three alternatives: working within an economic agenda; restructuring Asia literacy away from a distinct policy agenda; and treating policy gaps as spaces in which teachers can generate locally relevant possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the ways in which Malaysia has tried to develop automotive production through promoting a nationally owned car producer, Proton, and to carve out some “policy space” to continue a degree of protection whilst also liberalising its trade regime. We show that protection has not yet succeeded in making Proton and its many vendors internationally competitive, and why Malaysia has found that it has to secure the cooperation of a major automotive multinational to upgrade and to achieve export success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China’s emergence as a global development actor has implications for developing countries and “traditional” donor agencies. Its current provision of foreign aid and other forms of development assistance to developing countries throughout the world presents both opportunities and challenges for all actors. At the same time, China’s growing need for natural resources and its policy of securing access through state-led “resource diplomacy” are causing concern. While most scholars and commentators are focused on the “China in Africa” dimension, China’s engagement in the South Pacific region has also been growing rapidly over the past decade and offers some interesting and unique insights. This article examines the dynamics of China’s provision of foreign aid and its quest for natural resources in the South Pacific region, with comparative references to other regions. Drawing particularly upon interviews and site visits in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, it argues that although major commercial resource contracts do appear to be supported by Chinese Government assistance, resources deals are not explicitly part of Chinese foreign aid in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Multilateral development agencies have increasingly focused attention on underdeveloped countries in Asia as potential new sites for financial capital. Often referred to as “emerging markets”, these economies are seen as ripe for private sector investment and, at the same time, in need of foreign capital to support rapid industrialisation, modernisation and poverty reduction. For development agencies, this confluence of interests suggests a means for quickly closing the “development gap”, primarily through mobilising techno-managerial modalities designed to reduce barriers to capital entry and other institutional inefficiencies seen as inimical to investment. Thus development agencies now encourage the construction of “enabling environments” to support “market driven development” through processes of “financialisation”. Development, in this sense, is no longer state-led or state-centred, but rather financially driven and privately procured. As we highlight in this special issue, however, financialised modes of development are highly contested and problematic. Indeed, the diffusion into the underdeveloped world of essentially developed world financialisation agendas that seek to instil a broad-based market rationalism that downloads new costs and risks to populations is of significant concern. This Introduction sets in context and introduces a much needed set of articles that bring clarity to financialisation in developing Asia and its implications for development as a process of substantively improving material conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Treaties allowing investors to initiate arbitration claims directly against host states for illegally interfering with cross-border investments are becoming increasingly common in Asia, but Australia announced in 2011 that it will no longer include such protections in future treaties. The backdrop to this decision includes keen interest from Asia in foreign direct investment (FDI) into Australia’s resources sector, meaning that potential investors may not be significantly deterred by a lack of arbitration provisions in future treaties. This article argues, however, that Australia’s policy shift risks undermining the entire investor-state arbitration (ISA) system, with the earliest impact being felt by major pending treaty negotiations by Australia with Japan, China and Korea (respectively); and that the shift may significantly reduce FDI flows or have other adverse effects. The article criticises the cost-benefit analysis of ISA protections in one pivotal study conducted in 2010 by an Australian Government think-tank, arguing that this assessment is insufficiently nuanced. Instead, the article presents a justification for more tailored and moderate changes to ISA provisions in future treaties. Its tentative interest-group analysis suggests, however, that there may be surprisingly few public or private constituencies that would prefer such moderate reforms, and that most may well prefer the more extreme position recently adopted by Australia, despite the damage that will be done to the ISA system as a whole. The article also argues that Australia’s policy shift and think-tank analysis may make Asian countries more cautious about ISA, especially those (like the Philippines and Vietnam) which have traditionally been more cautious about this dispute resolution system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines some of the ways in which the eastern exchange banks linked India to Great Britain and, through Great Britain, to the world economy. Overview of the Indian banking system; Growth of the exchange banks; Highlights of the Indian banking crisis during the 1860s.