Tai Wei Lim is Adjunct Research Fellow at East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore and Senior Lecturer at Singapore University of Social Sciences.
Boao 2017 will focus on China’s advocacy for globalization and economic liberalization, where the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific will be discussed. Brunei is designated as a “country of honor” in CAEXPO 2017 and has mobilized a hundred private sector entities or individuals to attend the meeting.
Being in the driver’s seat for regionalism and positing its centrality in East Asia, ASEAN can aggregate the interests of all major powers like US, China, Japan, India, Russia and the EU as well as middle powers like South Korea and Australia.
An influence-peddling scandal raised a groundswell of anger towards South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Members of the public took part in large rallies to voice their opposition. On December 9, South Korea’s parliament voted to impeach Park.
After fighting between government forces and rebel groups broke out in the northeast Myanmar border towns of Muse and Kutkai, some Myanmarese fled into Chinese territory. A Chinese daily reported that a state-owned structure suffered light damage from stray shells.
The ultimate goal is for TPP or RCEP to be a gateway to a macro Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) objective that APEC has set its sights on. The FTAAP can help harmonize existing multilateral and bilateral trade linkages.
Beijing has set up the USD 11 billion China-Central Eastern European fund to finance projects located in Central and Eastern Europe. This was jointly announced in Riga in the Baltic state of Latvia by Premier Li Keqiang and Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis.
A Clinton victory would have been as significant as an Obama victory. For years, African Americans and women were at the periphery of the political establishment. Her victory would have been a powerful message to young women that the glass ceiling for women in US politics can be broken.
The American presidential election is carried out via the Electoral College rather than the one man one vote system. The Electoral College consists of electors who are designated to vote on behalf of their constituencies. It is theoretically possible for the more popular candidate in the national poll to be the loser in the Electoral College.