Has international borrowing or lending driven Australia's net capital inflow?

Over the recent decades the most significant global imbalances have been between Asia-Pacific economies, with most attention directed to the imbalances of the largest economies, China, Japan and the United States. In contrast, this paper examines how external account imbalances and real long term interest rates are determined in smaller open economies. It first derives the proposition that external imbalances and long term interest rates move together whenever saving-investment shocks are predominantly domestically sourced, but move oppositely when saving-investment shocks mainly emanate abroad. It then shows that in the case of Australia, an Asia-Pacific economy that has borrowed heavily from abroad since the mid 1980's, rising net capital inflow has had a statistically significant negative impact on domestic real interest rates. This suggests that over that time net international lending rather than net foreign borrowing was mainly responsible for the variation in its external imbalance and real interest rates.

Contentious Activism and Inter-Korean Relations

In South Korea, the contentious debate over relations with the North transcends traditional considerations of physical and economic security, and political activists play a critical role in shaping the discussion of these issues as they pursue the separate yet connected agendas of democracy, human rights, and unification.

Providing international observers with a better understanding of policymakers’ management of inter-Korean relations, Danielle L. Chubb traces the development of various policy disputes and perspectives from the 1970s through South Korea’s democratic transition. Focusing on four case studies—the 1980 Kwangju uprising, the June 1987 uprising, the move toward democracy in the 1990s, and the decade of “progressive” government that began with the election of Kim Dae Jung in 1997—she tracks activists’ complex views on reunification along with the rise and fall of more radical voices encouraging the adoption of a North Korean–style form of socialism. While these specific arguments have dissipated over the years, their vestiges can still be found in recent discussions over how to engage with North Korea and bring security and peace to the peninsula.

Extending beyond the South Korean example, this examination shows how the historical trajectory of norms and beliefs can have a significant effect on a state’s threat perception and security policy. It also reveals how political activists, in their role as discursive agents, play an important part in the creation of the norms and beliefs directing public debate over a state’s approach to the ethical and practical demands of its foreign policy.

Reconciliation and the Goguryeo/ Gāogōulì disputes between China and South Korea

Just as the failure to reconcile views of the past and to address historical injustice has damaged inter-state relations in East Asia, the Goguryeo/Gāogōulì dispute has harmed relations between South Korea and China. In this chapter, we provide a detailed analysis of the dispute, and explore how this contestation has been reconciled through elite settlement, UNESCO's arbitration and the idea of shared history.

Internationalization to China: a model for Australian architectural, engineering and construction firms

The experiences of an architectural, an engineering, and a construction organization, when internationalizing to China, are compared to extant theories of internationalization to develop an enhanced explanation if these organizations’ internationalization. The research examines the explanatory power of both the Uppsala internationalization model and network theory for internationalization. The research determined that, whilst these organizations utilized an incremental internationalization process, the stages differed from those identified in the Uppsala model. Part of this difference reflects the fact that the participants are service organizations and the Uppsala model is more relevant to manufacturing organizations. Network theory was also found to predict some of the participant behaviors; however, it did not correctly predict the reasons for forming partnerships, which was to gain knowledge rather than develop networks. The stages of the internationalization into China identified were: (1) experiencing a motivation to internationalize; (2) adopting one of a variety of entry modes; (3) experiencing a motivation to increase internationalization to the level of a wholly-owned foreign entity; (4) establishment of a wholly-owned foreign entity (WOFE), either by acquisition or development; and (5) further horizontal expansion (such as movement to new locations). A range of different motivations for both stages one and three were identified.

Collaborative and conflictive trilateralism: Perspectives from Australia China, and America

This paper provides a critical overview of Australian, Chinese, and American perspectives on trilateralism, with a detailed discussion of Australian debates on the matter. Its aim is to trace the evolution of the changing discourse on the rise of China, examine major debates in Australia, and provide both an intellectual background and an overview for this special issue. © 2014 by the Regents of theUniversity of California.

Enterprise localization practices and their implication for knowledge management in foreign participation in the Chinese construction sector

Foreign firms active in the Chinese construction industry find themselves in a competitive environment unlike the environments in which they operate back home. Adaptations are therefore required in order that firms retain competitive leverage while integrating into the circumstances of the Chinese market. Since these firms primarily compete on superior knowledge capabilities it is instructive to understand how adaptations both serve to transfer propriety capabilities to China while adapting to the knowledge characteristics of the Chinese market into which those capabilities are transplanted. Five localizing parameters across which adaptations take place are identified in this paper and rates of localization are tabulated for 60 foreign firms active in the Chinese construction industry. Revealed localizing behaviors are then analyzed in the light of existing literature for explanatory power. It is concluded that in order to be strategically competitive firms must not only retain knowledge differentials, but that the knowledge must be coded and disseminated in a manner suited to the environment in which it is to be utilized.

Foreign correspondents and international newsgathering: the role of fixers

This book reveals that ‘fixers’—local experts on whom foreign correspondents rely—play a much more significant role in international television newsgathering than has been documented or understood. Murrell explores the frames though which international reporting has traditionally been analysed and then shows that fixers, who have largely been dismissed by scholars as "logistical aides", are in fact central to the day-to-day decision-making that takes place on-the-road. Murrell looks at why and how fixers are selected and what their significance is to foreign correspondence. She asks if fixers help introduce a local perspective into the international news agenda, or if fixers are simply ‘People Like Us’ (PLU). Also included are excerpts from interviews with TV correspondents and fixers and in-depth case studies of correspondents in Iraq and Indonesia.

The relationship between stock returns and the foreign exchange rate: the ARDL approach

This study employs the ARDL cointegration approach in order to examine the impact
of financial liberalization on the relationships between the exchange rate and share
market performance in China. We discovered that cointegration has existed between the
Shanghai A Share Index and the exchange rate of the renminbi against the US dollar
and Hong Kong dollar since 2005, when the Chinese exchange rate regime became a
flexible, managed, floating system. We found that both the exchange rate and the money
supply influenced stock price, with a positive correlation. We further show that the
money supply increase was largely caused by a huge ‘hot money’ inflow from other
countries in recent years. After local currency appreciation, hot money, followed by
the money supply increase, pushed the market into a high level, based on expectations
regarding the local currency’s further appreciation.

Does banks’ dual holding affect bank lending and firms’ investment decisions? Evidence from China

This study investigates the effect of banks’ dual holding on bank lending and firms’ investment decisions using a sample of listed firms in China. We find that dual holding leads to easier access to bank loans, a result that is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) than SOEs. We also find that dual holding distorts banks’ lending decisions and harms the investment efficiency for SOEs, while resulting in optimal lending decisions and enhanced investment efficiency for non-SOEs. For non-SOEs, further analysis suggests that optimal lending decisions and efficient investment can be achieved for firms with higher ownership concentration, and firms in which the family and foreign investors are the controlling shareholders. We argue that, in emerging markets, whether a bank plays a monitoring role by directly holding the debt and equity claims of companies relies heavily on whether the potential collusion between firm executives and bank managers can be averted, which in turn is determined by the firms’ governance framework and ownership structure.