ISDS Case Map
China
Prudish about bilateral free-trade agreements just five years ago, Tokyo is now fielding partnership requests from 25 economies and regional blocs. But there is no denying an element of haphazardness in the way it is selecting some of the candidates.
The South Australian Farmers Federation (SAFF) says the introduction of a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA)with China could decimate the state's horticulture industry.
Fifteen years. That is how long China dragged out negotiations for its entry into the World Trade Organization. And there's no reason to believe that finalizing a comprehensive free-trade agreement with Australia will be any less painstaking.
Negotiations for the proposed Early Harvest Program (EHP) may soon resume as the Philippines and China expressed interest in forging a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the project.
Nothing had been excluded from negotiations on a free-trade agreement between Australia and China, Trade Minister Mark Vaile said today.
I recall two incidents. One, a meeting with a senior functionary in the Chinese embassy in 2002. His comment: China's main grouse with Pakistan after 9/11 was that they had allowed the US into our backyard. Second, the same year, at a seminar in JNU, a Japanese delegate was explaining why the Japanese were cutting aid to India-India's nuclear explosion was difficult to justify to the paranoid Japanese public.
“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,” wrote noted English novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. For me, a free trade agreement (FTA) with China is something similar. A free trade agreement with China could be a final destination and we can travel hopefully to it.
If the proposed free-trade agreement between Australia and China can cut the long delays faced by Australian mining companies to get projects off the ground in China, it could give a major boost to Australian mining investments in China.
As with the US-Australia FTA, there will be winners and losers.
Australia has recognised China as an "equal trading partner" under anti-dumping laws but will give negotiating concessions to China because it is a developing economy.
