Lowy Institute for International Policy

Abstract The Pacific islands is one of the most aid‐dependent regions in the world. This article examines developments in the delivery of foreign aid to the region since the year 2000, a period in which there has been considerable change in both the amount and way in which aid is delivered internationally. Although Pacific island countries have seen a scale‐up in development assistance, it has been modest relative to that enjoyed by other developing countries. Improvement has been mixed in areas identified as a concern by the aid effectiveness agenda, with high levels of volatility and lack of predictability particularly problematic.

Abstract Chinese development assistance in thePacific has attracted increasing attention since the 1stChina‐PacificIslandCountriesEconomicDevelopment andCooperationForum in 2006, at whichChina announcedUS$492 million in concessional loans to the region. AnotherUS$1 billion in concessional loans was announced at the 2ndChina‐PacificForum in 2013. This article explores how Pacific island governments negotiate and oversee the implementation ofChinese official development assistance in fourPacificIsland case study countries where assistance has been significant:Tonga,Vanuatu,Samoa and theCookIslands. We argue that the way in which governments have pursued, overseen and implemented projects has differed considerably, and is an important determinant of the effectiveness and developmental impact ofChinese assistance.

Since the unfolding of the 2008 global financial crisis, the G20 has played a major role in coordinating macroeconomic policies of major economies and reviving the world economy. As the world’s primary forum for international economic cooperation, its objectives have been to ensure more sustainable and balanced growth, achieve economic and financial stability and reform the prevailing international financial architecture. In the wake of the crisis, there was a sense of urgency and strong agreement to enact extraordinary policy measures to fend off the collapse of the real sector because of the “collapse of confidence” in the financial sector. The G20 performed spectacularly in this regard: global gross domestic product (GDP) contracted less than expected in 2009 and rebounded faster than expected in 2010. These coordinated actions were widely credited for forestalling a second Great Depression, with the G20 declaring victory at their third summit at Pittsburgh in September 2009 (“It worked”).

Abstract As Humpty Dumpty said in Alice in Wonderland, "a word means what you chose it to mean, neither more nor less." Semantic freedom makes amusing nonsense, but poor analysis. It bedevils discussion of sovereign wealth funds, because different people have used the term with different meanings and, more importantly, with different intentions. Just look at the diversity of origin and motivation behind institutions that are commonly described as sovereign wealth funds. There is Singapore's Temasek Holdings, which embodies a conscious long-term policy strategy of sovereign foreign investment by a small country seeking diversification of its nation's assets. China's China Investment Corporation is a more or less accidental outcome of an exchange rate strategy which may or may not persist. Then there are also the non-renewable resources funds (e.g. the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority) with their resource-depletion and inter-generational issues. There are also government pension funds (c.f. Australia's Future Fund and many others), which in practice behave in the same way as private funds, seeking diversification by investing some part of their funds overseas…

Australian International Relations (IR) developed as a discipline at the same time as its emergence in the rest of the Anglophone world. A deep reading of Australian writing on international relations since the 1920s reveals a distinctive tradition of IR scholarship, shaped very much by this country's international circumstances and the pragmatic culture of political inquiry that pervaded its universities and diplomatic institutions. Three characteristics frame the Australian Realist outlook. The first is experiential, a preoccupation with the particularities of Australia's international position — size, isolation, wealth, population, culture — and how these factors can help understand the ways in which Australia relates to the world beyond its shores. The second is systemic pessimism, a tendency to be apprehensive about broader global stability. The third is pragmatism, a predilection for understanding the essential attributes of the situation itself, rather than using the situation to inquire into the general nature of the international system. These characteristics have fostered sustained attention to three sets of issues: geography, demographics and race, and power differentials in Australian Realist scholarship.

China is already the world's third largest energy producer and second largest energy consumer accounting for 10 percent of global energy use. This share is expected to rise to 15 percent by 2025. Energy use in China has important environmental consequences which are explored in this paper. A range of policy options are also discussed. It is argued that each major environmental issue requires a policy response that is a mix of direct government intervention as well as market based incentives. In coming decades, the choices made by China of how to tackle the environmental consequences of expanding energy use will have important implications for China, Asia and the world.

The world is in the midst of a significant demographic transition with potential implications for the macroeconomic performance of the global economy. This paper summarizes the key features of current and projected demographic change. It then applies a new 10-region global model (an extended version of the MSG-Cubed model) incorporating demographic dynamics, to examine the consequences of projected global demographic change on the world economy from 2005 to 2050. A distinction is made between the effects on each country of its own demographic transition and the effects on each country of demographic changes occurring in the rest of the world.