The Japan Times - Japón

The Japanese economy is slowly recovering. In the second quarter of 2020, GDP growth rate was a grim -28%. The third quarter showed a recovery of 23%, but there are still many problems

The Japanese and Mexican foreign ministers agreed Tuesday to coordinate on the steady enforcement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and expand the 11-party free trade agreement’s membership.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has called his pick for defense secretary, retired Central Command chief Gen. Lloyd Austin, a “trailblazing leader” with “deep experience … in critical Pentagon roles.” But there were two words noticeably absent from Biden’s announcement of his choice: “China” and “Indo-Pacific.”

The signing last Sunday of the RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, is a significant achievement. Eight years of negotiation yielded an agreement whose members account for 2.2 billion people and about 30% of the global economy. By those measures, it is the largest trade deal in history.

Joe Biden’s victory in the U.S. presidential election has been met with a wave of relief across Europe, where many feared that a second term for Donald Trump would have threatened the very survival of the European Union. Biden offers at least the prospect of restoring a more traditional trans-Atlantic relationship. Many assume that the United States will return to leading the liberal international order, with Europeans playing a supporting role through diplomacy and soft power. Batman and Robin are back.

After Donald Trump’s election in late 2016, the U.S. president-elect took an unprecedented phone call from Taiwan’s leader Tsai Ing-Wen, shattering decades of diplomatic protocol and prompting angry protests from China.

A prominent economic adviser to the prime minister says Tokyo should prepare for a “leaderless era” as U.S. global leadership gradually withers, and expand other strategic ties while bolstering its security alliance with Washington.

Please look beyond the White House for just a few minutes, Asia. The place that matters most for you right now is the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Building, a few blocks away on Constitution Ave.

The Finance Ministry on Wednesday upgraded its overall assessment of regional economies for the second consecutive quarter, in another indication that the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic is waning.