[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Brackets added.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

At the time of posting, the title of this article on the BBC website was: “Philippines fight over trade deal” .

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Asia pinglist ping.

The Phillipines should take the offer and the Senate should ratify the agreement.

The Philippine (apparently the adjectival form isn't Filipino, after all) population is growing very fast, and the Philippine economy is growing very little. They've been overtaken by Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand in Southeast Asia (and China, if you consider China to be in both Northeast and Southeast Asia) in terms of per capita income.

And China had roughly 1.3 billion people to figuratively drag up (though the country's large size has also made the nation a magnet for investment).

[DanielLongo]

However, this has been denied by the government, which said that diplomatic notes had been exchanged stating that it would not be accepting Japanese waste in exchange for economic concessions.

I guess they can all sleep peacefully tonight.

[Zhang Fei]

The Philippines simply needs to abolish tariffs and trade restrictions and growth will magically materialize. It is now falling behind China because it has coddled domestic monopolists and oligopolists ever since it became independent. (Of course, if it had remained part of the US, it would now be one of the richest places in East Asia instead of one of the poorest. But that’s the road not taken).