You know, I have been thinking about this Simon. You start with:

The posts that matter by Asian blogs...

But it is not - it is, according to your new rules, the people who link to back to this site and I think that is not quite right. Whether you link to a story is an editorial decision you make, and people trust and respect you for that and read you because they like your decisions.

By placing the you link to me and I will link to you caveat this excellent round up risks becoming a link swapping lovefest in the eyes of some readers.

I am the recipient of three track backs on this (thank you) but I want that to be because I wrote something considered by you to be of interest, not because I remembered to return the track back in a one liner post every time you do a new round up.

Forgive me for speaking my mind.

Simon,
Actually I most certainly am not "arguing against the end of tariffs"!
My post merely highlights an issue that is going to have a massive impact on many developing countries. My final paragraph summed it up on an even keel, with "I sense that a real crisis is about to unfold in many Asian, African and Caribbean countries. It is also not China's fault. China did not create...the global trade system." (A bit paraphrased from the original!)

As you suggest....you decide!

Cheers, Mark

Phil:

It's interesting you bring that up. I was worried about it becoming solely a link-fest rather than what I found interesting. I actually had intended to drop it as of last week but I must have used an old template and that final line was still there. The linkage thing was only meant ot be a one-off rather than an ongoing part of the series. But thank you for pointing it out - as of the next one it will be gone.

Mark - fair enough. I must admit I wasn't quite sure how to present it but I thought I had detected a tone that suggested you were against dropping tariffs. If I'm mistaken then I apologise; that's why I had the "you decide" in there.

Simon,
Might have been a sniff of a tone there. Just a sniff.
The issue is really about the West loving free trade when thinking of exports, but then demonizing countries who reverse the flow.
And it is about the West not really caring very much when free trade slaughters the innocents.
- Mark

If I may say so Windsofchange.net has several briefings dedicated to various parts of Asia and is worth looking at. I am contributor so I am of course biased though :-)

Oh I don't know, I think Simon is fairly discriminating about his linking. He certainly doesn't link to me every week, even though I link to him even less (but then Simon doesn't write about Indonesia very often).

Robi - I've now done two Winds of Change briefings on East Asia and the PRC...it's a combination of the best of these regular posts.