Emerging markets' aim to match China's growth may be dashed

Jakarta

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump's trade policies could dash the hopes of emerging Asian economies seeking to emulate China's early development, according to former Indonesian finance minister Chatib Basri.

Signs that Mr Trump is embarking on an era of American protectionism - heightened after he nixed the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership pact and by his threats to start a trade war with China - are causing anxiety across South-east Asia.

Indonesia, which was not a party to the TPP but had said it would consider joining, is now focusing on an alternative Asia deal that China has begun championing.

At stake for less developed but relatively open economies is the ability to sustain economic growth rates that for Indonesia at least have hovered around 5 per cent, helping lift more of its people into the middle class and giving a large youth populatio…