Europe–Asia Relations

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Europe–Asia Relations

Relations between Asia and Europe have come a long way since the colonial and postindependence periods in Asia. For the last thirty years, Europe has been building a constructive relationship with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The European Commission-ASEAN (EC-ASEAN) ministerial meetings established in 1980 are a forum for regular dialogue between the two entities. In February 1996, a Europe-Asia Meeting process (ASEM) was launched, thanks to Goh Chok Tong, the president of Singapore. ASEM hopes to promote political, cultural, and people-to-people dialogue along with traditional economic exchange.

The Missing Link

When compared with the involvement of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, the involvement of Europe has been weaker, despite strong historical links and growing economic interdependence. Strengthening the weak leg of the U.S.–Asia–Europe relationship—that is, the Asia–Europe relationship— provided the major rationale for the creation of ASEM. In July 1994, the EC published a discussion paper entitled "Towards a New Asia Strategy," which shed light on the necessity to upgrade European relations with all Asian countries, while continuing to emphasize ASEAN's centrality to Europe. In the 1980s, there had already been some concern about Japan– U.S. relations. Although Japan and Europe have made significant efforts to enhance their interchange, no formal relation had been established between Europe and East Asia before ASEM. Launched to balance the U.S.–Asia relationship and enhance the Europe–East Asia relationship, the ASEM process had no clear common vision, except the shared principle that regional cooperation and dialogue help regional stability.

The Asem Process Meetings

The ASEM process brings the leaders of ten countries of East and Southeast Asia together with leaders from the fifteen member states of the European Union (EU). The inaugural meeting at Bangkok (1–2 March 1996) clearly reflected a shared enthusiasm, while the second meeting held in London (3–4 April 1998) stressed the necessity to elaborate materials to give stronger credit to the interregional relationship. The ASEM Trust Fund, established after the London summit, was a useful creation in the context of the Asian financial crisis. The Trust Fund, which became operational in June 1998, for two years, provides technical assistance and financial and social training. In 1997 and 1998, almost all Asian countries faced financial and economic turmoil, leadership crises, and intraregional tensions. There was strong sentiment in these Asian countries that Europe was not doing enough to help: the London summit, in a sense ASEM's first test, showed that Europe's multilateral and bilateral contributions to the numerous international financial packages to Asian countries ranked second after those of Japan. The European financial and economic commitment to the recovery of Asia was reconfirmed with the ASEM Trust Fund. The launch of the Euro has also changed Asian perceptions of the European Union, since a successful Euro offers the possibility of diversifying Asia's debt structure and debt servicing, reducing vulnerability to major fluctuations in the dollar exchange rate.

Yet at the London meeting, the political and people-to-people dialogues were unsuccessful. At the Seoul meeting (20–21 October 2000), the countries issued the "Asia-Europe Co-operation Framework for the First Decade of the New Millennium"; this framework set the principles, aims, priorities, and mechanisms of the ASEM process for the ten following years and stressed the sociocultural intention of promoting both interregional political dialogues and economic partnerships. Among the mechanisms established were informal human-rights seminars, the last one of which occurred in Denpasar in July 2001, and the trade facilitation action plan, which began in 2001 and aims to remove trade obstacles between the two regions.

The Asia–Europe Foundation (ASEF), based in Singapore, is the body in charge of promoting cultural, intellectual, and people-to-people exchanges. ASEF was created in February 1997, after the Bangkok summit. It organizes workshops on education, human rights, and the position of the individual, and strengthens cultural exchanges. Yet it remains to be seen whether the Foundation, with a staff mainly of career bureaucrats and with limited personnel and financial resources, can meet the challenge.

Problems Facing Asem

The EU is a highly regulated area with its Commission, Council, and Parliament, while ASEAN is an informal structure based on consensus policy making and noninterference in member states' business. Northeast Asian countries (Japan, China, South Korea) are still trying to solve historical disputes and achieve cooperative interchange. The lack of unity in Asia, and also in a Europe still looking for a common foreign-security policy, makes it difficult to promote basic cooperative schemes.

Obviously, the first pillar of the ASEM process— political dialogue—takes longest to bear fruit, since cultural sensitivities act as stumbling blocks. The issue of Myanmar (Burma) is a good example: Myanmar challenged the long-established EC-ASEAN relationship when it was admitted as a member of ASEAN in 1997. European criticism of Myanmar's record on human rights made official meetings between the EU and ASEAN virtually impossible for three years. Yet at the thirteenth EU-ASEAN ministerial meeting, held in Vientiane on 11–12 December 2000, with Myanmar attending, all sides showed some willingness to look beyond their differences.

Another problem is that Europe, lacking strategic interest in Asia, finds it difficult to play a significant role in security issues and in promoting regional stability, yet regional stability is probably one of the main concerns of both Europe and Asia. In 1995, ASEAN countries launched the ASEAN Regional Forum, the only structure in Asia in which all the Asian countries, together with the United States, Russia, and Europe, meet to discuss a security agenda. Europe has already showed commitment toward helping resolve such Asian crises as the aftermath of Cambodia's civil war, tensions between North and South Korea, and the struggles of East Timor for independence from Indonesia. Europe's increased interest in the security of the Asia-Pacific region mainly follows the "comprehensive security" theory, which emphasizes, among other concepts, political stability, economic prosperity, and environmental safety. Europe's experience in preventive diplomacy, confidence-building measures, and reconciliation has an appeal to its Asian partners. Learning from European expertise is perhaps preliminary to deeper cooperation on security issues between the two regions.

Although ASEM still lacks a clear vision or a shared philosophy of what the Asia–Europe relationship should be, it has enhanced the regionalization processes in Asia. The launch of ASEM coincided with the enlargement of the ASEAN ministerial meetings in Northeast Asia (Japan, South Korea, and China—a process called the "ASEAN plus three"), and there are signs of a possible dialogue among Northeast Asian countries. Whether the regionalization processes lead to more unified regions will be important for determining ASEM's future relevance. The invisible third party at the table, the United States, will also have a decisive impact.