The political weakness of the EU in East Asia: a constructivist approach

This paper provides a constructivist explanation of the political weakness of the EU in East Asia. By examining the corporate identity of the EU as well as its social identities towards ASEM, China and Japan, I argue that the identities which the EU has constructed towards the outside world and in relation to the region, based on self recognitions of its superpower status and the defence of certain political values, is disliked by both China and Japan for different reasons. Without the support of the two regional superpowers, the EU is not capable of getting involved in the resolution of East Asian hard political affairs.

---

Future targets for Asian regional integration

The central framework of Asian integration is ASEAN+3 and, since its first Summit meeting in 1997, it has advanced regional integration in East Asia. Based on the direct experience of the author, this article presents a critical assessment of the progress made over the past ten years and argues that the ‘Singapore Declaration’ of 2007 is not ambitious enough for the future. An East Asian customs union (EACU) and common regional market should be the next targets for trade integration. In terms of monetary integration, Asia should aim for de-dollarisation and to achieve this it is crucially important to create a regional Asian monetary system (AMS).

---

Japan’s reluctance in East Asian economic integration

Until 1997, the only preferential trading arrangement, which existed in East Asia, was the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr. Mahathir had realized earlier the deficiency of AFTA in terms of stimulating economic development. In 1990, he proposed to ASEAN members to form the East Asian Economic Group. Due to regional political factors, his proposal was turned down and replaced with the East Asian Economic Caucus in 1992. In 1997, again, he proposed that ASEAN needed to establish large economic cooperation with other countries in East Asia. His suggestion had been warmly responded by the members of East Asian countries. At the ASEAN summit in Manila 1999, ASEAN Plus 3 (APT) was created. ASEAN, China, Japan, and South Korea had agreed and reached a joint statement to form a free-trade area by the year 2020. The establishment of APT was timely since most countries in the world are moving toward establishing wider or larger economic blocs due to the failure of multilateralism of the WTO in creating a new trade agreement. However, there is a shortcoming in the process of building APT, in the minimal and uncertain role of Japan in integrating economies in East Asia. This behavior has disappointed members of the group. The intention of this paper is to discuss the behavior of Japan in the economic integration process in East Asia.

---

Peace and community building in Northeast Asia

This topic involves some difficulties, one of which is about the concept of “Northeast Asia”. Broadly speaking, Northeast Asia should include China, Japan, Korean Peninsula, Russia’s Far East, and Mongolia. It is obviously not possible to address complex issues in such a broad region within several pages. Therefore, this paper shall focus on the main part of Northeast Asia, i.e., China, Japan, and Korea.

---

Regionalisation of higher education services in Europe and East Asia and potential for global change

International provision of higher education services in both European and East Asian countries increasingly have a regional dimension. The European Union has since 1987 promoted the mobility of students, faculty, and content through its Erasmus Programmes. The ‘Bologna’ process that began in 1998/1999 now brings over 40 European countries together to create a European Higher Education Area by the end of the current decade. Meanwhile, East Asian countries (10 in ASEAN, plus P.R. China, Japan and South Korea) are also in a process of internationalising their higher education sector with an increasing regional component. Led by Japan, the “ASEAN+3 study group on facilitation and promotion of exchange of people and human resource development” advanced a comprehensive report, welcomed by the East Asian leaders meeting in October 2003, that strives for regional promotion of lifelong learning programs; credit transfer systems; scholarships and exchange programs for students, faculty, staff; research and development cooperation; ‘centres of excellence’ including e-learning; and curricular development as bases for common regional qualification standards among interested institutions. Both regional processes could reinforce each other in various ways, but possibly chiefly through the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) process, unique among various recent inter-regional dialogue and cooperation processes around the world. Moreover, European and East Asian converging higher education processes could help the rest of the world through world inter-regionalism, and through an overhaul of international organisations dealing with higher education. This research was mainly funded by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Secretary of State for Universities and Research, cofinanced by the European Social Fund. A research fellowship from the Japan Foundation’s Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange Department is also kindly acknowledged.

---

Strategic considerations in the US–China relationship and the role of European soft power

This paper analyses strategic considerations within the conceptual, the policy and the systemic dimension of US–Sino relations. Furthermore, the role of the EU’s soft power in the context of US–China relations will be assessed. It will be argued that current US–China relations are mainly a function of the current US foreign policy towards China, which doesn’t take into account that an engagement policy towards China needs to be paralleled by an engagement policy towards the East Asian region. A functional equivalent of the EU’s soft power and its approach of bilateral and multilateral engagement of East Asian actors is a missing element in US–China relations. The thinking on China affairs in the USA can be broadly structured into two different schools of thought. On the one side there are those who favour an engagement policy vis-à-vis China. The engagement school argues that bilateral and multilateral cooperation with China needs to be intensified. Traditionally members of this school are found in the Department of State and the Bureau of the US Trade Representative. On the other side there are those who think of China as a threat that needs to be contained. The politicians and experts that belong to the threat school (e.g. in the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute) emphasize their fears of China’s future role on the regional and global level. Though China has supported the US’s “war on terrorism” after the attacks of 9/11, Beijing’s increasing military budget, its neglect of non-proliferation agreements (e.g. in its relations with Pakistan) and its behaviour within the Six-Party Talks are taken as examples of the China threat. Security policies do not solely determine the relationship between the USA and China. The US China policy is a function of both the US’s economic and security interests. This explains why Washington follows a dual policy of simultaneous engagement and containment, i.e. a policy of hedged engagement. But the current state of affair of the Sino–US relationship does not reflect the rise of China as a de facto hegemon of an East Asian community. It is the inherent danger of the current US China policy that the missing regional component in US–China relations could facilitate the formation of a fortress Asia. Since Beijing holds the key to Asian regionalism, China should be the main target of European soft power in Asia by exporting the principles of regionalism and multilateralism to Asia. To what extent the EU and its model of intraregional cooperation and integration can influence the objective and trajectory of Asian regionalism will demonstrate partly the extent of Europe’s soft power in the international system.

---

A note on the feasibility of a monetary area in the East Asia

After the constitution of the European Monetary Union (EMU), a new scope for monetary coordiantion is emerging in other regional areas. The standard approach to theoretically analyse the feasibility of a monetary union is the optimum currency areas (OCA) approach. Although this approach has been claimed to be non-operative, recent studies using synchronisation measures have shown a high potential applicability. This paper provides an empirical application of the OCA theory to a hypothetical East Asian monetary union centred on Japan’s currency. We find that despite the increasing synchronisation of macroeconomic determinants of a monetary area during 1980–2001, the perspective of an Asian currency union is still not economically feasible.

---

Regional energy cooperation in North East Asia: Lessons from the European Experience

The three major oil importing countries of Northeast Asia—China, Japan and South Korea—are concerned about future security of energy supplies to fuel their dynamic economic activity. Currently all three countries are highly dependent on imports of oil from the Middle East, a region with inherent political instability. Russia’s rich reserves of oil and gas in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East offer an obvious alternative. Given the geographical proximity of Russia and its desire to increase its energy exports to Northeast Asia, there is huge potential for cooperation. So far there has been no real intra-regional cooperation and no common external policy towards Russia. Despite obvious differences between Europe and North East Asia, the European model of energy cooperation, developed over the past 50 years, offers some useful lessons.

---

Myanmar in EU–ASEAN relations

The aim of this paper is to discuss and examine the regional projects of institutionalism in Europe and Southeast Asia. The main focus is on Myanmar, a regional ‘outcast’ whose membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 1997 has helped it to gain international legitimacy and be able to stand relatively strong against Western sanctions. The military regime is riding on the wave of ASEAN norms and a communitarian culture. The question remains as to how long the country can continue to do so. A rather skeptical view is emphasized on the ‘ASEAN Way’ in dealing with the military regime, and for the overall political dialogue with the European Union. Many ambitious objectives such as sovereign equality in institutionalism are widely questioned, and the European Union has gone against many of its treaties in order to keep its relationship with Southeast Asia. The paper puts prominence on the political and security relationship rather than on the economic aspect, which has been far more successful. The role of values and the human rights debate will be highlighted and described as the greatest obstacle for any future political cooperation.

---

APEC and emerging regionalism in North East Asia

This paper explores what kind of regional trade agreement is most likely to emerge in Northeast Asia by tracing the trajectories of APEC. Taking into account the underlying potential of realizing cumulative causation effects between market expansion and technology cooperation among China, Japan and Korea, it reaches the tentative conclusion that a Northeast Asia Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) might take shape in the near future despite the prevalence of polarized versions in the cultural heritage and the international relations between these three countries.

---

Free trade agreements and vertical-specialisation in East Asia

Regional integration in East Asia has been described as ‘market-led’ integration driven by the activities of multinational corporations creating vertical specialisation. This paper investigates the effect of free trade agreements (FTAs) on vertical specialisation-based trade by employing a gravity estimation for a sample of nine East Asian countries plus the US. We find that FTAs promote international trade based on vertical specialisation and enhances deep integration between countries. The FTA effect on vertical specialisation-based trade increases with pre-agreement vertical linkage level, that is, the deeper the real integration between countries the larger the FTA impact. The results of this paper also suggest that deeper economic integrations, such as currency unions, will enhance trade based on vertical production by reducing the risk of exchange rate volatility.

---

‘Diplomatic Divergence: the Japanese and British Responses to Indonesia’s Confrontation of Malaysia 1963–1966’

While Indonesia’s policy of Confrontation towards Malaysia brought it into direct military conflict with Britain, this same event prompted Japan to pursue its first explicit postwar diplomatic initiative. Due to different strategic goals for the region, Britain and Japan’s approaches to Indonesian bellicosity were markedly different. Notably, while Britain took a hard-line stance with President Sukarno, Japan in contrast took a lenient approach eschewing economic and diplomatic isolation of Indonesia. With a latent warming in Anglo–Japanese ties beginning in this decade, this paper demonstrates that despite their antithetical approaches to this Southeast Asian crisis bilateral relations were not adversely affected.

---

ASIA-EUROPE MEETING (ASEM): fostering a multipolar world order through inter-regional cooperation

Since its inception in 1996 ASEM has provided an opportunity for focussing relations between the EU and East Asia as a forum for informal multilayered dialogue and building a framework for enhanced cooperation in the political, economic and social/cultural fields. Inter-regionalism, of which ASEM is the incarnation in the EU-Asia relationship, developed into an important policy tool of the EU in an effort to maintain a multipolar setting. Regional identities in Asia are at a different level when comparing South East Asia, North East Asia, East Asia and South and Central Asia. ASEM contributed to a certain extent to the region building in East Asia. Although the economic pillar of ASEM turned out to be the more important one when compared to the political and the people-to-people pillars, it will not become the basis for a (deep) inter-regional free trade agreement because of the diversity of the Asian members, reinforced by the last ASEM enlargement. However, turning weakness into strength, ASEM could become the EU’s vehicle for a more holistic approach to Asia thereby fostering a more economic and political multipolar world order. The financial melt down of the international financial order lead to the rediscovery of the need for international cooperation not only on the level of business but also among states. Making use of ASEM, developed over the last 12 years, could provide the much needed platform in the EU-Asia relationship. The author, Adjunct Professor for International Politics at the University of Innsbruck, formerly served as ASEM Counsellor of the European Commission as well as Minister and Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Japan and is presently EC Ambassador to Switzerland. He contributes this paper solely in his academic capacity and the views expressed should not be attributed to the European Commission; the thoughtful comments by Brigid Gavin on the draft are appreciated and the research assistance of Tilo Wagner is recognised.

---

The European Union, the Doha Round, and Asia

Agriculture has been the most contentious issue in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, and the European Union (EU) intervenes substantially in agricultural markets. This paper reviews these interventions in light of the EU’s participation in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations with specific attention to Asia. It concludes that the offers made by the EU were designed precisely to avoid any real liberalization in its agricultural markets and have undermined the development aspirations of the round.

---

A systemic perspective on regional integration after the end of the Cold War

This paper explains the systemic pressures on states in Europe and Southeast Asia to broaden their alliances after the end of the Cold War, and how expansion impacts on regional integration. Inter-state cooperation is still very much the basis of regional integration. In Europe, states will scuttle attempts at deepening integration if this threatens their security, as the recent political impasse in the European Union reveals. In Southeast Asia, by contrast, the threat to the security of states arises from their failure to deepen economic integration in order to survive an anarchic world financial system. This failure is due to entrenched internal constraints that prevents closer inter-state cooperation and the pooling of sovereignty. Thus, while attempts to move into the area of political union will be resisted by states eager to maintain their sovereignty, the inability to advance into the area of monetary union can only lead to demise of states.

---

The awakening of the red dragon. China fills the power vacuum in the Far East

The paper analyses the basic parameters of the power of China, according to Geopolitical Theory. Even though the authors adopt a critical approach on some aspects of the geopolitical theory, the geopolitical analysis elucidates the interests of China and the United States and focuses on the way of which the American decision-making system perceives China. The article interprets the geopolitical role of China, starting from the origins of geopolitical theory to the contemporary international relations theory. In addition, it focuses on the current geo-strategic context of the Far East. It analyses Chinas' strategic thinking, China's nuclear doctrine and its military power as compared to the neighbouring countries and as a major player in the world economy.

---

The new impetus towards economic integration between Europe and Asia

With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union the large economic space of the Eurasian super-continent has also become part of the world-wide globalization process. How this process of integration of Eurasia is proceeding in key areas of cross-continental linkages is of great importance for the future of the region and for the future of the World as a whole. One of the key questions will be whether the regional and global institutions can provide adequate support for this integration process.This paper was presented as a keynote speech at The Fourteenth OSCE Economic Forum in Vienna on 23 January 2006. It draws on a longer paper by (Linn and Tiomkin in press).The authors are, respectively, Executive Director of the Wolfensohn Initiative at The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, USA, and MBA and MPA/ID candidate at Harvard University. Johannes Linn served as Vice President for Europe and Central Asia at the World Bank from 1996 to 2003.

---

Going nuclear in Northeast Asia: a global view

Northeast Asia (NEA) is on the international security agenda for a lot of reasons. The historical legacy, territorial disputes, the region’s growing importance as an economic actor and a trading partner accompanied by increasing defence expenditures and acquisition of high tech weaponry and the political isolation of a “rogue” North Korea have all contributed to fear that NEA could open a Pandora’s box of a nuclear arms race. In this paper, I analyse recent strategic trends in Asia and try to evaluate the main motivations and objectives of a country like North Korea behind Weapons of Mass Destruction proliferation and the impact of this “nuclear diplomacy” on the evolution of defence policy of major military power like Japan.

---

Operational oceanography in Indonesia

In 2005 Indonesian and European institutes joined to start the first step for the implementation of an Ocean Operational System in the Indonesian archipelago. The system will support the decision making process for the sustainable use of marine resources, providing useful information and added value products as well as a service for an improved management of the sea with high business impact to targeted groups as public authorities and commercial operators (coastal managers, fishermen, shipping companies). In this paper the System is shortly described with its potential benefits and economic and social impacts.

---

Transregional security cooperation after September 11, 2001

The aim of this article is to answer the question what kind of global security architecture emerged after September 11 and what functions Europe, East Asia and the United States assumed in this triadic structure. The empirical findings reveal that the transpacific security cooperation is the strengthening link in this global security structure, the transatlantic security cooperation the weakening one and the Asia–Europe Security Cooperation is to be seen as the emerging link. In order to explain these different institutional manifestations of transregional cooperation, different theories of International Relations are applied to the three cases. It comes as no surprise that neoinstitutionalism and constructivism offer the best insights into the formation and development of international institutions.

---