Images of European Integration in Asia

Abstract

This chapter critically analyses the extent to which the EU’s unique experience of regionalism has been appreciated outside its borders. In particular, it explores external reflections of the European project, taking into consideration Asian elites’ reaction. Three levels of Asian regional integration are considered, where a regional organisation is: absent, Northeast Asia; weak, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC); well established, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The chapter draws on the perceptions of European integration held among 283 Asian policy- and decision-makers from the three regions: Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea), South Asia (India), and Southeast Asia (Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam). While the study demonstrates that informed elites in Southeast, Northeast and South Asia have expressed an appreciation and recognition of the values of European integration, the findings also indicate that perceptions of the EU as an example of regional integration worthy of consideration differ depending on the regionalism situation in each case.