The ASEM: Managing the New Framework of the EU's Economic Relations With East Asia

Abstract

THE ASCENDANCY OF THE PACIFIC ECONOMY has forced the European Union (EU) to significantly re-examine its economic relations with East Asia. An essential concern for EU powers has been how deepening transpacific integration could effectively marginalize the European economy in the twenty-first century. While the EU has maintained relatively weaker connections than the U.S. with East Asian countries, both at an institutional and commercial level, it has recently promoted an interregional framework the Asia-Europe Meetings (ASEM) in which its economic relations with East Asia are hoped to flourish. Preceded by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA), the ASEM initiative thus completes the triangle of formalized relationships that now exist between the triadic regions (i.e., Europe, North America, East Asia). Although the ASEM's initial agenda carried only low key provisions to cultivate greater interregional economic exchange, it may yet develop into a more comprehensive framework in the future and provide the main vehicle for strengthening the weak link in the triad. This paper's main purpose will be to consider the ASEM's function in the management of the EU's economic relations with East Asia and the broader ramifications that lie therein. An initial examination on the global and triadic context of EU-East Asia economic relations will be then followed by a discussion on the theory and practice of interregional relations. The next section will investigate the essential origins of the ASEM by studying the development of the EU's bilateral economic relations with East Asian states.' We shall then focus on the ASEM's framework and processes in closer detail and finally deliberate over the issues of compatibility and conflict that surround them.