1. Introduction
It has been over a decade since the inauguration of Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Bangkok, 1996. ASEM was created originally under Singapore’s Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong’s suggestion of developing a framework to strengthen the interregional relations between Asia and Europe. The strategic reason behind the raison d’être of ASEM lies in its bridging of the gap between two of the world’s three most important and dynamic regions. In over a decade of time, the ASEM has provided Asia and Europe a framework to cover wide-ranging of interregional and multilateral issues as two equal regions. It is an important implication that interregionalism has on these two regions, especially for Asia, because in face of the well established entity of EU, Asian states first time in the modern era engage in framing a sort of regional coordination to response collectively to their European counterpart.
As a case of interregionalism, the potential impact of the interaction of the two regions is not only within the interregional level, but also at global multilateral level. Therefore, this essay will utilize Dr. Christopher M. Dent’s (2004) typology of ‘multilateral utility’ to assess whether ASEM can be considered as a successful case of interregionalism. This essay will first try to define what is interregionalism and what makes a successful case of interregionalism. Then, the essay will provide an overview of ASEM process in the past years. Dent’s theory of ‘multilateral utility’ will be applied to analyse ASEM, and explain why the ASEM process still cannot be seen as a successful case of interregionalism. Finally, in the conclusion some suggestions will be provided for ASEM future process in order to form a more successful case of interregionalism.
2. Theoretical Perspectives of Interregionalism
The prototype of interregionalism was European Community’s group-to-group dialogue which evolved since 1970s and expanded to also most all the regions in the world. Largely due to EC’s presence as the single most advance regional organization in the world, the interregional network emerged as a ‘hub-and-spokes’ system gravitating around the EC during the Cold War period (Hänggi,2000). Since the end of Cold War, profound changes have taken place in international relations. Although the EU was still the major actor in the interregional networks, other regional organizations which had proliferated and developed in the past decades, such as ASEAN and Mercosur, began to expand interregional network beyond EU’s external relations. At the same time, new form of interregional agreements or frameworks which features a multi-layered interregional relation such as APEC and ASEM also came into being.
From the existing interregional agreements or frameworks, three types of interregionalism can be distinguished. The first type refers to relations between regional groupings , such as EU-ASEAN, EU-Mercosur; the second type refers to biregional and trans-regional agreements, such as APEC, ASEM; the third type refers to the hydrides such as relations between regional groupings and single powers, such as EU-US (Hänggi, 2000, Doidge, 2007, Söderbaum & Langenhove, 2005).
Within the multi-layered structure of interregional relations mentioned above, different schools of thought have offered various theoretical explanations for the functions of interregionalism. The realist approaches have focused on the balancing function of interregional dialogues among different regional actors, while the institutionalist approaches highlights the functions of rationalizing and agenda setting of interregional dialogues, especially they emphasize the contribution of institution-building function to facilitating communication and cooperation at the emerging multilateral level to the global governance. Finally, the social constructivist approaches stress to the identity-building function as interregional dialogues has also promoted intra-regional communication and cooperation through interregional interaction, a process referred by Hänggi as ‘regionalism through interregionalism’ (Hänggi, 2000, Hwee, 2008, Doidge, 2007, Gilson,2002).
Therefore, these functions of interregionalism have implied that the cognition of interregional relation cannot be simply attributed to a single theoretical perspective, rather, it’s a complex mix of policies and processes that derived from different theoretical approaches. In this respective, this essay utilizes Hwee’s (2008) typology of interregionalism, which not only identify interregionalism as’ the interaction between two regional entities, moreover, it encompass how interregionalism interact with and impact on the dynamic process of regionalism, shaping the consciousness and contour of the regions, and influencing the institutional development of an emerging world order’. In this case, a successful case of interregionalism should refer to processes or frameworks which makes proactive contributions to foster stability, peace, prosperity and equality in the global system in partnership with multilateral institutions, in a term which Dent (2004) defines as ‘multilateral utility’ .
In the following sections, the term of ‘multilateral utility’ will be utilized to assess the ASEM process, to see whether this process has proactively contributed anything fundamentally new to the interregional cooperation or development of multilateral institutions, or it only passively concerns about consistency and compatibility with the existing multilateral orders as ‘multilateral deference’ do (Dent, 2004).
3. A Overview ofAsia-Europe Meeting
Inaugurated in 1996 with a summit in Bangkok, ASEM brought together 10 Asian member states of ASEAN + 3 (APT) and 15 EU member states plus the European Commission, endeavouring to strengthen the relationship between the two regions with a spirit of mutual respect and equal partnership. ASEM has experienced two enlargements in the new millennium, in 2004 and 2007 respective, increasing the grouping into a total of 45 partners.
ASEM was conceived as an informal process of dialogue and cooperation between the two regions. Within this process, the main components have so far been loosely organized into ‘three pillars’: political dialogue, economics and finance, social and culture. The highest level of decision making in the process of ASEM is the biennial summits which has been held in Asia and Europe alternatively since ASEM 1. Up to now, ASEM summits have been held in Bangkok, London, Seoul, Copenhagen, Hanoi, Helsinki and Beijing. The 8th ASEM Summit will be held this October in Brussels. Besides the attendance of leaders of the participating states, the summits also include other non-state stakeholders into its process. Apart from the Summit meetings, there are a series of foreign, economic, financial, environmental Ministerial and working-level meetings being held to cover various issues, as well as a variety of other activities running alongside the summits and meetings, such as Asia-Europe Business Forum (AEBF), Trade Facilitation Action Plan (TFAP), Investment Promotion Action Plan (IPAP), ASEM Trust Fund and ASEM Child Welfare. The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) is the only formal institution under ASEM framework which aims at promoting cultural, intellectual and people-to-people exchanges between the two regions.
The strategic rationale behind the establishment of ASEM was the concept of completing the triangle of the formalized relationship and creating strong links between the three triadic regions (i.e. North America, Europe and Asia). The long established transatlantic relation was further tightened under the new framework of the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA) while the transpacific ties continued to prosper because of the more proactive role the US played in APEC and other bilateral relationship between US and its Asian partners. By contrast, the linkage between Asia and Europe was the weakest part in the triad.
Therefore the need for establishing an interregional framework to build and strengthen the linkage between the two regions arose. The rapid growth of Asian economy in the past decades and the “East Asian Miracle” model of development makes the EU to aware of the importance of engage into Asia’s dynamic growth. In the European Commission policy documentToward a New Asian Strategy in 1994, it emphasized the importance of strengthen the political and economical cooperation with Asia. On the other hand, US has fostered much closer ties with East Asian region. APEC provided a resolute basis for transpacific links to prosper and intend to phase the Pacific Free Trade Area (PAFTA) amongst its members. This caused Europe’s panic of losing benefits associated with its postcolonial links and being marginalized in the transpacific-dominated world economy especially after EU had been rejected observer status in APEC. Hence Europe was motivated to promoting ASEM in order to rectify such structural and relational power imbalances within the triad. Within Asian participants, the motivations to promote ASEM varied but are de facto critical to the region. First, for Japan and China, the active engagement of EU in Asia can help to counterbalance the power of US involvement in the region, while the ASEAN countries want to reduce the leverage that may bring by the potential rivalry between China and Japan and balance the power of US, Japan and China in general. Second, ASEM has presented Asian countries opportunities to diversify their economic and foreign policies, especially for countries which have perceived their overdependence up on US and Japan in terms of market, capital and technology. Third, ASEM offered an additional portal for Asian states and companies to engage in the commercial opportunities that EU’s regional integration presented, especially after the creation of single Europe Market. Although the objective of this interregional framework is to achieve the overall development of economic, political and social relations between the two regions, economic interest still remain the major driving force of parties to participate in the dialogues.
4. Assessing the ASEM Process
Within the ASEM process, various subjects are covered by the meetings and activities, such as trade, science and technology, environmental problems, anti-terrorism, illegal migration and trafficking of drugs. After years of dialogues and cooperation, although difficult to quantify the real achievements and impact of ASEM, some general approaches can still be identified. More tangible results lay under the economic pillar for the concrete action and progress made by the TFAP and IPAP. Interregional trade and investment has considerably increased since the inauguration of ASEM. In political pillar, ASEM creates an informal platform for regular interregional dialogues on human rights, the emerging security issues of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass-destruction, migration and environmental problems. The relative success of the third pillar of ASEM is presented by the various educational, cultural and people-to-people exchange projects carried out by ASEF.
In a more broad term, ASEM served as synergy for the Asia-Europe relation. ASEM is not an alternate or affiliate to the other bilateral or multilateral forums between Asia and Europe, it works as catalyst to increase the mutual understanding between Asia and Europe thereby to improve the overall relation between the two region. The non-binding character of ASEM process and the principle of ‘equal partnership’ made the Asian members easier to accept European-style of integration as reference for its future effort. In this process, Asian members felt of the need to first form an ‘Asian identity’ or coordinate as a region to prepare for the ASEM meetings when in face of such advanced regional entity as EU which is highly integrated economically and politically. ASEM also helped the Asian states to build a more coordinate and collective intraregional relation and get first-hand examination of practice of regional integration from EU. On the other hand, the EU also used ASEM as a tool to forester a common foreign policy and security policy and enhance its European identity. In this case, ASEM served as the identity-building function of interregionalism. As ASEM continue to work as a ‘multi-faceted dialogue facilitator’ and play the role of ‘a platform for policy development’ (Chairman Statement of the 6th Asia-Europe Meeting, 2006) , ASEM has allowed its participants to exchange views on current policies and conceive new ideas for future policy-making through open and inclusive dialogue. It also provided a dialogue framework to pre-discuss international matters such as United Nations reforms, WTO negotiations and regional security before full negotiations conducted at a multilateral level potentially reduced the risk that the agenda of those multilateral institutions and the decisions they made were dominated or over-influenced by the US. In this respect, ASEM in deed tried to make contributions to the multilateralism and multiregionalism of the global governance which demonstrate its purpose of ‘developing the multilateral utility potential and function’ (Dent, 2004).
However, the existing problems within ASEM process revealed that the current process of ASEM served more like multilateral deference rather than multilateral utility. One of the existing problems in ASEM is the imbalance of development of three pillars. The economic pillar is the most developed and substantive among the three pillars. Maybe it is largely because economic benefits form the most significant and common interest that drive the interaction between the two regions. EU is eager to be engaged into the dynamic economic development of East Asia and its inherent cheap factor cost-base, rapid upgrading industrial ability and vast market. On the other hand, Asian countries also want to share the enormous opportunities that presented by EU’s regional integration. But even if concerning of the economic interaction, most of the trade and investment promotion program are still operating within the existing bilateral framework between EU and Asian countries, no significant progress has been achieved to raise the importance of Asian to EU and vice versa for the total trade. Despite of economic exchanges, much less attention was paid to other aspects, and expecting to reach common position and agreements among these divergent participants on issues as human rights, governance of civil society and regional security is also far more difficult.
Besides, the effect of ASEM process to serve as the ‘identity building’ function of interregionalism is on the wane accompanied by the enlargement of ASEM. Since the embryonic of the ASEM process, it has been complimented for its coordination of the interregional relation between two ‘regions’ for Europe presented by EU and East Asia in form of APT framework. As ASEM develop to co-opt more members into its partnership and the recent enlargement to include India, Pakistan and Mongolia on the Asian side, the divergence within Asian partners was further increased and the regional integration process was further diluted. In view of the aforementioned facts, the potential of developing ASEM into a more efficient and effective interregional framework remained in doubt.
Another problem is the ‘intrinsic’ problem of ASEM that mentioned by Dent (97-98) which refers to the difficulties of attempting to establish a common interregional agenda for all member states to comply. Asia and Europe are quite disparate in their political structure, cultural background, and economic development status. Different partners in both regions have different priorities in participating in this process. On Asia side, an agenda has been largely determined by the policy goals of dominant states in the region, such as Japan and China, may be to the harms of other weaker countries. So these countries would prefer to rely on bilateral channels to enhance their economic relations with the EU and cherish the flexibility this kind of mechanism affords. On Europe side, individual EU members also have distinct national-level objects and this will exert adverse effects on internal bargaining within the EU’s supranational institutions and subsequently adopted policy positions. Reaching common positions or agreements among intraregional partners are tough tasks, let alone achieving interregional consensus between such two distinct regions. Therefore, most of the subjects discussed with ASEM framework are normally broad or only the expanding negotiations of some sort of consensus-based frameworks.
Since ASEM is an informal process of dialogue and co-operation, no binding agreements have been enacted in this process and even no secretariat, the contribution of ASEM to certain issues is hard to evaluate. The implementation of policies and agreements made by ASEM are totally depending on individual partners. Also there’s no formal institution to guarantee the enforcement of such policies and agreements. Besides, because of the loose networking of ASEM and lacking of concrete goal as most of formal institutions do, the decision making process within the ASEM is quite slow and cumbersome. The pre-discussion of agenda before the multilateral negotiation being conducted at multilateral institutions is more like exchange of information and viewpoints, rather than decision making process that will make concrete contribution to the final outcome of the multilateral institutions. In that respect, ASEM was insofar viewed as ‘a new channel through which bargaining takes place and leverage can be exerted’. (Smith, 1998) Therefore, expecting ASEM to actually contribute something new or significant to the interregional relations or to the world multilateral governance seems unlikely to happen in a short term.
5.Conclusion
Based on aforementioned points, we can see that ASEM as an interregional framework currently mainly served passively as multilateral deference to reinforce the existing multilateral order, but not proactively as multilateral utility to further develop and help to shape the multilateral-global governance. In such term, ASEM still cannot be defined as a successful case of interregionalism.
However, there’re still many things for ASEM partners to do in the future to fulfill its potential of achieving multilateral utility. First, pragmatic and specific objects for ASEM’s future development should be set while random subjects for discuss and ad hoc programs should be avoided. Second, some sort of institutionalization is need (e.g. the establishment of an ASEM Secretariat) to deal with the complexity growing with the enlargement of ASEM process. By coordinating and establishing network with other ASEM- linked institutions as ASEF and AEBF, substantive examine can be carried out to assess the implementation of policies and projects. Finally, the ASEM process was supposed to give more focus on serious discussions and negotiations of agenda items especially in the pre-discussion of forthcoming multilateral negotiation. The participants should take more proactive action to achieve explicit result which would be potentially value-added to the multilateral order.
In a word, to continue the role of strengthening interregional relation between Europe and Asia and seek to achieve the goal of multilateral utility, improving the internal effectiveness and efficiency, and cooperate in a more proactive and pragmatic way is essential for future ASEM process.