Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Globalização à Beira-China plantada

José Carlos Matias

Maio de 2004


A realização do Fórum Social Mundial em Mumbai, na Índia, em 2004 manifesta uma abertura do chamado movimento alterglobalização para uma amplitude mais global, isto é, sai do casulo e eixo “América-Europa” onde tem estado a dinamizar acções de protesto que por mais globais que seja devido às novas tecnologias da informação e á rede de media alternativos, tem manifestado uma perspectiva de médio alcance face ao continente asiático, ou seja pouco para além do Médio Oriente. Contudo o objectivo deste texto é avançar mais na latitude para Este rumo à China e ao Sudeste Asiático, onde no primeiro país a economia de mercado floresce com a benção de um regime capitalista burocrático de estado e no segundo caso, se assiste a um possível regresso dos temíveis tigres asiáticos (de papel?). Em 1980, Folker Frobel perspectivava em “The New International Division of Labour” a emergência de uma nova divisão internacional do trabalho, na qual as empresas multinacionais seriam os actores principais numa nova ordem eeconómica à escala global. Ordem essa que teria como agentes mobilizadores agências financeiras multilareais. Nesta reorganização economico-financeira sobressaem três grandes blocos, ou epicentros do capitalismo transnacional: os Estados Unidos da América à cabeça do continente americano, a União Europeia em rede com o Norte de África e o Japão a iluminar os quatro tigres- Taiwan, Coreia do Sul, Singapura e Hong Kong. Os traços deste triângulo eram reforçados ao mesmo tempo que havia alterações fulcrais na nova ordem mundial com a queda do Império Soviético. No entanto com a Crise asiática em 1997 e a entrada da China para a Organização Mundial de Comércio a Este surgiu algo de novo. Depois de um sono profundo de vários séculos, por vezes intermitente como mais adiante vamos dar conta, o dragão acorda. Mas nãos e pense que o Império do Meio acordou de súbito para disputar o jogo do capitalismo internacional. O historiador Andre Gunder Frank em “Re-Orient: Global economy in the Asian Age” argumenta que a versão dominante da História no Ocidente está impregnada de um euro-centrismo que enevoa um entendimento lúcido sobre a a evolução da “Economia Mundo”. Assim, Frank entende que a hegemonia europeia à escala global só terá de facto acontecido após o início do século XIX, uma vez que até 1800 a China em especial durante a dinastia Qing e a Índia nomeadamente aquando da era de Mughal eram os maiores centros de comércio internacional (à escala daquela época) do mundo. O próprio Adam Smith asseverou que“a China é um país muito mais rico do que qualquer parte da Europa”. Mais recentemente com a política de abertura ao investimento privado que teve em Deng Xiao Ping o dinamizador, a partir dos anos 80, a República Popular deu início a uma caminhada gradual e estratégica de integração na ordem económica mundial. A entrada na Organização Mundial de Comércio foi o culminar desta fase da abertura económica que, no entanto ainda está a meio desse trilho rumo à prosperidade, até porque como postulou o ex Presidente da República Popular da China Jian Zemin, “enriquecer é revolucionário”. Sigamos então o rasto dessa revolução No caso da China, se durante vários séculos tal como anota David Landes em “A Pobreza e a Riqueza das Nações” a Europa soube ser aprendiz beneficiando com as descobertas chinesas, agora a China aprende com essa invenção da Revolução Industrial a que muitos chamam de economia de mercado. E que mercado! Mil e trezentos milhões de habitantes. Mas nãos e pense que a esta abertura no plano económico, corresponde a abertura política, mesmo que tomemos como bem intencionada a resposta do Comissário Europeu a perguntas de deputados no Parlamento Europeu sobre as violações dos direitos humanos: “um país comercialmente mais torna-se necessariamente menos repressivo. Por que seria a China uma excepção?”. Ou será que há um excepcionalismo chinês?No entanto há mudanças políticas. Senão vejamos. Há um par de anos. na República Popular houve uma invenção que terá feito Marx dar voltas no túmulo: a “teoria dos três representantes”. Na cúpula do Partido Comunista têm direito a estar presentes todas as forças produtivas progressistas: camponeses, operários e capitalistas. Do ponto de vista constitucional, as autoridades de Pequim preparam-se este ano para abrir caminho para a inviolabilidade da propriedade privada. Com taxas de crescimento do Produto Interno Bruto próximas dos dois dígitos, a China avança agora para um projecto de integração económica no Este da Ásia que apesar de ainda nem sequer estar na fase embrionária já fervilha na inteligentsia do” Império do Meio” a par de outras potências económicas emergentes. No “Boao Fórum para a Ásia 2003”, decorrido em Outubro na ilha de Hainão uma espécie de Fórum de Davos para o continente asiático, foram defendidas teses que apontam para um processo de integração que poderá passar por uma zona de comércio livre, de investimento ou mesmo financeiro. Quer isto dizer que no reordenamento da ordem económica mundial no continente asiático se desenha um bloco mais forte do que somente a ASEAN (Associação das Nações do Sudeste Asiático) que procure “multilateralizar” o capitalismo mundial, ou por outras palavras, a globalização dos mercados. A comandar este polo ninguém melhor que o sábio e paciente “dragão”, timoneiro desta embarcação pronta a receber o investimento estrangeiro dos Estados Unidos ou da Europa, mas também para ser um agente competitivo com um mercado interno exponencial, com um custo de produção barato e por isso uma capacidade de colocar no mundo produtos a preços assustadoramente baixos. Que o digam os Estados Unidos que ainda recentemente impuseram quotas de importação de têxteis e de aparelhos de televisão vindos da China. Mas se o capitalismo é abençoado por Pequim ainda há quem, como por exemplo o então Presidente do Partido dos Trabalhadores do Barsil, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva aquando de uma visita há um par de anos a Pequim parecia acreditar que “A impressão que dá é que eles estão aprendendo a ganhar dinheiro com os capitalistas, para gastá-lo como socialistas”. E já agora para descobrir se Lula se enganou ou não, que tal organizar o próximo Fórum Mundial Social em Xangai? Se Pequim deixar e Deus quiser.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

The Chinese are coming. Let's greet them

Jérôme Monod

I.H.T.

I was in China recently to participate in the Boao Forum on China's "peaceful rise," the country's foreign policy mantra that was announced a year earlier. first as an entrepreneur, then as a politician, and more recently through the Fondation pour l'innovation politique (Foundation for Political Innovation).
Indeed, the question now is not whether China is rising, but whether the rise will be peaceful.
Let's not dream: It will take 20 years for nuclear energy to supply even 4 to 5 percent of China's demands for electricity, while renewable energy will always be marginal.
As a consequence, China will consume energy from traditional sources, especially oil and coal, and it will seek to procure energy by all possible means in Central Asia, Iran, Africa or Latin America.
It will form new alliances, some of which may be in conflict with the West.
Furthermore, China's quest for energy resources and its subsequent involvement in regions with conflicts could create a destabilizing bottleneck effect. This is evident in China's increasing search for energy resources in Central Asia, a political zone already congested with a growing post-9/11 American presence, with a Russian and Indian re-engagement and with Saudi Arabian and Pakistani regional linkages.
Hence the issue goes beyond energy. China will need to convince the international community that its "peaceful rise" is not limited only to areas where its own vital strategic interests are not threatened. In the 19th century, Europeans went to war over raw materials. Times have changed, but the tides may not have.

Then there is the question of the trajectory of China's rise. What does China really want? Do we know? Does China know? Every great civilization brings an idea to the world. What idea would China bring?
The West believes it has a historic destiny. But it is not certain what China aspires to be and what it would choose to portray to the world. China's new alliances with India and Europe, and its distancing from certain other regions, clearly demonstrate a wish not only to exist in the world, but to be at the helm of world affairs.
Choosing to remain contained within itself would have been an excellent alibi for a peaceful rise. But China's defiance of the isolation of the Middle Kingdom poses a challenge to keep the rise peaceful.
We must help China overcome these challenges. Engagement with China will ensure that we ourselves remain in the game. It is not just a single country that is rising; a progressive regional integration will result in the rise of a continent. And we must remember that this is the continent that contains the greatest portion of mankind.
China should not be treated with hostility, lest Thucydides be proved right when he said that when one thinks of the other as an enemy, the other becomes an enemy in reality. Let us look at China as a partner instead of a potential rival.
Our goal must be to help integrate this new emerging pole in a multilateral discourse. It seems to me that Europeans, who hold little potential for conflict with China, have a particularly significant role to play in establishing this dialogue.
Europe's encouragement for China's vision of multilateralism was reflected in the European Union's early call for China to join the World Trade Organization - in which France played an important role - and in the call for an end to the embargo against arms exports to China. Cooperation should be placed above sanctions, and the past must vanish before the future.
But to hold a dialogue, we need to know each other. The people - and above all students, entrepreneurs, cultural figures, academics and politicians - must meet and come to know each other. China would then cease to seem exotic; it would become familiar.
(Jérôme Monod founder and honorary chairman of the Fondation pour l'innovation politique, was chairman and chief executive officer of the supervisory board of Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux from 1980 to 2000.)

The Illusion of 'Managing' China

By Robert Kagan
Washington Post
There has been much disc ussion recently about how to "manage the rise of China." The phrase itself is soothing, implying gradualism, predictability and time. Time enough to think and prepare, to take measurements of China's trajectory and adjust as necessary. If China eventually emerges as a clear threat, there will be time to react. But meanwhile there is time enough not to overreact, to be watchful but patient and not to create self-fulfilling prophecies. If we prematurely treat China as an enemy, it is said, it will become an enemy.The idea that we can manage China's rise is comforting because it gives us a sense of control and mastery, and of paternalistic superiority. With proper piloting and steady nerves on our part, the massive Chinese ship can be brought safely into harbor and put at anchor. It can be "integrated" into the international system and thereby tamed and made safe for civilized existence in the postmodern world. Wisely "managed," China can be a friend. Badly managed, it can become a very dangerous power indeed. But at least the choice seems to be ours.The history of rising powers, however, and their attempted "management" by established powers provides little reason for confidence or comfort. Rarely have rising powers risen without sparking a major war that reshaped the international system to reflect new realities of power. The most successful "management" of a rising power in the modern era was Britain's appeasement of the United States in the late 19th century, when the British effectively ceded the entire Western Hemisphere (except Canada) to the expansive Americans. The fact that both powers shared a common liberal, democratic ideology, and thus roughly consonant ideas of international order, greatly lessened the risk of accommodation from the British point of view.Other examples are less encouraging. Germany's rise after 1870, and Europe's reaction to it, eventually produced World War I. Even the masterly Bismarck, after a decade of successful German self-management, had a difficult time steering Europe away from collision. The British tried containment, appeasement and even offers of alliance, but never fully comprehended Kaiser Wilhelm's need to challenge the British supremacy he both admired and envied. Right up until the eve of war, highly regarded observers of the European scene believed commercial ties among the leading powers made war between them unlikely, if not impossible.Japan's rise after 1868 produced two rounds of warfare -- first with China and Russia at the turn of the century, and later with the United States and Britain in World War II. The initial Anglo-American response to Japan's growing power was actually quite accommodating. Meiji Japan had chosen the path of modernization and even Westernization, or so it seemed, and Americans welcomed its ascendancy over backward China and despotic Russia. Then, too, there was the paternalistic hope of assisting Japan's entry into the international system, which was to say the Western system. "The Japs have played our game," Theodore Roosevelt believed, and only occasionally did he wonder whether "the Japanese down at bottom did not lump Russians, English, Americans, Germans, all of us, simply as white devils inferior to themselves . . . and to be treated politely only so long as would enable the Japanese to take advantage of our national jealousies, and beat us in turn."Today we look back at those failures and ruminate on the mistakes made with the usual condescension that the present has for the past. But there is no reason to believe we are any smarter today than the policymakers who "mismanaged" the rise of Germany and Japan. The majority of today's policymakers and thinkers hold much the same general view of global affairs as their forebears: namely, that commercial ties between China and the other powers, especially with Japan and the United States, and also with Taiwan, will act as a buffer against aggressive impulses and ultimately ease China's "integration" into the international system without war. Once again we see an Asian power modernizing and believe this should be a force for peace. And we add to this the conviction, also common throughout history, that if we do nothing to provoke China, then it will be peaceful, without realizing that it may be the existing international system that the Chinese find provocative.The security structures of East Asia, the Western liberal values that so dominate our thinking, the "liberal world order" we favor -- this is the "international system" into which we would "integrate" China. But isn't it possible that China does not want to be integrated into a political and security system that it had no part in shaping and that conforms neither to its ambitions nor to its own autocratic and hierarchical principles of rule? Might not China, like all rising powers of the past, including the United States, want to reshape the international system to suit its own purposes, commensurate with its new power, and to make the world safe for its autocracy? Yes, the Chinese want the prosperity that comes from integration in the global economy, but might they believe, as the Japanese did a century ago, that the purpose of getting rich is not to join the international system but to change it?We may not know the answers to these questions. But we need to understand that the nature of China's rise will be determined largely by the Chinese and not by us. The Chinese leadership may already believe the United States is its enemy, for instance, and there is nothing we can do to change that. Partly this is due to our actions -- such as the strengthening of the U.S.-Japanese military alliance, which began during the Clinton administration, and our recent efforts to enhance strategic ties with India. Partly it is due to our different forms of government, since autocratic rulers naturally feel threatened by a democratic superpower and its democratic allies around their periphery. Partly it is due to the nature of the situation in East Asia. It used to be an article of faith among Sinologists that the Chinese did not want to drive the United States out of the region. Today many are not so sure. It would not be unusual if an increasingly powerful China wanted to become the dominant power in its own region, and dominant not just economically but in all other respects, as well.When one contemplates how to "manage" that, however, comforting notions of gradualness, predictability and time begin to fade. The obvious choices would seem to lie between ceding American predominance in the region and taking steps to contain China's understandable ambitions. Not many Americans favor the former course, and for sound political, moral and strategic reasons. But let's not kid ourselves. It will be hard to pursue the latter course without treating China as at least a prospective enemy, and not just 20 years from now, but now. Nor, if that is the choice, can Chinese leaders be expected to wait patiently while the web of containment is strengthened around them. More likely, they will periodically want to challenge both the United States and its allies in the region to back off. Crises could come sooner than expected, and without much warning, requiring difficult judgments about the risks and rewards of both action and inaction.That is likely what the future holds. The United States may not be able to avoid a policy of containing China; we are, in fact, already doing so. This is a sufficiently unsettling prospect, however, that we are doing all we can to avoid thinking about it. We conjure hopeful images of a modernizing China that seeks only economic growth and would do nothing to threaten commercial ties with us -- unless provoked -- even as we watch nervously the small but steady Chinese military buildup, the periodic eruptions of popular nationalism, the signs of Chinese confidence intermingled with feelings of historical injustice and the desire to right old wrongs.Which China is it? A 21st-century power that wants to be integrated into a liberal international order, which would mean both a transformation of its own polity and a limitation of its strategic ambitions? Or a 19th-century power that wants to preserve its rule at home and expand its reach abroad? It is a worthy subject for debate, because the answer will determine the future as much as or more than anything we do. But it is unlikely we will have a definitive answer in time to adjust, to "manage" China's "rise," any more than our predecessors did. As in the past, we will have to peer into the fog and make prudent judgments, informed by the many tragic lessons of history.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

China-EU vibrant partnership lessens friction on arms embargo, textile trade

Diário do Povo

China and the European Union (EU) are now giving more attention to setting up a new partnership than haggling over ending the arms ban and discussing textile trade issues, which both consider normal and ultimately resolvable through dialogue.
During a two-day visit by the EU "troika" of foreign ministers, marking the 30th anniversary of the forging of Sino-EU diplomatic ties, China and EU seemed to make progress in resolving their spat over China's surging textile and clothing exports to Europe and ending the EU's arms embargo on China.
"We will take further economic measures to stem excessive growth in China's textile and garment exports," said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Wednesday when meeting with the EU diplomats, calling for joint efforts to ease the current trade dispute.
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, together with European Commissioner on external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner and British Ambassador to China Christopher Hum, told a joint news conference Wednesday that the 16-year-old arms embargo could be lifted by the end of June, when Luxembourg hands the EU presidency to Britain.
"In six weeks a lot of things can happen, and if we make effort on both sides, we can do it," they said.
"To build the Sino-EU comprehensive strategic partnership is the correct choice made by China and the EU based on our respective fundamental interests. It benefits the interests of both sides as well as world peace and stability," said Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing during the talks.
China and EU want to build a strategic and long-term partnership rather than be fettered by differing views on ending the arms embargo, textile trade and human rights issues. The two sides are expected to start negotiations on a new bilateral partnership agreement later this year to replace the Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement signed in 1985.
"It's time to reflect the vibrancy of our relations with an ambitious new agreement that will help us move to a full-fledged strategic partnership," Ferrero-Waldner was quoted as saying in a press release issued by the European Commission, the EU's executive body.
After a space of three decades, China-EU relations are at their peak thanks to increasing high-level visits and genuine political trust, having entered the new stage of comprehensive cooperation covering wide areas and multiple levels.
China-EU trade hit 177.3 billion US dollars in 2004, a 73-fold rise in 30 years. The EU has become China's top trade partner since it expanded to 25 members last May while China is the EU's second largest trade partner.
"While we started off with trade and a few political exchanges, today we have a broad range of partnership covering diverse areas, " said Serge Abou, ambassador of the European Commission delegation to China.
The two sides collaborate in research projects in technology. China was the first ever non-EU nation to participate in the EU's Galileo satellite navigation program while it is working with the EU on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to providing clean, cheap and safe energy from nuclear fusion.
Earlier in 2004, China and the EU signed an agreement on approved destination status (ADS), facilitating people-to-people exchanges. Chinese students in the EU have risen to 160,000.
The EU staged its first-ever film festival in Beijing Wednesday, which "will give (China) an unparalleled glimpse of the vibrant and diverse societies and cultures that together make up Europe," said Serge Abou.
The European Union will also bring another cultural festival to Beijing in September, when 25 EU member countries show off their art and tourism, according to Serge Abou.
In the light of booming multi-layer China-EU cooperation, the two sides are resolving differences through dialogue. On the human rights issue, which the EU links to ending its arms embargo, China and the EU have moved from conflict to dialogue and have so far conducted 29 human rights dialogues.
"Despite different cultural and historical backgrounds, China and the EU share similar views in terms of respecting diversity and supporting a multipolar international system, which lays a solid foundation for sound China-EU cooperation," said Shen Jiru, a fellow researcher with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"Meanwhile, China's fast-growing economy and practical diplomacy are preconditions for higher level dialogues between the two sides," Shen said.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Asia-Europe Meeting: Beyond the Silk Road

Este ensaio foi laborado para a cadeira "Prospective of Europe", em Agosto de 2004, do "Master in European Studies" no Instituto de Estudos Europeus de Macau.
José Carlos Matias dos Santos


“As a matter of fact, Asia matters to Europe today as it did in the days of the spice and silk trade across land and sea”

Nadia Mushtaq Abbasi

Introduction


Historically there have been two main routes linking Europe and Asia: the Silk Road by land and the ocean way from the Atlantic through the Indian Towards the Pacific. More than 700 years after the famous trip of Marco Polo through the Silk Road, five centuries after the completion of the first all water trade route between Europe and India and more than 400 years passed after the first trips of the Portuguese navigators to the South China Sea and Japan, after the age of Imperialism and Western colonialism in South Asia and in South East Asia, Europe rediscovers the wonders of the commerce with the East Asia. And In the beginning of the 21st Century the some of the new paths are built through interregional dialogue between the European Union (EU) – 25 countries, 455 million people – and the ten Countries of “Asian ASEM” – more than 1.8 billion people.

Indeed ASEM constitutes a unique phenomena in the current International Relations scenario: a Forum between the European Union member states and ten Asian countries, seven of which from the Association of the Southeast Nations (ASEAN) – Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Philippines – and three from the East-Northeast Asia – China, South Korea and Japan. Here we assume that this dynamic is part of a wider trend in the world politics: the Interregionalism, the dialogue between regions in a new framework of the world governance.

The aim of this paper is to map out three different approaches to the ASEM: liberal-institutionalism, neorealism and social constructivism. These are, in our point of view, the more useful and meaningful theories of international relations, which can be applied to the interregional dialogue between the European Union and the East Asian countries. In other words the objective is to enquiry about the nature, the common nature and conflict interests of the two parts of the interregional dialogue.

Before analyzing the concept of the three images, we will regard ASEM in the framework of the dialogue between Europe and Asia and focus on two key concepts: Inter regionalism and globalization, pointing out in what way we regard ASEM as an inter regional forum and the meaning of inter regionalism today, articulating it with a certain idea of globalization. This debate can be summed in the following question: Globalization and regionalization are contradictory or complementary processes?


1. Interregionalism and Globalization
In the post cold war era, the dialogue between regional blocs assumes a particular importance, at a time when the international system is embedded into a process of reorganization. In this process Globalization and regionalization are key issues to understand the dynamics of world politics and the new shape of world politics will to a certain extend depend on the evolution these phenomena. Globalization is indeed a very slippery concept used to describe different events, attitudes, realities and processes. Here we regard globalization on the one hand as 'a process of removing government-imposed restrictions on movements between countries in order to create an "open", "borderless" world economy' (Scholte 2000: 16) and, on the other hand, as internationalization, i.e. cross-border relations between countries'. It describes the growth in international exchange and interdependence. Notwithstanding we underline as well the idea of deterritorialization, as David Held et al (1999: 16) envisage it: “transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions (...) generating transcontinental or inter-regional flows and networks of activity”. Thus in a globalized process of liberalization, internationalization and deterritorialization, in a post Cold War framework new alliances through the dialogue between regions are being built. If before the end of the Soviet Union inter regional cooperation was based on the bipolar rationale, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the roles of USA and EU in the world have shifted. The former endeavors to cement it hegemony as the military leader, the latter is developing its own way to strength its role as global actor and civil power.
Heiner Hanggi (2000) distinguishes three types of Interregionalism, in an empirical perspective: relations between groupings, hybrids such as relations between regional groupings and single powers and biregional and transregional groupings. The oldest phenomenon is the first category. In group-to-group relations EU is a paradigmatic case, as the EC ha developed increasingly dialogues with other regional blocs, such as the ASEAN the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States or the MERCOSUR. The second type refers to the relations between regional groupings and single power, like the EU-China or EU-Russia partnerships or the ASEAN plus Three (China, Japan and South Korea). The ASEM is an example of the third category of Interregionalism, emerged in the framework of the new Triad, the tripolar relationship between the major economic regions: North America, Western Europe and East Asia. Besides ASEM, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) with 21 Pacific Rim countries (15 East Asian countries, the three North Americans and two from South America) and the Europe-Latin America Rio Summit (a bi regional endeavor between 33 Latin American and Caribbean states with the EU member states) are other examples of biregional and transregional agreements.
However other scholars disagree with this analysis. While Jurgen Ruland distinguishes the bilateral inter-regionalism such as the early relationship of EC with ASEAN and transregionalism like the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Julie Gilson defends that ASEM must be shaped as an interregional process. "Transregionalism is a structural attempt to combine a range of states within a coherent unified framework. Interregionalism, by contrast, sets one region in a dialogue (or potentially in conflict) with another" (Gilson, 2002).


2. The Asia-Europe Meeting
What is new about ASEM? First, it is the first interregional framework in which the Asian and European countries are required to provide collective responses – this is absolutely new for the Asian side of ASEM[1]. Second it is a product of the Post Cold War reorganization in which the major world power, the United States of America, is absent. Third, contrary to the APEC, ASEM’s agenda involves wide range of political, economic, cultural and intellectual dialogue. Finally from a theoretical point of view ASEM challenges the concepts of regionalism, new regionalism and inter-regionalism.
The first Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) took place in Bangkok, March 1996, gathering the Heads of State and Government of Seven ASEAN member states (all ASEAN, except Burma, Cambodia and Laos), the three Northeast Asian countries and the President of the European Commission. This meeting brings theses two blocs of partners in one encounter of “equal partners”. The ASEM has four main key characteristics: informality, complementary, multidimensionally, emphasis on equal partnership and provision of a platform for meetings addition ASEM must be understood as a non binding and consensus-oriented forum with a pre-agreed agenda. For Julie Gilson it is worthy to pay special attention to the ASEM process because we are facing an explicitly interregional forum; it was created during the post-cold war period, at a time that alliances are more undefined; it contains a three pillar agenda with economic, political and other socio-cultural dialogue; it points out new questions about inter-regionalism and the relation between regional integration and globalization (Gilson: 1, 2002b).
The ASEM process was launched form the existing channels between the EU and the East Asian countries like the EU-ASEAN cooperation process, the EU-Japan and the participation of Brussels in the ARF. This process must be understood also under the “New Asia Strategy”, issued in 1994, by the EU to improve the relations with the Asian countries with a special focus on the East Asia. In ASEM I, it was set up the nature scope of the new the new partnership: commitments to market economy, open multilateral trading system, non-discrimination. Liberalization and “open regionalism” (Chair's Statement at ASEM I). Since 1996 every two years the ASEM takes place alternately in Asia and in Europe. ASEM II, London 1998, reaffirmed the engagement in a regular forum, despite the alleged lack of substantial European support to depression caused by the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.
The trust fund and technical assistance programmes were considered small beers compared to the totality of the financial problems then facing by the Asia Pacific Region. ASEM III, in Seoul, stressed the rapprochement of North and South Korea, the AEM IV, held in Copenhagen in 2002, under the topic “Unity and Strength in Diversity”, focused on the fight against terrorism that have gained growing importance in the international relations after the September 11, the Leaders signed the “ASEM Copenhagen Declaration on Cooperation Against International Terrorism”.

The Summit of the Heads of State or Government and the President of the European Commission is at the top of the ASEM structure[2]. Bellow, in the realm of political dialogue, there are the Foreign Minister’s Meetings and the senior official's meeting and the senior official’s meeting on trade and investment. The cooperation encompasses three main dialogue bridges: the economic, political and socio-cultural pillar, under these three stakes Europe and East Asia set cooperation projects economy, finance, environment, migratory flows, cultural heritage, child welfare among others.


3. Theoretical Approaches

3.1 A (neo) realist point of view

Classical realism perspective on international relations regards the inter-state system as a permanent state of war and anarchy. As Michael Doyle (1997, 13) notes, “this possibility of war requires that states follow realpolitik: be self-interested, prepare for war and calculate relative balances of power”. This leads to the security dilemma: to protect and defend the nation is the only way to guarantee political security but this defense makes the other state insecure. In the international system, the states are the most important actors, under which the other players, like transnational corporations or international organizations, act. Therefore, realists conceive a hierarchy: on the top, the “high” politics of military security and the low politics of economics and social affairs. Even when the economic vector seems the dominant in an interstate organization or forum, it is subjected to a strategic security objective. The main authors of classical realism are Thucydides, Machiavelli, Rousseau and Hobbes. In the 1970s there a new branch of realism was envisaged in Kenneth Waltz’s masterpiece "Man, the state and War", in which war was explained through three images or levels of analysis: human nature, internal structures of states and international anarchy. According to the neorealists the states do not attempt inevitably to maximize the power, but to endeavor the balance of power. Under this perspective, the balancing of power in the interstate system can be unipolar, one power, bipolar, two powers or multipolar, several powers.

Based on these assumptions, realists tend to foresee the 21st century as a time of conflict and fragmentation. Empirical evidences can lead us to agree with this school because the ethnic conflicts and wars sparked in the 1990s and state failure has been also a trend in the aftermath of the Cold War. In addition, the rise of international terrorism strengthened this idea of putative Clash of Civilizations. As globalization and regionalization are seen as contradictory processes ASEM is, for realists and neorealists, about balancing of power. For the European Union to build an interregional forum with East Asian countries became a necessity due to the gravitation of the world economics from the Atlantic to the Pacific region, a trend that had began in the 1970s with the rise of the New Industrialized Countries (NIC) of East Asia, also called the little Asian Tigers: Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. Together with the emergence of Japan, the shift of China from a centralized socialist economy towards a socialist market economy and the dynamic of the Southeast Asian nations, East Asian is becoming a major player in the International Political Economy. Therefore, in the mid’1990s, after the recession years of the early 1990s and at the time of geopolitical reorientation, EU had to create this link in order not to loose out in the Triad competition. Under this point of view ASEM was launched, in the European perspective, aiming to compete with the APEC led by the United States. The lack of institutionalization of ASEM is underlined by the realists as a sign that, as Jurgen Ruland (2002) notes, that the balancing function of ASEM explain the low level of institutionalization, since as power constellations these organizations and fora avoid costly investments into institutions. There is also a cognitive rationale pointed out, due to the past experiences of several Southeast Asian countries of subjection to European colonial powers.

3.2 The liberal-institutionalist approach

Liberalism is realism’s rival theory. In opposition to realism, liberalism regards the interstate system as a state of war and peace and not a state of permanent anarchy. Although there are several types of liberalism – commercialism of Adam Smith, internationalism of Immanuel Kant, institutionalism of John Locke or neoliberal institutionalism – all question the basic principle of realism that state is the main actor in the international system. Moreover, while realists defend that institutions are created by powerful states to serve its interests, liberals regard institutions as the necessity to overcome difficulties and functional needs.

Specifically, liberal-institutionalism focus more on the cooperation than on the conflict. where realists assume that states focus on relative gains and the potential for conflict, neoliberal institutionalists assume that states concentrate on absolute gains and the prospects for cooperation. Neoliberal institutionalists believe that the potential for conflict is overstated by realists and suggest that there are countervailing forces, such as repeated interactions, that propel states toward cooperation. They regard cheating as the greatest threat to cooperation and anarchy as the lack of organization to enforce rules against cheating.

As neoliberal institutionalist regard regions as a forms of regime which function as a way to reduce transaction costs. In the ASEM process, the institutionalist approach emphasizes the creation of the missing link between Europe and Asia in the framework of the Triad, the institutionalization of the Asia-Europe meeting, despite the critics of costs low level of institutionalization and also the institutionalization of the East Asia Cooperation[3]. Moreover neo-liberal and institutionalist approaches highlight the role of ASEM as institution-builder, agenda setting and rationaliser (Ruland, 2002). If as an institution-builder ASEM appears to be low developed, in what concerns the agenda-setting function, from The Chair’s Statements of the Meetings, at the top the agenda in ASEM I was the stepping stone chart of intentions towards a new partnership: commitments to market economy, open multilateral trading system, non-discrimination, Liberalization and open regionalism. In ASEM II the leaders committed themselves to the affirmation of the forum in a regular base, In ASEM III there was a rapprochement of North and South Korea and the AEM IV focused on the fight against terrorism that have gained growing importance in the international relations after the September 11.



2.2 The Constructivist perspective

Social Constructivism challenges the classical realists and liberal approaches to the International relations. From a philosophical point of view human consciousness is the core of the socio-cultural activities and as consequence in the international relations. Constructivists oppose the realist assumption of the rational role of the state in the power seeking modus operandi of the interstate system, since these perceptions create an obstacle for the realists to understand the evolution of world politics after the end of the cold War. In other words, realism and neorealism are not adjusted to the rapid transformations occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Liberalists, in the constructivist point of view, overlook the relevance of nationalism and identity building. And the constructions of identities are part of the core of constructivism. Moreover processes not structures determine Identities and interests of states. Bearing this in mind constructivism aims to explain variation in state behavior in various policy areas of global politics such as international security, human rights policy or environment policy.

Thus, while realists regard ASEM as balancing, liberal-institutionalists as institutional building links, constructivists see it from the angle of identity building. Julie Gilson (2002a, 64) underlines the cognitive dimension of the ASEM: “the concretized idea of Asia can create a sense of identity among a group which had no such group formation”. What Gilson suggests in this constructivist approach to the ASEM is that the process of dialogue about political, economic, social, environmental and cultural issues between the European Union and these countries of East Asia is provoking inevitably a representation of the self and other and obligating the member states of Asia to compromise in a common agenda to discuss in an equal basis with the European counterparts. In other words throufg the interaction Asia gets its identity confoirmed by the other, Europe, because a fundamental part of one’s identity derives form the juxtaposition of self and other.
This analysis may seem abstract and somehow obscure, however one has to recognize that regionalization and interregionalism transforms the member states, in progressive and low process.



Concluding remarks

Analyzing the phenomenon of the Asia-Europe Meeting requires a complex exercise which includes the interaction of several key concepts - Regionalization, Regionalism Interregionalism, Governance and Globalization - and a comprehension of the evolution in the International Political Economy of the last 30 years. Due to the novelty of this forum the main theories cannot explain totally the nature of the ASEM: neorealism, liberal-institutionalism and constructivism provide useful insights but have also some pitfalls. Probably the intersection of these three instruments may give us a more accurate overview of the interregional cooperation between Europe and Asia through ASEM.

ASEM is, to some extend, about balancing of power in the world politics and in the international economy. The rising of the USA as the super power after the Cold War led to a reorganization the alliances. And as neorealists regards trade and investment as a means to expand the power of a nation, or a here of a group of nations, the European Union, ASEM may function as balancing. However this explanation neglects other important aspects. The increasing global economic interdependence provoked the creation of this missing link in the Triad, and despite being low institutionalized, ASEM is sparking a de facto East Asian Economic Community, because Asian countries have to set up a common agenda and THE ASEM process has led to the formation of the "ASEAN plus Three" encounters. Moreover, the evolution of the European Union since 1992 with the completion process of the Single European Market and the increasing role of EU an economic and trade giant and as a global player in the dialogue with other regions, such as the ACP countries, MERCOSUR, and ASEAN, and the growing role of East Asian countries in the international Economy provoked the inevitable attraction of the two blocs. Despite the low level of institutionalization and the hegemony of Economic exchange in comparison with the other pillars, the political dialogue and the civic and cultural aspects, in functionalist point of view, the interaction and the creation of stronger economic ties in the realm of trade and investment may lead to a spill over effect in the other areas.

However there are several points to be underline regarding the shortcomings and the risks of failure. First, there is an Asia concern about he commitment of European Union member states in this process. The poor attendance of EU Foreign Ministers in all ASEM meetings even when they were held in European Countries is raising this question. Second, the alleged low efforts of EU at the time of the Asian Financial Crisis may be a wound in the mutual trust and in the relationship. Third, if from a liberal point of view regional blocs are always a second best solution towards the objective of global free market, how will the ASEM alliance work in the current negotiations of the World Trade Organization? Fourth, from a realist point of view the forum serves the interests of different states which have both conflict and common interests: taking into account the diversity of interests among major Asian players such as China, Japan and Indonesia, how East Asian cooperation will go beyond this point in the future? Finally EU acts as a sole players, but indeed, we are referring to 25 member states with an incipient if not almost invisible Common Foreign and Security Policy. If trade is part of the Community Pillar based on the supranational modus operandi, foreign policy remains as part of the intergovernmentalist Second Pillar.




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[1] “An East Asia Common Market. One East Asia currency and One East Asia Community” were the calls made by Joseph Estrada, the then president of Philippines, at the ASEAN plus Three (APT) Summit in Manila. The statement seems rhetorical and not feasible in the short and medium term however it demonstrates the interest of an East Asia integration process, in opposition to an Asia-Pacific view or even to a Pan-Asia perspective. This idea of an East Asian Economic Community (EAEC) has been surrounding the intelligentsia for many years.
[2] See Annexe I
[3] Indeed the ASEM process played a key role in the formation of the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) process, the meeting between the ten nations of ASEAN and three Northeast Asian countries: China, Japan and South Korea. In 1995, when the ASEAN member states were preparing the first Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), China, Japan and South Korea were invited to join the Asian representatives in the Meeting. At the ASEM I, in Bangkok, the Asian partners mapped out the continuation of the APT process, first at the level of senior officials, then through foreign and economic ministers meetings, which took place in 1997.