New Interregionalism? The EU and East Asia

310 Julie Gilsonand reformed in the very process of looking at an other and reflecting backon the self. In this way, the self may be identified through a process of “differentiation”with an other, drawing on its distinct identity. Second, the selfmay be understood as being formed from the start by the very act of being ina relationship with an other. In this way, the identity of the self is intrinsicallylinked with the process of “engaging” with that other (Campbell 1998, 9 &70–3). Put simply, interregionalism may not only represent the conjoining oftwo independent regions, but may be regarded as a process whereby, throughtheir mutual interaction, the regions of East Asia and Europe come to recognizethemselves as such (Scholte 1996, 70). One only has to visit the EUwebsite and examine the trade figures for ‘ASEM Asia’ to see how this formof Asia has already gained currency as a way of summarising the collectionof East Asian states. Interregionalism, then, provides a locus within which a“public reality” enables regions to talk to one another as regional actors(Searle 1995, 127 & 190). As practices of interaction continue, ideas andunderstandings of self and other are constantly formed and reformed, to theextent that, without the other, the self would be incomprehensible, since thatother “clothes us in comprehensibility” (Sampson 1993, 106).Given the nature of the regions in ASEM (or indeed the EU–ASEANdialogue), to what extent does this form of interregionalism contribute tothe development of a notion of region within East Asia? (Searle 1995, 127)A region may, in fact, derive its own identity in part as a result of beingaccepted as a ‘region’ by a discernible and pre–defined regional other andexisting through the process of reciprocal achievements. 2 Does the form of‘implicit we–ness’ found in groups such as the East Asian contingent ofASEM offer a sense of identity born from the very need to act as a regionin responding to other perceived regions? Moreover, can the collective ‘we’in the case of ASEM in turn become the dominant ‘we’ for all aspects ofexternal (‘East Asian’) interaction? (Wendt 1994, 386). Interregionalismmay not ‘create’ the region in the case of ASEM, but it may act as an“intra–regional mobilizing agent”, both in advancing the EU’s externalregional profile and in advancing the development of an East Asianregional consciousness (Higgott 1994, 368). In summary, interregionalismmay work in both functional and cognitive ways: as a tool for managingdisparate relations, and as a means potentially of (re–) defining concepts ofregion. The following section examines how interregionalism in the formof ASEM may be viewed as the conjuncture of different interregional andintra–regional histories.3. Developing Interregional EncountersEU–ASEAN RelationsFor centuries different parts of Asia have attracted European missionary,trading and colonial interests (Gilson 2002, 31; Lach 1965). From the extensiveregional interests of the British and Dutch East India Companies, aswell as the claims of their governments, to French colonial ambitions in