New Interregionalism? The EU and East Asia

More documents

Recommendations

Info

312 Julie GilsonEU–SAARC RelationsIn many ways, during the late 1970s and 1980s, the EU’s relations with theSouth Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) initiallyfollowed the same pattern. 4 SAARC was established in 1985 and, given thedifficulties between its two main member states (India and Pakistan), hasfocused on technical issues and the pursuit of an eventual South AsianEconomic Union, for which the EU has always provided the model. InJanuary 2004 its leaders signed a South Asia Free Trade Area, to come intoforce in January 2006. Having established cooperation agreements with theindividual states of the Association during the 1970s, the EC/EU signed amemorandum of understanding with SAARC in July 1986. In order to avoidcontentious political issues, it was based on technical issues only and wasdesigned to promote economic and social development in South Asia, usingEU expertise, advice and training. 5 At the initiative of Sri Lanka, the firstdialogue took place in 1998 and, since that time, the two sides have discussedregional issues related to health, the environment and the trafficking ofpeople and drugs and, in 1999, proposed a mission to create an assistanceprogramme to aid the integration processes in South Asia. One furtherimportant measure pertains to the implementation of the GSP (GeneralisedSystem of Preferences) Cumulative Clause of the Rules of Origin. The GSPitself was designed to facilitate economic development by offering preferentialtariffs to developing countries. In practice, the cumulative clause meansthat the EU will provide GSP facilities to products from any SAARC countryand demonstrates the ongoing donor–recipient arrangement among thetwo regions. This is in contradistinction to the assumption that SoutheastAsia, no longer as dependent on the GSP scheme, has ‘graduated’ to becomea trading partner with the EU, a status that is reinforced by the stated ‘equalpartnership’ of the ASEM and EU–ASEAN arrangements.The region–to–region dialogue has also been used to enhance bilateral relationsand, for example, an EU–India dialogue was begun in 2000, primarilyas a channel for promoting trade and investment. At their fifth summit in theHague in November 2004, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singhand Commission President Romano Prodi set down their plans for the developmentof, inter alia, an Action Plan, a dialogue on disarmament and non–proliferation, an exchange among parliamentarians and the creation of anEnergy Panel. Today, the EU is the largest trading partner of India, Pakistanand Bangladesh and an important trading partner for Sri Lanka, Maldives,Bangladesh and Nepal (Kumar 2004). Relations with this region continue toexpand, but with a different focus from the explicitly interregional dialoguewith East Asia.Expanding Interregional RelationsGiven the central regional role played by ASEAN, it is no surprise that the1995 proposal for ASEM came from the then Prime Minister of SingaporeGoh Chok Tong (Camroux & Lechervy 1996). Advocating closer linkages
New Interregionalism? The EU and East Asia 313with the growing EU, as well as encouraging the participation of their dominantneighbours, China, Japan and South Korea, ASEM was seen not onlyto offer closer links with the expanding EU, but also to provide the SoutheastAsian community with a chance to garner greater leverage in the face of theforces of globalisation, to balance the potential rivalry between Japan andChina, and to moderate the effects of any future change in the US geostrategicposition in the region. For the EU it offered a welcome opportunity toembrace a region of dynamic growth, which had been largely neglected byEuropean businesses. The extension of EU–ASEAN relations to include thestates of China, Japan and South Korea also served another purpose for theEU. Having made agreements with Laos and Cambodia in July 2000, the EUwas unable to extend this to Burma/Myanmar, due to Myanmar’s democraticand human rights record which the EU viewed as unsatisfactory. EU–ASEAN relations effectively reached an impasse over this issue, as the EUrefused to participate in any initiatives involving ASEAN’s acceding memberstate. However, the ASEM process effectively re–ignited their relations andthe April 2000 EU General Affairs Council approved an arrangement for theBurmese Foreign Minister to participate in EU–ASEAN ministerial meetings,while at the same time announcing a toughening of the EU Common Positionon Myanmar. The wider scope of membership and issues covered by ASEMoffered a means of subsuming this bilateral problem within a broader frameworkand, although this issue continues to simmer, it does not threaten thedialogue itself.The idea that ASEM strengthens the East Asia–Europe side of the three“fundamental poles of the international order” has become a well–usedrationale for East Asia–Europe developments (Pou Serradell 1996, 191;CAEC 1996; Maull et al. 1998, xiv). Thus, the ‘tripolarisation’ of theglobal economy becomes the mantra of ASEM’s advancement, with theresulting reasoning that if ASEM did not exist it would have to beinvented (Dent 1999, 390). Leaders at that first summit discussed a rangeof economic, political and cultural issues, and issued statements makingexplicit reference to the interregionalism represented by the summit itself. 6Not only did this opportunity represent a growth in “confidence andreciprocal understanding ‘between two of the’ most important regions ofthe world”, 7 but developments since 1996 have also “emphasised themutual inter–dependence of [the] two regions, and the value of the ASEMprocess in enhancing Asia–Europe dialogue and cooperation” (EuropeanCommission 2000).Early initiatives were driven in the main by Southeast Asian nations. Itwas, nevertheless, clear from the start that Japan, China and South Koreawould constitute an integral part of the East Asian contingent, since theirparticipation would distinguish the arrangement from those (especially EU–ASEAN dialogue) already in place. This new forum offered ASEAN theopportunity to play a central role in a new international framework: Thailandhosted the first summit, Singapore houses the Asia–Europe Foundation(ASEF), and Malaysia was the recipient of the first major regional project.ASEM also enabled Southeast Asian participants to cooperate alongside
Page 2 and 3: 308 Julie Gilson‘region-to-region
Page 4 and 5: 310 Julie Gilsonand reformed in the
Page 8 and 9: 314 Julie GilsonChina, whose partic
Page 10 and 11: 316 Julie Gilsonrelating to infrast
Page 12 and 13: 318 Julie Gilsonrelations, and deal
Page 14 and 15: 320 Julie Gilson5. Regional Identit
Page 16 and 17: 322 Julie Gilsonoccur, by developin
Page 18 and 19: 324 Julie Gilsonactors of two geogr
Page 20: 326 Julie GilsonShin, D.-I. & Segal

New Interregionalism? The EU and East Asia

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?