11 AUGUST 2001
BERLIN, GERMANY
ICAS 2 Panel Report
Building a Future for ASEM
During ICAS 2,
held at the Free University of Berlin from 9 to 12 August 2001, a panel
on 'Building a Future for ASEM' was convened by Wim Stokhof (IIAS, director)
and Paul van der Velde. The panel began with Prof. Stokhof giving a brief
introduction to the genesis of ASEM and its current state of play. He
claims ASEM is now at a crossroad. Interest in ASEM is waning. There is
a growing feeling that for the ASEM process to be sustained, it has to
go beyond the official and political level to involve the civil society.
There should also be more bottom-up initiatives and less of the top-down
directives.
* By YEO LAY HWEE
During the panel, Paul van der Velde also gave a short presentation of the book that he co-edited with Wim Stokhof: Asian-European Perspectives Developing the ASEM Process. This book can be said to be the sequel to their first book The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) A Window of Opportunity that was published in 1999. Two younger scholars, Sebastian Bersick, MA from the Free University of Berlin, Germany and Yeo Lay Hwee, MA from the National University of Singapore (NUS), who have just completed their PhD dissertations on the subject of ASEM each gave their short presentation on the ASEM process.
In her presentation of ASEM, Yeo Lay Hwee emphasized the
multiplicity and multi-dimensional characteristics of ASEM. She personified
ASEM as a creature with three different faces, and what you see depends
on where you stand. From the realist's standpoint, ASEM is simply an inter-governmental
diplomatic forum with its focus on summit diplomacy. From the perspective
of a liberal institutionalist, ASEM could be seen as a cooperative regime
if we defined regimes broadly as 'social institutions' created to facilitate
cooperation. Social constructivists, by contrast, look at the prospects
of ASEM serving as a regional integrator, helping to engender greater
intro-regional cooperation among the Asian ASEM members, and contributing
towards the building of a regional identity in East Asia.
Sebastian Bersick, in his paper on 'The ASEM Process
Results and Prospects of an Inter-regional Approach to International Relations',
focused on the discussion as to whether the concept of inter-regional
dialogue or forum could be accurately applied to the ASEM process. He
traced the emergence of inter-regional approaches as an additional layer
of policy making in the international system, and explained the development
of ASEM as part of this emerging trend. The impact of ASEM, in turn, on
the prospects of an inter-regional approach to international relations
was also examined in greater depth.
Different aspects of ASEM were touched upon by the discussants.of
a distinguished panel comprised of Wang Gungwu (Director of the East Asian
Institute, NUS), Alfredo Robles Jr (De La Salle University), Rudiger Machetzki
(University of Hamburg), and M. Subhan (European Institute for Asian Studies,
Brussels).
Being a historian, Wang Gungwu looked at Asia-Europe relations
from its historical perspective and noted that Asia-Europe relations has
been based on a series of bilateral ties for centuries, especially during
the heydays of the colonial period. Even in the post-colonial era, relationships
remain essentially on a bilateral basis. To transcend this bilateralism
to a multilateral inter-regional dialogue like ASEM is a big leap forward,
and hence fraught with difficulties, particularly because of the jealously
guarded notion of nation-states and national interests.
Rudiger Machetzki emphasized the fact that trade and investment
figures disclose a sound basis for a closer Asia-Europe partnership. Beyond
economics, there is also an array of topics that can be placed on the
agenda of the Asia-Europe meetings. Progress, however, will be slow and
one should not have excessive expectations for what the ASEM process can
achieve in a short span of time.
Alfredo Robles Jr focused on an area of Asia-Europe cooperation
that could have potential impact in the international arena. The Asian
financial crisis has brought Asia and Europe closer together on the need
to reform the international financial architecture. Joint studies have
been undertaken and some recommendations have been made. The establishment
of the ASEM Trust Fund to help the countries seriously affected by the
Asian financial crisis is another concrete feature of ASEM cooperation
that deserves to be highlighted.
M. Subhan highlighted the role of the European Commission
in the ASEM project. He took a more narrow approach and looked at ASEM
from the perspective of individual actors in the European Commission and
touched on how policies could ultimately be influenced by the parochial
or petty interest of officials and the interpretations they made of the
Commission's policy towards ASEM.
During the discussions that followed, other issues, such
as the role of the media, the widening of the ASEM process to include
the NGOs, and the possibility of a Social Forum as proposed by the ASEM
People's Forum in Seoul, also surfaced. In conclusion, while there are
different interpretations of the ASEM process, most people in the panel
believe strongly in the need and importance for continued dialogue between
Asia and Europe. One theme that emerged clearly throughout the panel discussion,
and was emphasized by most participants, is the importance of engaging
the civil society and making ASEM relevant to its people. *
Yeo
Lay Hwee, MA is a Research Fellow at the Singapore Institute
of International Affairs