ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) and East Asia have frequently been cited as two equal poles of a new global trade triangle and yet the relationship between these two regions has been historically very weak. Even in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis, for example, the European Commissioner responsible for the euro, Yves Thibault de Silguy, made it clear that the ‘Asian contagion’ would not affect Europe; indeed, he implied that this was a crisis brought about by crony capitalism in a distant part of the world. For much of the 1990s, then, and culminating with that crisis, the EU position could even be construed as representing nothing less than ‘the imposition of a reformulated Western orthodoxy on the east’ (Richards and Kirkpatrick 1999: 704). Yet, within a year or so of the crisis unravelling, there were significant changes in tone from the European Commission towards East Asia, promises of greater assistance to resolve the crisis and a bolstering of trade between the two regions. This apparent deepening of relations between Europe and East Asia during the mid-to-late 1990s needs to be considered in the context of a number of different factors, all of which will be explored during this chapter. Thus, while the multiple effects of globalization played an important role in changing trade imperatives and, in particular, in highlighting the prominence of a growing East Asian economic bloc, and while the effects of the ending of the Cold War were still being felt in terms of reshaping inter-state behaviour within and between the two regions, more subtle influences were also important. These include the role of history in the mutual relations of Europe and Asia; the changing nature of both the EU and East Asia as ‘actors’ in the global arena; new institutional frames for engagement; and the rise of civil society in both regions. All of these factors have to be taken into consideration in any analysis of contemporary Europe-Asia relations, and globalization in its many forms cannot be regarded as the only significant reason for which Europe and Asia have started to take one another seriously.
