The EU's Two-tier Interregional Diplomacy In East Asia After The Cold War

Interregionalism is a new phenomenon in international relations, as well as a new research field for international studies. EU is the earliest pioneer, the widest practitioner and the most proactive promoter for interregionalism. After the Cold War, the interregional arrangements between EU and East Asian countries were ASEM and EU-ASEAN regime. Due to the fact that ASEM, with highest level for summit, was a dialogue forum between EU and Asian States including those both from Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, while EU-ASEAN regime was a kind of dialogue and cooperation at minister's level, therefore, EU-East Asia interregional relations were filled with two-level characteristic. This dissertation aimed to discuss ASEM and EU-ASEAN regime which seemed overlapped, whether and to what extent, made contributions to the EU's regional strategy in Asia and its foreign policy goals at global level, in order to explain and understand EU's specially two-level interregional diplomacy towards East Asia, by constructing a so-called selective shaping approach of EU's interregionalism strategy, utilizing the concepts of interregional influence and intraregional leadership.The Dissertation argued, the co-existence and parallel operation of ASEM and EU-ASEAN regime did not mean institutional redundancy. On the one hand, each of them had their independent value to be there. For the EU, ASEM, with its advantage over the wide covering of membership, could help EU open the market in East Asia as broad as possible, and increase EU's weight in multilateral international fora. With the emphasis on their shared values in terms of regional integration, in particular the assistances and supports from EU to ASEAN, EU-ASEAN regime could not only help EU enter into the market in Southeast Asia as much as possible, but also help EU achieve the goals of peace and stability in Southeast Asia, and assure the security even in East Asia and Asia Pacific region vie ARF. On the other hand, ASEM and EU-ASEAN regime were complementary to each other as well as promoted by each other.The second aspect of the values mentioned above could be understood on two dimensions:for the one thing, in terms of political levels, ASEM provided EU-ASEAN regime with the highest-level guidelines and dynamics, while EU-ASEAN regime offered ASEM the institutionalized ways and means to implement its follow- up activities; For the other thing, in terms of geographic levels, ASEM met the requirement from EU to contact East Asian countries in interregional ways, but for the relative equality and balance both in terms of power and interdependence between EU and East Asia as a whole, EU's interregional influence on East Asia faced great challenges, which was amplified in the context of ASEM's informal nature. Against this background, the role played by EU-ASEAN regime was to give a necessary basis for the EU to show its interregional influence with support of its power advantage.However, more importantly, due to the rapid progress of ASEAN integration and ASEAN's leadership role in the process of East Asian regional cooperation, EU-ASEAN regime met the requirement from ASEAN for the experiences of European integration, which strengthened ASEAN's intraregional leadership in the affairs of regional cooperation in East Asia, and facilitated the EU's intervention within ASEAN's integration project, which advanced EU's interregional influence on ASEAN, meanwhile foresaw a potential for EU to place its interregional influence indirectly in the framework of ASEM, on the basis of ASEAN's intraregional leadership. In this sense, the impact of ASEM on EU-ASEAN regime would be that, it promoted both ASEAN's intraregional leadership and EU's interregional influence on ASEAN, by the means of involving China and Japan in the existing regional cooperation process in East Asia and excluding U.S. outside of the Asia-Europe interregional dialogue forum.It was further pointed out, the above roles played and values owned by ASEM and EU-ASEAN regime on EU's external strategy as well as its foreign policy were all reflected more or less in EU's regional strategies towards Asia and its concrete policies for ASEM process and EU-ASEAN relations. Of course, it did not follow that, from the very beginning, EU found all the possibilities and feasibilities in a clear and comprehensive way. Instead, EU's recognition on the two interregional arrangements was formed with the developments and changes in international system and regional context, which was a process for strategy transformation and policy adjustment. However, the practice of EU's two-level interregional diplomacy had not yet achieved completely what the EU expected. EU and ASEAN did need each other, but ASEAN also hoped to balance the EU's influence. With the enlargement of ASEM, ASEAN's intraregional leadership also faced serious challenges. Form this point, EU's two-level interregional diplomacy towards East Asia remained to be seen in near future.