7 - ASEM's Security Agenda Revisited

Summary

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process has been conceptualized by its initiators and proponents in the context of the triangular relationship between the three major regions of the world economy: North America, Europe and East Asia, herein referred to as the new Triad. Relations between Europe and East Asia were depicted as the “missing link” in the new Triad, which ASEM was intended to bridge. The problematic nature of the triangle imagery notwithstanding, right from the outset it was clear that ASEM followed a geo-economic rationale rather than a geopolitical one. As a matter of fact, ASEM got on track with a major economic agenda concentrating on trade and investment issues and a minor socio-cultural agenda covering a broad range of topics. However, this did not preclude ASEM from taking up security issues. As modest as it may have been at the inauguration of ASEM, the security agenda was slowly but surely expanded as ASEM progressed.

The expansion of ASEM's security agenda was mainly a result of major developments and changes in the international system, starting with the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis in July 1997 which undermined the very geo-economic rationale of ASEM and culminating in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and their aftermath, including the war in Iraq in spring 2003, which brought back the pre-eminence of security in international relations after a decade that had been characterized by the primacy of geo-economics. Indeed, the first two ASEM summit meetings reflected the geo-economic rationale of ASEM — ASEM 1 (1996) was held at the height of the so-called East Asian (economic) Miracle, and ASEM 2 (1998) took place in the wake of the (East) Asian Crisis. Security issues were to take greater prominence at ASEM 3 (2000) (with the adoption of a common position on the Korean Peninsula conflict) and particularly so at ASEM 4 (2002) which took place one year after 9/11 and as the war in Iraq was approaching.