1 - Introduction — The Eurasian Space: Far More Than Two Continents

Summary

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) officially established in 1996 is an inter-regional, some say trans-regional, forum that consists of the seven members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, Japan and South Korea and the fifteen member states of the European Union (EU) and the European Commission (EC). The three pillars of the ASEM process, which has so far been loosely organized, include political, economic and socio-cultural dialogue. It is a soft-institutionalized process of consultation and co-operation between states from different regions of the world acting in their individual capacity. ASEM's operating mode is based on informality, mutual respect and mutual benefit. Its scope of discussion and activity is multi-dimensional and encompasses politics, economics, societal, as well as cultural and intellectual exchange. In general the process is considered by all parties involved as a forum for enhancing the relations between Asia and Europe at all levels deemed necessary to achieve a more balanced multilateral world order. In the post-9/11 world and with the war and ongoing instability in Iraq there is ever more reason for Asia and Europe to deepen their co-operation to meet the common challenges of international terrorism, and maintaining a just and stable world order.

This book, The Eurasian Space: Far More than Two Continents, is a sequel to the two books Stokhof and Van der Velde edited respectively five and three years ago: ASEM The Asia-Europe Meeting A Window of Opportunity (London 1999) and Asian-European Perspectives: Developing the ASEM Process (London 2001). In ASEM The Asia-Europe Meeting A Window of Opportunity we took a look at the politicians' and bureaucrats' view of ASEM, the possibilities to improve mutual contact between Asia and Europe while simultaneously trying to delineate the challenges and problem areas and hence map out the future of ASEM. In Asian-European Perspectives: Developing the ASEM Process answers to questions of a more practical nature or views on the process were given: How can the ASEM potential be realized? How can we create a usable ASEM vocabulary and how can we create a Eurasian research culture?