The Asia-Europe Meeting

"Focusing on economic, developmental, political and cultural issues in Asia-Europe relations, this book offers a critical assessment of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process since its inception in 1996. ASEM now brings together all twenty-seven European Union (EU) members, the European Commission, sixteen Asian states and the ASEAN Secretariat. The underlying theme of the book is that the ASEM should be analyzed as an instance of international dialogue - in this case, dialogue between two groups of states from two different regions - rather than as a manifestation of two regions acting jointly to perform specific functions at an 'interregional' level. The conclusion is that with the exception of the discussion on the fight against international terrorism and the cultural dialogue, the Asia-Europe dialogue rarely meets the ideal conditions for international dialogue. The way forward proposed by this book in the conclusion involves a new approach combining the European practices of multilevel governance, variable geometry and several speeds." "This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian and European politics as well as comparative politics, international relations, EU external relations and EU-Asia relations."--BOOK JACKET.