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ABSTRACT
This article addresses how two globally critical regions – Europe and East Asia (especially Northeast Asia) – are transforming their relationship as an international system defined by multipolarity emerges from the unraveling of the liberal international order. This transformation includes increased trade, developing strategic partnerships between the EU and selected East Asian states, nascent EU-ASEAN inter-regional cooperation, and more diplomatic through-put among East Asian states and their EU and member state counterparts. This article examines the question of how Europe is performing its own ‘pivot/rebalance’ to East Asia (specifically Northeast Asia) in terms of trade, diplomacy, and security. In turn, the question arises as to how receptive East Asian states have been to this European overture. First we cover the path of how we have arrived at the historical juncture in which the EU is ‘pivoting/rebalancing’ to East Asia (specifically Northeast Asia).
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Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Obviously there are additional factors, notably the economic rise of emerging economies and recent major military capability improvements by China, India, and Russia.
2. Obviously the ‘liberal’ aspect of the world order has been inconsistently practiced, by both the US and Europe, and (obviously) by authoritarian regimes such as China.
3. Europe refers both to the European Union (EU) and selected member states, particularly those with a significant foreign policy profile in East Asia (e.g., France, the UK (still a member state as of time of writing), Germany, Sweden). This reflects the fact that the EU operates its own foreign and international security policy, albeit underpinned by member state commitments. Member states obviously have independent foreign, security, and defense policies, but they often choose to channel those policies through the EU (obviously there is also sometimes policy conflict between the EU and member states). Thus both practically and conceptually the foreign and security policies of the EU and its member states are intertwined such that analyzing them completely separately is misleading. Hence this article frequently refers to ‘Europe’ as an object of foreign and security policy analysis. Europe as analytical object denotes both the aggregated (yet disambiguated) actions/policies of the EU and its member states, as well as the intertwined actions/policies in which they engage (intertwining that is inherent in the EU as such). Nonetheless we disambiguate EU from member state policies when it is clear to which referent a specific policy is attributable. For analysis of tension between EU and member state foreign policy, see: Simon Citation2017.
4. We discuss both Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia as components of East Asia. For a discussion of the concept of Southeast Asia, see: Emmerson Citation1984; Kuhonta, Slater, and Vu Citation2008.
5. Authors’ compilation.
6. Authors’ interviews with relevant senior officials.
7. The BRI represents opportunity and risk. The EU desires potential trade gains, but fears China’s ability to use the BRI as a wedge to divide EU member states on important political/security issues.
8. European Commission (Eurostat) Citation2018b.
9. European Commission Citation2018c.
10. European Commission Citation2018c.
11. Authors’ interviews with senior EU officials.
12. The empirical method is expert practitioner surveys and interviews (N = 21 (a convenience sample)), focusing especially on high-ranking diplomats (with remits for EU-South Korea relations) from the EEAS and the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), policy-makers at the European Council, and security officials/advisors at the South Korean executive office (the ‘Blue House’). The interviews, which followed a structured format of identical survey questions for interviewees followed by discussion (for respondents willing to take extra time), were carried out in person or by email from December 2017 to November 2018. Please see appendix (or contact authors) for survey form with text of standard questions and tabulated responses.
13. The EU, of course, has no military, and territorial defense is not an EU competence.
14. Relative gains vis-à-vis other states and regions are also important, and relatively speaking the EU is no worse off in its relations with China than the US.
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Notes on contributors
Mason Richey
Mason Richey is Associate Professor of International Politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
Sukhee Han
Sukhee Han is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University and former South Korean Consul General in Shanghai, China.
Jangho Kim
Jangho Kim is Associate Professor of International Relations in the Division of Language and Diplomacy at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.