We have just emerged from an American century, whatever that means. It could have been a German century had the Allied forces lost the Second World War, or a Japanese century had Hiroshima and Nagasaki been spared the atomic bomb. What happened, of course, happened by the will of Allah. The point is that military superiority was one of the deciding factors in the determination of world power on the cusp of the present millennium.

What about this new millennium? It could be an Asian millennium — and by Asia, of course, Australia is included. For Muslims, there is nothing very special about the new millennium. It will merely continue an arbitrarily defined periodization and pose even greater challenges for Muslims in particular and the world in general. However, Islam could be a unifying force for the entire world, in the sense that it could be used to foster a meaningful relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims. To wield such a force, Muslims must be advanced in all fields.

In this chapter I will discuss the challenges that Muslims face in the new millennium. There is a need to resolve the issue of the reconstruction of knowledge in line with the Islamic vision so that this knowledge can be fully utilized for the needs of the ummah. In Islamic universities this is being achieved by integrating courses on revealed knowledge (such as Fiqh and Usuluddin) with human and physical sciences courses. While being prepared for professional careers, students are also being exposed to the religious vision. Muslim intellectuals were preoccupied with this issue in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The effort to reconstruct knowledge is in line with the need to produce professionals in all fields who are morally upright. There is also a need to reduce friction among Muslims. In this context, the ummah should not be divided by trivial differences, and the ummatic vision should be fully exploited. Moreover, there is a need for non-Muslims to understand more about Islam, which will bring them into a closer and more meaningful relationship with Muslims.

The EU-ASEAN relationship is one of the longest standing group-to- group dialogues in existence, linking the two most firmly established regional organizations — the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Indeed, the launching of the EC-ASEAN relationship, the genesis of which is to be found in the fourth ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in 1971, is seen by many to be “the real date of birth of the group-to-group dialogue”. In 1972 the Special Co-ordinating Committee of ASEAN Nations (SCCAN) was set up in Brussels to focus on matters of trade between ASEAN and the EC, establishing the Community as the first dialogue partner of the Association. A relationship has thus existed between the European Community/Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for more than three decades. It has survived the ending of the Cold War, and has spanned the periods of “old” (agency as the causal factor) and “new” (systemic structure/change as the causal factor) inter-regionalism. Simply, it is the single best example available for empirical analysis of inter-regional relationships, and more specifically for exploration of the deduced functions of inter-regionalism.

In 1989 the world changed. The bipolar conflict of the Cold War era came to an end, and the international system underwent a series of profound transformations, including the relative diminution of the place of nation-states through the process of economic globalization and the increasing transnationalization of international politics. The practical effect has been that regional powers and organizations have proliferated as a means for states to gain greater weight in the international system, and indeed to avoid marginalization, and that in turn the proliferation and increasing importance of such regional arrangements has led to a corresponding growth of dialogues between regions.

The growth in inter-regional dialogue throughout the 1990s and the first years of the twenty-first century has been reflected in an increase in academic interest. In addition to explanatory work on the emergence and functioning of inter-regionalism, this has involved such questions as: what is the value of inter-regionalism in international relations?; and to what extent are inter-regional dialogues useful institutions serving to streamline global governance?

In contrast to other inter-regional co-operation processes in which the European Union is involved (for example, EU-ASEAN, EU-Mercosur) the ASEM process developed an extensive approach to the challenges and perils of our times. This approach is based on two fundamental principles: 1. multilateralism, 2. regionalism. During the eight years of its existence, the co-operation among ASEM participants has become more intense than anybody could have expected in the middle of the 1990s. The thematic diversity of the co-operation is twofold: On the one side ASEM activities are part of the economic dimension of globalization. On the other side the process deals with the socio-political dimension of globalization. Since the dynamics of rising interdependencies are the most challenging aspect of globalization, the ASEM process can be understood as an answer to the challenges of a world which relies more and more on the co-operative interaction of all its inhabitants.

In February the Far Eastern Economic Review depicted the relationship between the People's Republic of China and the European Union as a “love affair” that drives business and trade. After the recent EUnification of Europe on 1 May, it was the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao who visited the European Union as the first major world leader. Was Wen on a sentimental journey? On the occasion of his visit the President of the EU Commission Romano Prodi stated: “Both of us want a multipolar world in which we have many active protagonists. This is a Chinese priority and it is a European interest”.

While the expanded EU will become China's biggest trade partner and a counterweight to United States' influence the United States (U.S.) will remain the “security linchpin for Asia”. Nevertheless, the roles of the European Union and of China as actors in regional and global affairs have changed dramatically in recent years. Moreover, “the general trend in Asia” as Wang Jisi argues, “is conducive to China's aspiration to integrate itself more extensively into the region and the world, and it would be difficult for the United States to reverse this direction”.

On 21 October 2000, Kim Dae Jung, the then president of the Republic of Korea (hereafter South Korea) declared boastfully that third Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) had ended with unprecedented success. In his Chairman's Statement he claimed that all of the twenty-five leaders recognized it as a historic milestone in the evolution of the ASEM process. French President Jacques Chirac, who held then the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union (EU), congratulated South Korea enthusiastically and pointed out that the Seoul meeting had laid a foundation for a balanced development of relations between the world's three major pillars: Asia, Europe and North America. He emphasized that ASEM provided an important momentum towards bringing balance to what he hoped would be a multipolar international system. Kim Dae Jung, reiterated similar remarks in the closing news conference claiming that “through this meeting, Asia and Europe were able to solidify the partnership for prosperity and stability in the new millennium”.

Elsewhere in the South Korean capital, Seoul police congratulated themselves on the handling of the two-day summit, which some had feared could turn into a focal point for anti-globalization protests. There were indeed unprecedented scuffles during several anti-ASEM protests and marches by thousands of students, participants from civil society and trade unionists, watched by thousands of baton-wielding riot police. With the benefit of hindsight it could be said that the parallel summit held along with ASEM 3 marked another historic milestone for the anti-globalization movement. Musing on the ASEM, it could easily be asked: “Is it this country that won the Nobel Peace Prize?” These striking images outside the ASEM venue, contrasted with those within, where leaders were feeling more relaxed to talk about prosperity and stability in Europe and Asia in a festive atmosphere occasioned by President Kim's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, remind us of the contemporary history of South Korea. Authoritarian governments have dominated South Korea since independence in 1945 and human rights concerns were ignored under the name of prosperity and stability for more than twenty-five years.

Accounts of regional co-operation have been provided by a range of scholars from a host of theoretical perspectives. Rationalist approaches tend to focus primarily upon the distribution of material power capabilities and the impact of changing structural conditions and to assess the relative gains to be made through collaboration in order to maximize self interests. However, this chapter adopts a broadly constructivist perspective. In this way, it focuses primarily on the role of ideas and interests in the creation of regional identity and the development of a sense of “we-ness”. In fact, a range of cultural and sociological perspectives in International Relations has opened up an entirely new way of looking at inter-state relations and the formation of international norms and institutions. Indeed, this has permeated some of the rationalist literature, which itself has acknowledged the role of ideas in the formation of foreign policy. Several forms of constructivism take these approaches one step further, by focusing on critical historical junctures from which new structural or institutional arrangements, norms and identities emerge and on interactions between existing structures, institutions, norms and agents. In particular, many constructivist assessments also permit a focus on the mutual constitution of structure and agent, thereby breaking down what are often unhelpful distinctions between an actor and her environment.

Although there are many forms of constructivism and it cannot lay claim to be a coherent body of theory, this chapter draws on the “mainstream” interpretations by scholars like Wendt and Katzenstein, which permit a continued focus on the state, while examining the multi- level identities it may adopt. The constructivist approaches with which this chapter is concerned respond to Katzenstein's observation: “Power politics is now occurring on complex regional contexts that undercut the stark assumption of the international system as unmitigated anarchy and these regional contexts are making possible a variety of processes that put into question some conventional categories of analysis.”

In the run up to the fifth Summit of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Hanoi in October 2004, the issue of ASEM enlargement is taking centre stage. While the Asian ASEM partners insist on a simultaneous enlargement, admitting the three missing ASEAN members, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, at the same time as ten new Member States join the European Union, the Union is prepared to accept unconditionally only Cambodia and Laos but not Myanmar because the EU's Common Position on this country contains sanctions, in particular on the military members of the government.

This problem, which has turned into a question of principle and pride, brings again the question of the nature of ASEM and its role in international relations to the fore. What is ASEM all about, and what functions can it fulfil? ASEM was set up originally to provide a much needed platform for heads of state or government from parts of Asia and Europe to meet and get acquainted during the period of the (East) Asian economic boom. However, ASEM has gradually changed its nature and function in reaction to changes in the international environment.

This chapter attempts to take a fresh look at the role and function that ASEM can usefully play as an inter-regional process in the wider Asia-Europe relationship. Conceptually we can say that ASEM has contributed to multi-level governance in international politics through: Encouraging inter-regional co-operation; promoting intra-regional co-operation and regional identity-building; enhancing or promoting multilateralism.

Concretely, ASEM process has contributed to world governance through: EU acting as a balancing and stabilizing power in East Asia; enhancing the visibility and role of the EU; encouraging multi-dimensional dialogue and co-operation; regime building in specific issue areas; overcoming narrow nationalism; and furthering cross-cultural understanding and mutual respect.

Inter- and Intra-regional Co-operation and Regional Identity Building

It seems natural that the EU should be the champion of inter-regionalism as it has reached the deepest degree of regional integration worldwide.

For Japan, relations with East Asia have been strategically vital, but a difficult agenda in the post-WWII foreign policy. Relations with Europe have also been looked upon as one of the weakest links of Japan-US- Europe triangle that needed further strengthening. In the post-Cold War paradigm change in international relations, ASEM has given Japan a unique opportunity to address these two issues more proactively than ever. Taking into account this unique advantage, Japan has tried to be a positive contributor to ASEM in the last eight years since ASEM was launched.

In this chapter I will attempt to analyze, first, the essence of Japan's East Asian policy, then its European policy, and finally, to examine Japan's participation in the ASEM process and how this has in turn contributed to the re-orientation of Japan's policies towards both Asia and the EU. This includes a look into Japan's efforts in strengthening ASEM's organizational activities, and reaffirming a certain Asian approach on discussions concerning fundamental values such as “human rights”. The paper will conclude with a personal contemplation of the future tasks of Asia-Europe relations from a “Eurasian” perspective.

Japan's Post-WWII Policy towards East Asia

Japan's geopolitical strategic external policy in the post-Meiji Restoration era not only looked towards the East Asian continent but also across the Pacific Ocean. It was through the Korean peninsula, Manchuria and eventually China and Southeast Asia that Japan's sphere of influence spread. It was with the United States (U.S.) across the Pacific Ocean with which Japan fought its fatal war and lost. The continental landmass and the vast Pacific Ocean continued to form the backdrop of post-WWII geopolitical scenery for Japanese foreign policy orientation.

The Cold War overwhelmed the basic paradigm of international relations. Under intense U.S.-Soviet rivalry, the United States became Japan's sole and strongest ally across the ocean. Toward the East Asian continent, Japan gradually became the foremost economic power in the region.

World governance is in disarray as big powers disagree in their worldviews and multilateral organizations (mainly those of the United Nations and Bretton Woods) seem to lack effectiveness in many crucial issues. This gives rise to different alliances and the “coalitions of the willing” that may arouse uneasiness as we are now seeing over the pursuit of “regime change” in Iraq led by the U.S. However, new world regionalism that emerged in the 1980s (defined in part by its openness), and associated inter-regional alliances could become key to decrease anarchy around our inter-dependent, multi-level world. Of course, dynamic states of various shapes and sizes still form the cornerstone of global politics. But regional co-operation agreements have recently increased in such great numbers, scope, and diversity that it would be reckless not to try to accommodate them between a system of states and multilateral organization to improve global governance issues.

Europe and East Asia in the New Regionalism

Europe is often seen as the paradigm of new regionalism. The European Union (EU) regional project, originating in the 1950s among six countries, expanding to 25 over the years in the hope that peace can be further enhanced in the European region. There are inevitably uncertain aspects in such momentous evolution in international politics, but European states always seem to find a solution to move forward. The enlarged European Union is now finalizing a full-fledged Constitutional Treaty to rationalise its institutions and better manage its many internal and external prerogatives in broad political, economic, and social domains. Europe's rapidly evolving regional process has been serving both as a model and a challenge to the rest of the world, and nowadays many other regions are trying to formalize co-operation in a growing number of issues.

At the same time, the East Asian (ASEAN+3) regional process is advancing relatively fast to present an additional or alternative model to the new trend of multi-dimensional world regionalism. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the oldest regional organization in the East Asian region.

The launch of the euro in 1999 generated great interest within Asia. To Asians, the euro is not just a single currency of the European Union (EU) and a milestone of EU's integration. More importantly, many Asians see the euro as a potential stabilizer in the international economic system and are concerned about the impact of the euro on EU-Asia economic and trade relations. Many also believed that the euro as a symbol of EU's success story of integration would have a stimulating effect on their own regional co-operation. This paper specifically examines this latter point — if and how the launch of the euro would impact East Asian regionalism and more specifically, the prospect of East Asian monetary integration in the foreseeable future.

The Euro Effect in East Asian Regionalism

Generally speaking, East Asians were not as skeptical as Americans when the EU embarked on the final stage of its European Monetary Union with the launch of a single currency, the euro. East Asians welcomed the euro basically because of two reasons: the first is that it would be more convenient and efficient for them to do business and travel around the EU countries with a single unified currency; the second is the hope that the euro backed by EU's economic size and strength would eventually become an alternative choice of international currency vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar. This would also allow the East Asians to diversify their reserve currencies presently held primarily in U.S. dollars.

Such desire was clearly reflected in the Chinese Government's announcement, just before the euro became a tangible commodity, that it would increase the share of the euro in its foreign exchange reserve. In China, there was a strong belief in the success of the euro even before its physical launch. There was also a strong feeling that East Asia would benefit from the success of the euro. Since 1998, EU-China trade has increased rapidly.

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.

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?

ASEM's rationale is today well-known. It was intended to fill a “missing link” between Europe and Asia. While trans-Pacific relations were being strengthened in the nineties with the development of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), and transatlantic relations remained traditionally strong, institutional relations between Asia and Europe were still relatively under-developed. Asia-Europe relations were seen as the “weak link” in the context of the new emerging triad of North America, Western Europe and East Asia.

Launched in Bangkok in 1996 between the fifteen member countries of the EU, the European Commission, ASEAN members, China, Japan and South Korea, ASEM has created a new dynamic around a global agenda between the two regions. It has developed a new set of methods of fostering political and economic dialogue as well as intellectual and cultural exchanges. It is structured by a number of principles such as equality, mutual benefits and consensus. Its informality and multi-dimensionality are two of the key features. Moreover, states participate on an individual basis, which makes ASEM different from bloc-to-bloc dialogue such as EU-ASEAN.

Since its creation, ASEM has underlined a number of functions which help states manage their bilateral, inter-regional and multilateral affairs. It has raised the issue of the emergence of new forms of diplomacy between state actors and non-state actors (civil society, firms) as well as between national and regional actors. This new diplomacy adopts a more informal and multi-dimensional approach by involving both public and private sectors. In many ways, ASEM has created a new level of interaction in international relations, just below the universal level (UN for instance), and above the inter-regional level (EU-ASEAN) and regional level (EU).

ASEM is not a typical inter-governmental forum. The process that has emerged from ASEM has been characterized by the notion of trans-regionalism. In the absence of any authoritative definition 6, trans-regionalism is hereby defined as a soft-institutionalized process of consultation and co-operation between states from different regions of the world acting in their individual capacity.

The Japanese occupation of most of Southeast Asia from 1942 to 1945 had a devastating effect on fishing just as it did on most other economic activities. By the end of the war a great deal of equipment — boats, fishing gear, and ice plants — had been destroyed or badly damaged, imports of twine, nets, sail cloth, hooks, wire, and other materials needed for fishing had been cut off, transport and marketing systems had been disrupted, and the purchasing power of consumers had been greatly diminished. There is no direct way of measuring the course of catches during this period, but there are many indicators of the scale of the collapse. According to official statistics, fish landings in Malaya in 1946, when the industry had already begun to recover, amounted to 46,000 tons, as compared to an average of 85,000 tons in 1936–40. The number of trawlers operating in Manila Bay fell from seventy-one in 1940 to two by the end of the war. At Estancia subsistence fishing continued during the war, but commercial fishing came to a halt. Nearby on tiny Botlog Island “fishing activities … experienced a drastic change, since [the people] had to hide from time to time”. At Perupok fishing was severely disrupted, as the Japanese took people away (“the men with promise of work and the women as prostitutes”), paid little or nothing for the fish they wanted and appropriated much of the local rice harvest. The long-distance trade in fish products came almost to a standstill. Exports from Thailand fell from 17,000 tons in 1941 to 26 tons in 1945. The collapse in the long-distance trade meant that consumption of fish in areas such as Java and the west coast of the Malay Peninsula that had long depended on imports fell much more than the drop in local catches would suggest. At the same time the trade in salt, essential for the preservation of fish not consumed immediately after landing, virtually disappeared during the occupation. Exports of salt from Thailand fell from 139,000 tons to 2,000 tons between 1941 and 1945. Presumably the importation of salt from across the Indian Ocean ceased altogether right at the start of the war.