Shaping new relationships

The interaction between European and Asian nations during the 1970s and 1980s has often been viewed as a ‘secondary relationship’ of limited global importance. However, since 1989, serious shifts in diplomatic and economic interests have forced a reappraisal. In particular, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of March 1996 went well beyond a merely rhetorical exercise and signaled a new interaction between the European Union nations and a group of Asian states including the ASEAN countries, Japan, China and South Korea. This Asia-Europe dialogue may give some nations such as China greater leverage in relation to the United States during the short term, but in the long run represents a fairer and more stable burden-sharing by stake-holders in the global system. If this process continues, it will represent an emergent ‘new trilateralism’ between East Asia, Europe and North America. Of pressing concern, however, is whether this process can begin to incorporate adjacent regions such as South Asia, Russia and Central Asia in a new civilizational dialogue.