New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations: Navigating an Assertive China and a Retrenching U.S. 3030686310, 9783030686314

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New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations Navigating an Assertive China and a Retrenching U.S. Edited by Bibek Chand · Lukas K. Danner

New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations

Bibek Chand · Lukas K. Danner Editors

New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations Navigating an Assertive China and a Retrenching U.S.

Editors Bibek Chand University of North Georgia Oakwood, GA, USA

Lukas K. Danner University of Iceland Reykjavík, Iceland

ISBN 978-3-030-68631-4 ISBN 978-3-030-68632-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Bibek would like to dedicate this book to his parents, Durga and Mohan Bahadur Chand, and his late uncle, Mohan Bahadur Pande. Lukas would like to dedicate this book to his cherished grandparents, Anneliese and Karl Dollinger, and Frieda and Karl Danner.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the Miami-Florida Jean Monnet Center of Excellence for organizing the annual two-day EU Conference which in 2019 was titled “The Rising Importance of EU–Asia Relations” and culminated in this book. Very special thanks go to the center’s Director, Markus Thiel, and Associate Director, Christine CalySanchez. We also thank all of the chapter contributors, the editors at Palgrave Macmillan, and peer-reviewers for their contributions, input, and feedback—seeing this edited volume to publication. Finally, we thank our mentors, colleagues, families, and friends for their extensive and unwavering support.

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Contents

Part I 1

The Rise of European-Asian Relations

Introduction Bibek Chand and Lukas K. Danner

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Part II Europe & East Asia 2

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The EU as Pivotal Player in the Growing China–U.S. Conflict Yves Tiberghien

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Making Sense of the EU–China Relations: Partners and Rivals Wei Liang

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Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Free Trade Agreements with European States in an Age of U.S. Protectionism Lukas K. Danner

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Part III 5

Europe & Southeast Asia

The ASEAN–EU Relations and the ASEAN Regional Integration Siremorn Asvapromtada

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CONTENTS

An Analysis of EU Free Trade Agreements and Negotiations with Southeast Asian Countries Bibek Chand and Lukas K. Danner EU–Southeast Asian Relations: What Lies Ahead? Katja Weber

Part IV 8

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The European Union’s Impact in South Asia: Norms or Geopolitics? Tamanna Ashraf The COVID-19 Pandemic: Crisis and Opportunity for a Different Approach to EU–Afghanistan Migration Management Sylvia Maier

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The Future of European-Asian Relations

Conclusion Bibek Chand and Lukas K. Danner

Index

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Europe & South and Central Asia

EU–India Relations and New Political Realities: Normative Convergence and Its Implications for Shared Strategic Concerns Bibek Chand

Part V

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Notes on Contributors

Tamanna Ashraf is an Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University. Her dissertation focused on water security and hydro-politics between India and Bangladesh over their shared rivers. Her research interests include South Asian politics, water security, hydro-politics, international relations, and environmental studies. Her current research project scrutinizes terrorist attacks on dams in South Asia after 9/11 until 2018 to explore the inextricable links between water nationalism, development, and security. Additionally, she is researching the EU’s opportunities to promote digital water infrastructures in Africa. Siremorn Asvapromtada is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Florida International University. Her research interests include foreign policies and regional international organizations. She has taught International Relations at the Department of Political Science at Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand. Bibek Chand is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of North Georgia. His research interests include Sino–Indian interactions in Asia, international relations of small states, security studies, the emerging notion of the

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Indo-Pacific, and geopolitics. He has published in the Journal of Borderlands Studies, Strategic Analysis, Asian Politics & Policy, and Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies. Lukas K. Danner is Fulbright-NSF Arctic Research Scholar at the Center for Arctic Studies, Institute of International Affairs, University of Iceland. He is also Research Associate at the Miami-Florida Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, Florida International University, and Honorary Research Fellow at the East Asia Security Centre, Bond University. Lukas is the author of China’s Grand Strategy: Contradictory Foreign Policy? (2018). His research interests include security studies, environmental politics, small states, foreign policy, and geopolitics of Europe, Asia, and the Arctic. Wei Liang is Gordon Paul Smith Professor of international policy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. She specializes in the international political economy of East Asia, international negotiation, and global governance. Sylvia Maier is Clinical Associate Professor in the Center for Global Affairs at New York University where she directs the MSGA Concentration in Global Gender Studies. Her principal fields of expertise are gender and migration, women’s rights in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the Gulf States, where she has taught and conducted extensive field research, feminist urbanism, the legal responses to honor-based violence against women, and the role of monarchies in global affairs. She has spoken extensively and published on these and related subjects. Her co-edited book EU Development Policies: Between Norms and Geopolitics was published in 2019. Yves Tiberghien (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2002; Harvard Academy Scholar 2006; Fulbright Scholar 1996) is a Professor of Political Science and Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. He is Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and at the University of Alberta’s China Institute. Yves’ works specializes in global economic and environmental governance, with an empirical focus on China, Japan, Korea, and Europe. His books include The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox (2021), L’Asie et le Futur du Monde (2012), Leadership in Global Institution-Building: Minerva’s Rule (2013). He is working on articles and books on China’s role in global governance.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

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Katja Weber is Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. Her research interests center around institutionbuilding in Europe and Asia-Pacific, sovereignty-related and human rights norms, non-traditional security challenges, and German foreign policy. She is the Author of Hierarchy Amidst Anarchy: Transaction Costs and Institutional Choice (SUNY Press 2000), co-author (with Paul Kowert) of Cultures of Order: Leadership, Language, and Social Reconstruction in Germany and Japan, (SUNY Press 2007), and has published a number of articles in the Journal of European Integration, Journal of European Public Policy, International Studies Quarterly, Issues and Studies among others.

Abbreviations

ACFTA AD ADMM-Plus AEC AECBP AEMM AI AIIB AMASO APRIS ARF ARISE ASEAN ASEM BASIC BJP BRACE BRI BRICS CAA CAI CAPD CEAS CEE CEEC CETA

ASEAN–China Free Trade Area Anti-Dumping ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus ASEAN Economic Community ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint ASEAN–EEC Ministerial Meeting Artificial Intelligence Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Afghanistan Migrants Advice and Support Organization ASEAN–EU Program for Regional Integration Support ASEAN Regional Forum ASEAN Regional Integration Support Program Association of Southeast Asian Nations Asia–Europe Meeting Brazil, South Africa, India, China Bharatiya Janata Party Balochistan Rural Development and Community Empowerment Belt and Road Initiative Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa Citizenship Amendment Act Comprehensive Agreement on Investment Cooperation Agreement on Partnership and Development Common European Asylum System Central and Eastern Europe Central and Eastern European Country Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement xv

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ABBREVIATIONS

COP COREPER COVID-19 CPEC CPR CSDP DSM EAC EAS EASO ECHO ECJ ECSC EEC EFTA EP EPA E-READI ERF EU EU-27 EU-28 EUSFTA EUSIPA EVFTA FATA FDI FOIP FTA G2 G20 G7 GAMM GATT GDP GHG GPPI GSP HADR IAI IDPs ILO

Conference of the Parties (United Nations Climate Change Conference) Committee of Permanent Representatives (EU) Coronavirus Disease 2019 China–Pakistan Economic Corridor Committee of Permanent Representatives (ASEAN) Common Security and Defence Policy Dispute Settlement Mechanism Euro Area Constituency East Asia Summit European Asylum Support Office European Community Humanitarian Office European Court of Justice European Coal and Steel Community European Economic Community European Free Trade Association European Parliament Economic Partnership Agreement EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument European Refugee Fund European Union European Union of 27 Member States European Union of 28 Member States EU–Singapore Free Trade Agreement EU–Singapore Investment Protection Agreement EU–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement Federally Administered Tribal Areas Foreign Direct Investment Free and Open Indo-Pacific Free Trade Agreement Group of Two Group of Twenty Group of Seven Global Approach to Migration and Mobility General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gross Domestic Product Greenhouse Gas Global Public Policy Institute Generalized Scheme of Preference Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief Initiative for ASEAN Integration Internally Displaced People International Labor Organization

ABBREVIATIONS

IMF INF IOM IPCC JCC JWF LDC LEGCO LIO LMC M&A MDB MERICS MFA NAFTA NATO NDB NDC NPT NTS OECD PCA PESCO PPP PRC RADA RCEP READI ROK RSS SAARC SAR SCS SDG SEA SOE SOM TAC TCN TFEU TPP TPP-11

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International Monetary Fund Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty International Organization for Migration Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Joint Cooperation Committee Joint Way Forward Least Developed Country Legislative Council (Hong Kong) Liberal International Order Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Merger and Acquisition Multilateral Development Bank Mercator Institute for China Studies Multifiber Agreement North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organization New Development Bank Nationally Determined Contribution Non-Proliferation Treaty Non-Traditional Security Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Partnership and Cooperation Agreement Permanent Structured Cooperation Purchasing Power Parity People’s Republic of China Reintegration and Development Assistance in Afghanistan Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Regional Europe–ASEAN Dialogue Initiative Republic of Korea Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Search and Rescue South China Sea Sustainable Development Goal Southeast Asia State-Owned Enterprise Senior Officials Meeting Treaty of Amity and Cooperation Third-Country National Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union Trans-Pacific Partnership Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

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ABBREVIATIONS

TREATI TTIP TVET UN UNCLOS UNESCO UNFCCC US USMCA WoT WTO

Trans-Regional EU–ASEAN Trade Initiative Trans-Atlantic Treaty on Investment Protection Technical and Vocational Education and Training United Nations United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United States United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement War on Terror World Trade Organization

List of Tables

Table 10.1 Table 10.2

Asylum applications in the EU-28 by Afghan nationals (2015–2020) Forced returns of afghan nations by EU-27 (2015–2019)

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PART I

The Rise of European-Asian Relations

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Bibek Chand and Lukas K. Danner

The contemporary international political arena offers unique opportunities and challenges for European–Asian relations. The rising nationalist attitudes across the world coupled with decreased American presence on the world stage under the former Trump administration is a new political landscape of global governance. Even with the Biden administration attempting to engage again in multilateral diplomacy, much damage has been done and states in both Europe and Asia have been reassessing their positions in the international political arena. The United States (U.S.) under the Trump administration increasingly presented severe challenges for the stability of international norms of governance that have been embedded since the end of World War II. From diplomatic spats with longtime North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies such

B. Chand (B) University of North Georgia, Oakwood, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. K. Danner University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_1

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as Germany and Denmark, to increased tensions with China over trade, the Trump administration’s diplomatic endeavors presented challenges for long-established international norms. Additionally, Asia has gained rising importance on the world stage, which also entails closer interconnections with Europe. In an age of receding American global leadership and reduced commitments to its European allies, the EU and its member states have increasingly become more open to seek and consider new partnerships. The rising economic prowess of Asia has made it of particular interest for European states. This edited volume highlights this emerging trend in international relations, including bidirectional interactions in the fields of political economy, development, environmental policy, security, diplomacy, and interinstitutional relations. Special focus shall be on potential challenges and opportunities in the bidirectional interactions between European and Asian states and institutions. Within the context of this changed international political environment, the states in both Europe and Asia are poised to embark on new arenas of engagement. Trade and climate change remain extremely important topics, which the Trump administration had shown little interest in tackling through multilateral and intergovernmental endeavors. Rather, Trump had actually been the trigger of an overtly fought trade war with China, raising tariffs such as on aluminum and steel on China and others, including long-term allies—ushering in a renewed protectionist agenda and increasing nationalism on the part of populist governments. And the Biden administration has actually maintained the main stances on China in principle—with the exception that the approach would be different from Trump. Partially as a sign of resistance to this protectionist–nationalist agenda, states in both Europe and Asia have generally shown signs of willingness to engage with each other, as is apparent with the case of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) spearheaded by China. While many Western Europe states have not signed on to the BRI, a significant number of member states of the EU are a part of it.1 As for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a significant portion of the EU is a part of it.2 Thus, European states, to varying degrees, are part of China’s large-scale infrastructure projects that seek to create a Eurasian trade route recreating the old Silk Road that linked the two continents. Furthermore, this edited volume is unique for multiple reasons. First, compared to the existing literature, this edited volume is innovative in the way that it analyzes the most recent manifestations of European–Asian

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relations and contextualizes these in the changed international environment that resulted from the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump and his eventual election to one term. Though Donald Trump was a one-term-president, we argue—along with many, if not most, scholars— that the fundamental direction of U.S. retrenchment is more sticky and will have long aftershocks even with Biden trying to reverse much of it. Europe and Asia will have learned that the U.S. is not a completely reliable partner anymore that you can count on no matter what. Additionally, a 2024 presidential campaign of Donald Trump or a candidate vetted by Trump is not completely unthinkable. The example of the Trump presidency leaving the Syrian Kurds to the mercy of Erdogan’s Turkey after they were had fought ISIS, resulting in the escape of over 180,000 people and the death of many, exemplifies the fact that America’s word is not what it was. Not much has been published on European interactions with China’s BRI or the AIIB—not just in Asia but also China’s activities in Eastern and Southern Europe, including in EU member states such as Italy, Greece, or Hungary. And much the same could be said about the other cases in the edited volume and their topicality. Second, this edited volume does not insist on one theoretical line of international relations as the one and only truth but aims to employ a holistic and pragmatic framework and analysis, relying on empirical case studies for the most part: We do this because of our conviction that most—if not all—international relations theories are based on European (or generally Western) history and an imposition on Asia and Europe–Asia Relations would be Euro-centric and does not fit anymore in this time and age. Finally, because the edited volume’s chapters from contributors deal with events from the relatively recent past (apart from one chapter with a more historical perspective), it is extremely timely and policy-relevant. In essence, this edited volume contributes to the understanding of European–Asian relations not just through the narrow lens of China’s rise or increasing American withdrawal from international commitments. While a majority of recent literature has emerged that deals with the relations between China and the EU/Europe, this volume extends a broader scope. The chapters in the volume use a comprehensive approach wherein European–Asian relations are addressed by emphasizing these interconnections in a wide variety of Asian states, yet still being mindful of the rise of China and its potential impact on the relations of Asian and European

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states. Thus, the chapters in the volume cover European–Asian interactions within the contexts of American withdrawal from international commitments and the rise of China in the international system. The chapters in this edited volume enable a better and more holistic understanding than previously held accounts of current Chinese interactions with Europe and within the context of Europe’s relations with other Asian nations. Therefore, the findings are also very policy-relevant for U.S. policy toward Asia as well as Europe on the global stage, as well as for European and Asian nations and their foreign policies toward each other. What is more, the general conclusions of this edited volume add nuance to the general North–South relations studies as well as the debate about the future course of global governance and, in particular, free trade.

Historical Background The states of the two continents interacted in varying capacities and degrees. The ancient Silk Road connected the heartland of Europe with all of Central Asia into the eastern shores of China on land and via the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca on sea. This trade linkage resulted in exchange of ideas and goods. These linkages led to the exchange of not just spices, fine porcelain, textiles, grain, vegetables and fruits, animal hides, tools, woodwork, metalwork, religious objects, artwork, and precious stones but also culture and customs to some extent (UNESCO, 2020). Trade routes meant that roads also developed that connected people of diverse religious, social, and cultural backgrounds. Religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity travelled with the merchants who frequented the Silk Road, leading to the bidirectional exchange of ideas between Europe and Asia. While the interactions during the medieval era along the Silk Road indicated bidirectional exchange of ideas, the European colonization endeavors in Asia largely led to the unidirectional imposition of European ideas and institutions. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the earliest colonization efforts in Asia were led by the erstwhile maritime powers Spain and Portugal. Eventually, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (U.K.), and France also made headway into the region colonizing different parts of South, Southeast, and East Asia. The colonial experiences in Asia shaped the state formation processes in a diverse array of countries in the region such as India, Pakistan, Indonesia to name a few examples. Yet, it also left behind historical memories tied to

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colonial subjugation and colonial atavisms lasting to this day, such as Kashmir which marks an unresolved remnant of the partition of British India. Next to colonial experiences, weaponized conflict between Europeans and Asians was also not uncommon for the nineteenth and early/mid-twentieth centuries. The First and Second Opium Wars between Europeans and China are likely the most infamous among these which led to the so-called “Century of Humiliation” and the historical memory of subjugation, partial colonization, and humiliation in the eyes of the Chinese. But also, the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905, which—unlike the Opium Wars and against the strain of the imbalanced pro-Western trend at the time—had an ambitious Asian imperial power as the emergent victor. The end of World War II and the subsequent decolonization of a majority of the European colonies ushered in a new era in international politics. Yet, at the same time, the constraints of the Cold War made European–Asian interactions largely driven by the bipolar international system and the resulting competition between the two superpowers, i.e., the U.S. and the USSR and their alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, respectively, in addition to allies in Asia. India was one of a few standout nations which attempted to embody a third bloc—besides the liberal-democratic capitalist West or the socialist–communist East, while most other nations in Asia found themselves invariably on either the East or West side of the alliances: North Korea, Communist China, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, the Central Asian republics (as part of the USSR), and others as Soviet allies, versus South Korea, Japan, Republican China (Taiwan), British Hong Kong, Portuguese Macau, South Vietnam, the Philippines, and others as Western allies of the U.S. and Western Europe. These linkages did not just play out on the military or political levels but also in economic and trade dimensions and people-to-people relations. Thousands of Vietnamese would become guest workers in Communist East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, which stands as just one example of European–Asian relations during the Cold War. The end of the Cold War marked a significant capitalist and democratic turn in Asia, too, resulting in new independent nations in Central Asia, and the previous European city-colonies of British Hong Kong in 1997 and Portuguese Macau in 1998 rejoining the Chinese mainland as Special Administrative Regions—despite an intermittent ice age between Europeans and Communist China due to the 1989 Tian’anmen Square Massacre in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Increasingly throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, Communism as the “common foe” was

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replaced with that of transnational and non-state actor threats such as terrorists, climate change, pandemics, cyber threats, and the like, in which Asians and Europeans found themselves on the same side much more so than on opposing ones in times past. This changed international environment has fostered a context wherein states from both continents have sought to increase bilateral links. The explosive growth of the economies of Asia coupled with a receding American role in the international arena contributes to the need and want of growing European–Asian relations. This new context is not a unidirectional process where states in Europe maintain agency toward relations with states in Asia or vice versa. This volume argues that states in Asia and Europe are acutely aware of the current challenges and opportunities. As such, European–Asian relations cannot be examined without the understanding that states in both of these continents have used their agencies in varying degrees when interacting with each other. Some smaller states may not be able to do so given their constraints in capabilities. Nevertheless, the challenges in security, economy, and the environment continue to foster a dynamic interactive space for both Asian and European states. Thus, this volume examines these dynamic interactions through the lens of bidirectional interactions between European and Asian states.

Literature Review Though the number of edited volumes on Europe–Asia relations has been rising, there is currently only a small body of books in the market that describes the most recent interactions between the two continents, especially what concerns the recent onset of American isolationism and increased European–Asian interactions as a consequence. Another gap this edited volume is filling is that it does not confine itself to just China or India but sees Asia more comprehensively in terms of interactions with Europe and vice versa. Generally, there is also an overfocus of recent publications on China’s BRI as well as an overfocus of Europe in Asia (especially concerning development and foreign aid) rather than also highlighting Asia in Europe. The Impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative by Garlick (2020), Belt and Road Initiative: Interregional Cooperation between Asia and Europe by Rong (2016), The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road: Challenges and Opportunities by Zou et al. (2020), as well as Mapping China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ Initiative by Xing (2018) all deal with European relations

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with Central Asian states for the most part as a reaction to BRI. What differentiates these volumes from the one that is proposed here is that we are taking the increasing American isolationism on the international stage as the main impetus for increased European–Asian relations rather than the BRI of China. Another very important difference is that the focus of our volume is not just on China or on development and foreign aid but also on economic relations, normative impact, human rights, among other conceptual topics. And, our book sees European–Asian relations not as single-directional from Europe to Asia but as bidirectional Asia to Europe and Europe to Asia. The European Union in the Asia-Pacific: Rethinking Europe’s Strategies and Policies by Song and Wang (2019), The EU in a Trans-European Space by Giusti and Mirkina (2019), and Democracy Promotion and the Normative Power Europe Framework by Neumann (2018) all suffer from the same single-directional focus of Europe’s relations with Asia in Asia. In addition, these books focus on the EU’s relations rather than also taking into account single European nations’ relations to individual Asian nations. Perhaps only Inter-regional Relations and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM ) by Gaens and Khandekar (2018) come close to the proposed volume in terms of a balanced, holistic image of bidirectional relations between Europe and Asia. However, the single focus of this book is one particular meeting format, i.e., the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), which is to say that it makes it extremely specific. EU -ASEAN Relations in the twenty-first Century: Strategic Partnership in the Making by Novotny and Portela (2012) is another comprehensive book on EU–ASEAN relations but once again, the scope is through the framework of those two regional institutions. Opposed to that, we aim at a more comprehensive picture of European–Asian relations in this volume. The Palgrave Handbook of EU -Asia Relations by Thomas Christiansen et al. (2013) also offers a bidirectional perspective on relations between European and Asian states. However, the European lens is through the EU. Given that the book was published in 2013, it does not cover the recent developments in gradual American withdrawal from international commitments. China, East Asia and the European Union: Strong Economics, Weak Politics? by Halbertsma and van der Harst (2016) also offer bidirectional perspectives but once again, the European side is represented by the EU while only the subregion of East Asia is included in the Asian side.

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Based on this analysis of similar or competing edited volumes in the market, it is apparent that a clear gap exists in the empirical analysis of the most recent developments in the international community. As such, this volume fulfills the need to include the U.S.’s isolationism as well as the recent updates in the BRI andto the dynamic bidirectional relations between European states (including the EU) and the states of Asia.

Key Questions Regarding European–Asian Interactions Each of the following chapters analyzes relations between states in Europe and Asia within the context of an increasingly isolationist, disengaging American superpower that is progressively acting more actively against global free trade, environmental sustainability, and orderly global governance. In that context, the contributors analyze the extent to which the recent foreign relations between Asia and Europe are a consequence of this global but mostly unilateral trend or how past relationships could be explained and re-evaluated in the changed international environment that Europeans and Asians now find themselves in—either as partners or competitors. Similarly, the authors explore the challenges and opportunities for European–Asian relations in this new global order. All the while, certain themes underline these key questions in the analyses, namely the rise of China and the coincident decline of the U.S. as well as the trajectory in global leadership for each of them. The chapters address the multidimensional implications of the rise of China in the subregions of Asia, particularly the opportunities and challenges for European-Asian relations. The chapters focus on addressing the following key themes: • The future of free trade and the roles that Europe and Asia play in advancing it. • The future direction of global governance and norms. • The role of Global North–Global South relations within the backdrop of the historical colonial legacy of European states in large parts of Asia.

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Chapter Preview The rest of the volume is divided into three parts given the enormity of Asia: Europe & East Asia, Europe & Southeast Asia, and finally, Europe & South and Central Asia. This initial chapter is followed by Part II: Europe & East Asia which includes three chapters that highlight the interactions of European and East Asian states. In Chapter 2: The EU as Pivotal Player in the Growing China-U.S. Conflict by Yves Tiberghien, the author discusses the rapidly changing EU–China relations in the larger context of a changing global order. In this chapter, Tiberghien raises the question of how the EU will find a way to defend its interests and values in the growing tensions between the U.S. and China as they are engaged in contentions such as the trade war, technology war, security confrontation and American pushbacks against the BRI. Tiberghien argues that the EU is adopting a triple approach which incorporates multiral reinforcement, Cold War avoidance, and complex balancing. These approaches promote a middle road approach, which seeks to cooperate with China on a range of topics while also seeking U.S. support to constrain dimensions of China’s policies or actions that are considered threatening. In its analysis, Tiberghien incorporates contrasting cases of development initiatives such as the BRI, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the AIIB, trade, and climate to delineate the emerging role of the EU. He also highlights the impact of internal constraints and fragmentation on the EU’s international posturing. In Chapter 3: Making Sense of the EU -China Relations: Partners and Rivals, Wei Liang explores the evolving EU–China relationship, including their areas of cooperation and contentions. The EU realizes China’s growing international economic influence yet issues related to divergent global values such as human rights complicate bilateral relations. Liang’s chapter analyzes the progression of China as both a strategic partner and a systemic rival of the EU, including the implications for current and future of the EU’s China policy. It incorporates three case studies pertaining to issue areas related to the bilateral EU–China relations: the global climate change talks, the BRI, and the AIIB. These three cases are discussed within the framework of this research question: what are the factors that have accounted for the EU’s policy choices toward China in the past decade? The cases illustrate how the EU and China cooperate and share co-leadership in global climate change negotiations yet there

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are fundamental imbalances and conflicts of interest in trade and investment relations. Overall, Liang’s chapter highlights the dynamic nature of EU–China relations in a rapidly changing international political context. Part II on East Asia will conclude with Chapter 4: Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Free Trade Agreements with European States in an Age of U.S. Protectionism. In this chapter, Lukas K. Danner will take a look at the consequences of an increasingly disengaging U.S. and its impact on global free trade. Unilateral actions by the U.S. such as tariffs on aluminum and steel—while having had a significant impact to cool down global economic growth—have also had a side effect: bringing European and East Asian nations closer together as champions of free trade. Free trade agreements between the two continents have seen higher activity after the former Trump administration took office in those cases where they existed prior (such as the Korea–EU FTA) but also affected ongoing negotiations positively to bring them to signature (such as the Japan–EU FTA) or re-invigorated negotiations (such as the China–Norway FTA). Danner’s chapter analyzes the bidirectional trade relationship between Europe and East Asia and the role it will play for global trade and economic growth at large. Following next, Part III will be concerned with bidirectional relations between Southeast Asia and Europe and mainly focuses on the two important supranational organizations in the two regions, i.e., the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU), respectively. In Chapter 5: The ASEAN -EU Relations and the ASEAN Regional Integration, Siremorn Asvapromtada analyzes the relations between the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) and the EU, which have recently been upgraded to the level of “Strategic Partnership.” Asvapromtada sets the focus of her analysis on whether the gradual development of stronger relations has actually also translated into wider and deeper cooperation on projects. Further attention is given to how ASEAN engages with the EU and China, carefully partaking in opportunities from both players. Asvapromtada also discusses the current challenges faced by EU–ASEAN relations and how the strengthening of ties between the two organizations is contributing to greater integration within ASEAN. In the following chapter, Chapter 6: An Analysis of Free Trade Agreements between Southeast Asia and the EU by Bibek Chand and Lukas K. Danner, the FTAs between the EU and four Southeast Asian states, namely Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand are discussed. The

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successes of the EU–Singapore and EU–Vietnam FTAs are articulated in comparison to the ongoing talks between the EU and Indonesia and the stalled negotiations between the EU and Thailand. The authors discuss the strategic importance of the FTAs vis-a-vis Southeast Asia’s extensive economic links with China and the concerns surrounding the retrenchment of the U.S. While Asvapromtada, Chand, and Danner take a look at past and present of select aspects of European–Southeast Asian relations, Part III (Southeast Asia) Chapter 7: EU -Southeast Asian Relations: What Lies Ahead? written by Katja Weber discusses the trajectories of EU– Southeast Asian relations in a changing international environment. She specifically contextualizes the predicament that Southeast Asia finds itself in—squeezed in-between a more assertive China and the growing uncertainty surrounding U.S. role in the Asia-Pacific. Given extensive investments of the EU and its member states in recent decades, Weber finds that the EU may be in a position to build onto existing relationships in the economic, security, and political realms. Her chapter assesses the responses of six Southeast Asian states, namely Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia, to the changed international order concerning the U.S. and China. Part IV of the book is about European–South & Central Asian relations. In Chapter 8: EU -India Relations and New Political Realities: Normative Convergence and its Implications for Shared Strategic Concerns by Bibek Chand (University of North Georgia) highlights the historically convergent democratic norms of the EU and India and how this convergence is increasingly serving as a lynchpin for their growing strategic commonalities. Chand analyzes the impact of three recent developments in the region on EU–India relations: the rise of China in South Asia, the implications of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India, and the prospects for EU–India relations in an era of decreasing American commitments to multilateralism under the former Trump administration. He argues that these developments have contributed to a convergence in India–EU strategic concerns and the shared democratic norms have become an increasingly important foundation to foster closer strategic cooperation. In Part IV (South & Central Asia)/Chapter 9: Norms or Geopolitics: The European Union’s Impact in South Asia, Tamanna Ashraf (Florida International University) analyzes the normative dimension of South Asian–EU relations. She argues that despite the recent internal political

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and economic upheavals which have created uncertainty about the EU’s future as a global player, the EU’s geopolitical and normative power in South Asia remains intact. In this chapter, she focuses on three states, namely, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, highlighting the challenges and opportunities that the EU faces in these South Asian states. Specifically, Ashraf focuses on three areas within which the EU has undertaken activities and policies in the three South Asian states: security and strategic relations, economics and trade, and non-military issues and human rights. Part IV (South & Central Asia)/Chapter 10: The COVID-19 Pandemic: Crisis and Opportunity for a Different Approach to EU Afghanistan Migration Management by Sylvia Maier (New York University) offers a critical sketch of the migration policy between Afghanistan and the EU and its repatriation of Afghan nationals. Maier argues that the COVID moratorium of the forced repatriation of Afghans or their “voluntary” return migration from Europe should be made permanent, and that the pandemic crisis should be taken as an opportunity for the European Union and its member states to rethink their migration policy approach to Afghanistan. She emphasizes the importance of focusing on the establishment of a formal—and realistic—work visa regime, increasing local capacity building efforts via the existing EU Migration Partnerships. Maier also adds that when borders reopen post-pandemic, a regional approach should be undertaken, focusing on the Gulf States and, possibly, Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors to counterbalance Russia, which already has a large investment presence in the countries and seeks to solidify its political presence there. We conclude the edited volume in Part V/Chapter 11: Conclusion (by the editors) discussing the implications of the findings of the edited volume for the global order, free trade, North–South relations, and international alliances in context with America’s decline and China’s rise. The central focus here will be the role that Europe—including the EU—is to play in a newly shuffled global order and how foreign affairs with Asia will develop going forward considering the aforementioned key themes around which the chapters were written. The results of the edited volume certainly suggest that, when it comes to interactions with Asian powers, European nations (and in particular the EU) aim to hold steadfast to their liberal norms, especially individual human rights but also free trade, privatization and deregulation, the promotion of which does not always make for an easy or natural relationship. However, in the current international situation, it will be likely for Europe to seek to increase its engagement

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with Asia even further—not least for trade reasons. Insofar, this chapter offers a positive outlook into the future of global peace.

Notes 1. EU member states also part of the BRI include Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal, and Italy. For more information, see South China Morning Post (2019). 2. This includes major states such as the UK, Germany, France, and Italy. For more information, see Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (2020).

References Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. (2020). Members and prospective members of the bank. Asian infrastructure investment bank. https://www. aiib.org/en/about-aiib/governance/members-of-bank. Accessed 15 July 2020. Christiansen, T., et al. (Eds.). (2013). The Palgrave handbook of EU-Asia relations. Palgrave Macmillan, UK. Gaens, B., & Khandekar, G. (Eds.). (2018). Inter-regional relations and the AsiaEurope Meeting (ASEM). Palgrave Macmillan. Garlick, J. (2020). The impact of China’s belt and road initiative: From Asia to Europe. Routledge. Giusti, S., & Mirkina, I. (Eds.). (2019). The EU in a trans-European space: External relations across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan. Halbertsma, T., & van der Harst, J. (Eds.). (2016). China, East Asia and the European Union: Strong economics, weak politics? Brill. Neumann, M. (Ed.). (2018). Democracy promotion and the normative power Europe framework. Springer. Novotny, D., & Portela, C. (Eds.) (2012). EU-ASEAN relations in the 21st century: Strategic partnership in the making. Palgrave Macmillan. Rong, X. (2016). Belt and road initiative: Interregional cooperation between Asia and Europe. World Scientific. Song, W., & Wang, J. (Eds.). (2019). The European union in the Asia-Pacific: Rethinking Europe’s strategies and policies. Manchester University Press. South China Morning Post. (2019, April 26). How China is looking beyond borders. South China Morning Post. https://multimedia.scmp.com/news/ china/article/3007692/belt-and-road/index.html. Accessed 10 June 2020. Accessed 18 May 2020.

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UNESCO. (2020). About the silk roads. UNESCO. https://en.unesco.org/sil kroad/about-silk-roads. Accessed 15 July 2020. Xing, L. (Ed.). (2018). Mapping China’s ‘one belt one road’ initiative. Palgrave Macmillan. Zou, K., et al. (Eds.). (2020). The 21st century maritime silk road: Challenges and opportunities for Asia and Europe. Routledge.

PART II

Europe & East Asia

CHAPTER 2

The EU as Pivotal Player in the Growing China–U.S. Conflict Yves Tiberghien

Introduction The European Union was built gradually since 1950 through a process of expanding circles of issue areas and members. It started with targeted economic issues, before expanding to the full economy, including agriculture, trade, services, and by 1992, finance and freedom of movement. This gradual creation of a zone of free movement of goods, people, and capital embedded within an expanding web of common rules and a spirit of community was always conceived as a common space in the pursuit of internal prosperity and peace. It operated under the umbrella of the U.S.led liberal international order, including U.S.-led security guarantees with NATO (Ikenberry, 2001, 2011). By the 1990s, the EU ventured into a common currency and the crafting of a foreign economic policy, along with attempts at a foreign policy in targeted areas. Throughout those milestones, the EU followed a functional problem-solving strategy in a

Y. Tiberghien (B) University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_2

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benign strategic environment. It never developed an ability to concentrate power as leverage, except in trade relations. In hindsight, the 1990s and the early 2000s were the heydays for the EU’s global influence. Sometimes by pulling their efforts as states and sometimes by delegating a degree of coordination to European institutions, Europeans gradually created and projected a new normative and institutional identity abroad (Kagan, 2003; Laïdi, 2008; Rifkin, 2004; Wallace et al., 2005). They successfully managed to advance global institutions, together with partners such as Canada and Japan, at a time when the U.S. started to lose interest (Tiberghien, 2013). In particular, the EU played a dominant role in shaping the global climate regime until Copenhagen in 2009, the global biosafety regime linked to genetically modified organisms, and global biodiversity rules (Falkner, 2000, 2006; Schreurs & Tiberghien, 2007; Telo, 2005; Tiberghien, 2009; Vogel, 2001, 2002). The EU was increasingly appearing as a global regulatory superpower. The EU also played an increasingly preeminent role at the WTO. However, even in those days of high influence for the EU, strategic foreign policy, such as relations with the three big powers (the U.S., China, and Russia) was never delegated to the EU, nor successfully coordinated among major EU countries. The waves of enlargement toward Central and Eastern Europe in 2004 and 2007 aggravated these difficulties by increasing the diversity of positions among member states. For the EU, the global environment dramatically changed with the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the rise of China, and the return to great power politics in the 2010s (Tiberghien, 2013). In the wake of the 2008– 2009 global financial crisis and the subsequent Eurozone crisis, the EU no longer faced a stable liberal international order, where U.S.-led hegemonic stability guaranteed the security order and the structural rules of the global economy, while the EU had space to advance global institutions, rules, and norms to complement this basic structure. Instead, the EU now faced geopolitical tensions, buyer’s remorse on the part of the hegemonic architect, and the rise of new systemic risks. After Xi Jinping took power in November 2012, China also continued its ascendency, became an increasingly proactive builder of global institutions, while taking a stronger position against liberal political values. Following the election of Donald Trump, in November 2016, the EU faced full-scale disruption in the global order on which it had staked its own advancement and international footprint. In the years 2017–2020, the EU faced a growing social contestation of globalization (including

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the Brexit crisis), a U.S. power turning against all global institutions of the postwar order and taking harsh economic positions against the EU, an increasingly hardening Chinese regime, and the gradual onset of an ever-accelerating U.S.–China Cold War. These geopolitical tectonic shifts happened on the backdrop of an accelerating climate crisis and the onset of a new technological revolution, the digital and artificial intelligence transformation. This chapter focuses on the rapidly changing EU–China relation in this larger context of a global order in turmoil. The EU faces a bundle of opportunities and challenges premised on a three-part equation. First, the U.S.–China confrontation has placed the EU in a pivotal position as the potential arbitrator of the future global order. Second, by turning against nearly all global economic and environmental global institutions that the EU highly prizes and which China supports, the U.S. under former President Trump has pushed the EU to expand cooperation with China. Core pillars of this cooperation include common support for the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism (and the G20), the Paris climate agreement (as well as the Convention on Biodiversity and GMO regulations), and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. The final and most surprising step in that sequence was the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) between the EU and China reached in late December 2020, in the waning days of the Trump administration. Third, by hardening its political repression and increasing its challenges to the U.S.-based security system that the EU supports, China is presenting a heightened level of risk to the EU. Such tensions and risks have increased with the aggressive Chinese diplomatic response to COVID-19 and the imposition of new security law in Hong Kong implemented in June 2020. The key questions raised in this chapter are the following: how is the EU managing this new pivotal position in a larger U.S.–China geopolitical struggle that is not of its making? I call this the paradox of strategic positioning . As the EU transitions from a stable and rather benign global order to a disrupted period of power competition for the future order, can it find a way to defend its interest and values? And what does it entail? I argue here that the emerging European response is a triple approach: multilateral reinforcement, Cold War avoidance, and complex balancing. First, the EU is seeking to advance a middle road focused on buttressing the existing global multilateral order and strengthening existing ties with international G20 partners and beyond, substate actors, think tanks, business, and civil society actors around the planet. The Berlin Global

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Solutions Summit and Paris Peace Forum have emerged as leading poles for this work on effective multilateralism (Alexandroff et al., 2020; Tiberghien, 2019; Tiberghien et al., 2019). Second, the EU has sought in 2017–2020 to avoid being pushed into taking sides between the U.S. and China, fearing the risk of entrapment by its U.S. partner, that would be detrimental to its interests and would also ensure a collapsing rules-based order. Whether that positioning remains viable under the Biden administration will be intensely tested. Third, the EU is attempting to pursue complex balancing, under which it cooperates with China on a range of global institutional priorities like climate change despite U.S. opposition in 2017–2020, but seeks U.S. support on other priorities to contain the more threatening dimensions of China’s power or economic policy. This strategy, essentially elaborated in a historic March 2019 document and subsequent elaborations by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, represents a significant upgrade relative to traditional EU behavior. However, it is also a highly vulnerable strategy that may not yet have reached the point of sustainable equilibrium. Indeed, with its slow internal evolution process, it is highly vulnerable to the increasing acceleration of world events and titfor-tat interactions between the U.S. and China, and the actions of either the U.S. or China. As well, it is beset by a great diversity of internal views and lack of intra-EU unity. These vulnerabilities could prove critical, given that complex balancing requires leadership, resilience, and unity of purpose over time. These are the concerns expressed by both Emmanuel Macron and Josep Borrell in 2020. For example, in February 2020, Borrell wrote: The geopolitical upheavals we are witnessing today underline the urgency with which the European Union must find its way in a world increasingly characterized by raw power politics. We Europeans must adjust our mental maps to deal with the world as it is, not as we hoped it would be. This is a world of geostrategic competition, in which some leaders have no scruples about using force, and economic and other instruments are weaponized. To avoid being the losers in today’s U.S.-China competition, we must relearn the language of power and conceive of Europe as a top-tier geostrategic actor. (Borrell, 2020)

The acceleration of world events and the U.S.–China geopolitical confrontation may require the EU to concentrate and use power. Without

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such power, the EU will not have the necessary leverage to protect its interests and vision. Yet, the EU was not designed as a global power and will struggle greatly in generating power. The rest of the chapter proceeds through five sections. Section “A Dangerous New Context: Global Order Disrupted and U.S.–China Confrontation” introduces the age of disruption and the impact of the U.S.–China conflict for the global order and the EU. Section “Three Great Dilemmas for the EU” provides the framework to understand the EU’s dilemmas with China. Section “The March 12, 2019—EU Strategic Communication on China and Partial Hardening” offers first an empirical analysis of the EU’s approach toward China after the Global Financial Crisis, particularly in the G20, with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Paris Agreement. Special attention is given to the 2019 strategic moment with the elaboration of the 4-part approach to China and subsequent additions. The section contrasts policy applications to WTO cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). I finally offer an early evaluation of EU–China relations in reactions to COVID19, including managing the World Health Organization and the Hong Kong crisis in May 2020.

A Dangerous New Context: Global Order Disrupted and U.S.–China Confrontation From a historical perspective, we are living through extremely volatile years, which combine disruptive global change and a great power transition. Over the last five years, we have seen both elements of cooperation (agreement at the UN around the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, G20 cooperation, etc.) and elements of confrontation (trade, security conflicts, investment regulations, cyber regulations, human rights). In this context, the stakes for Europe and China are extremely high. The coming years will decide whether we still have a common global economic order (including a World Trade Organization) and peace. The survival of the seventy years of prosperity and global peace under postwar institutions hangs in the balance. The current perfect storms include five major features. First, four decades of ever broader and deeper globalization have generated overall prosperity, but also growing inequalities between urban and rural areas, between capital owners and wage earners, and between generations

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(Baldwin, 2019; Dervis, 2016; King, 2017; Kuttner, 2018; Milanovic, 2016; Rodrik, 2011; Stiglitz, 2012; Tiberghien et al., 2018). The 2008– 2009 Global Financial Crisis played an accelerating effect by generating deep anger at the asymmetric treatment of Wall Street and Main Street (Tooze, 2018). By generating a sense of displacement and disempowerment for many in the developed world, globalization played a key role in triggering an identity crisis that partially led to the Brexit vote and U.S. election of 2016 that led to Donald’s Trump election (Fukuyama, 2018). In countries where public policies did not buttress the impact of globalization on society through infrastructure, education, health systems, and redistribution, a backlash against the whole project of globalization followed. Second, the particular acuteness of this crisis in the U.S. and the adroit exploitation of the grievances of the white labor class in middle America by Donald Trump led to the formation of the most revolutionary U.S. administration in a century. The Trump administration gradually turned against every global institution that underpins the liberal international order and which was created by the U.S. or inspired by its initial spirit—most of which is now being attempted to be rolled back by the Biden administration. These included the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the G20 and the G7, the World Health Organization (in 2020), the Paris Agreement on climate, regional trade agreements (such as the TPP and NAFTA), and all arms control treaties going back to the 1970s. Given the profound commitment of the EU to those institutions and the enmeshed nature of the global rules-based order with the EU constitutional order, the U.S. switch was traumatic. It seemed to call in question a century of a common European–American search for an international order based on law, norms and institutions (Hathaway & Shapiro, 2017). China was also caught flat-footed by the U.S.’s dramatic turn. Although China seeks to reform global institutions and gain voice in them, its exponential growth of the last decades took place within this U.S.-led order and thanks to the stability of that order. China fundamentally supports global economic and environmental institutions of the liberal international order. As well, the U.S.-led trade war against China, but also Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Europe, Southeast Asia, India, Brazil, and many others constitutes the biggest unraveling of the post-1944 stable trading order. In 2016–2020 we saw signs of a return to a nineteenth-century world of nations and might-is-right. The Biden

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administration has positioned back the U.S. in support of multilateralism, albeit with a very skeptical view on free trade. Third, we are also living through the great power shift in over a century. Between 2000 and 2018, the share of the global economy represented by advanced democracies (OECD countries) decreased from 82 to 61% in nominal dollar terms (and 44% in PPP terms) (World Development Indicators, 2019). The share of the emerging and developed countries as a whole increased from 18 to 39%. The share of China went from 4 to 16%. Of the near 21% gain for emerging countries, the biggest share (12%) went to China (which increased from 4 to 16% of global GDP). Significant increases also went to India (+2%) and Southeast Asia (+2%), while the rest is shared more widely. Shifts of this magnitude are disruptive. Power shares in global institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank still follow the old distribution. In a longer time perspective, China and India are actually returning to the position they always held for 2000 years as anchors of the global economy (representing 50–60% of global GDP from 0 to 1800). Of course, economic GDP shares are just one dimension of power. When it comes to military power or global currency or even domination of global university ranking, the U.S. still dominates. Yet, it also means that global rules and institutions cannot be set by the G7 club of advanced democracies any longer. The future global order will depend on negotiations between large advanced democracies and large emerging countries. In the 2010s, Europe has embraced this dialogue and fostered many initiatives to engage with rising elites from the emerging world, including China. This is particularly true of Germany. In 2017–2020, announcements of a U.S.-led decoupling between the U.S. and China have dominated world news. For Europe, however, it is also crucial to watch the massive trends of recoupling within Asia as a whole. As noted by policymakers and scholars, the subregions of Asia (Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia) are increasingly being recoupled by massive investment and trade linkages (Calder, 2019; Frankopan, 2019; Khanna, 2019; Tonby et al., 2019). As a result, they are rising together and now represent 60% of world growth. Will Europe turn its back to Asia or join its growing integration in a massive Eurasian– African economic zone? For the first time since the early 1800s, the world is getting more diverse, less Western, and more multipolar. Fourth, we are facing increasingly acute global systemic risks that result from the complexification of our interdependent economy, technological

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advances, and our hitting planetary boundaries. No systemic risk is more intense and more sensitive in Europe than climate change. According to IPCC data, we are on course to cross the 1.5°C average temperature increase threshold in the early 2030s and to unleash a litany of catastrophic weather changes, storms, droughts, and floods unknown to our modern age that will likely lead to collapse of countries and threaten democratic governance (Borrell, 2020, April 30; Haass, 2017; Wagner & Weitzman, 2015; Wallace-Wells, 2019; Wennersten & Robbins, 2017; Xu et al., 2018). We have at most two decades to transform our economic models to green economies. For Europe, this may well be the number one global priority. The greatest source of progress in recent years has come from China, and EU–China cooperation over climate is indispensable for any progress. Fifth, world expectations are increasingly transformed by the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, including digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI). This AI and the digital revolution will greatly affect the distribution of winners and losers and has triggered a more acute competition between the U.S. and China. The EU has lagged many technological advances but has played a key role in advancing global cyber rules. The combination of these five historical shifts has created a world of great fluidity and change. It calls for urgent collective management and reforms to the global governance architecture in a way that is more socially and environmentally aware. At the same time, the rapid power shifts also generate an intense competition for the rules of the game and control of global institutions. Whoever shapes future global institutions and networks will have an advantage. The battle has particularly heated up between the U.S. and China, with the U.S. choosing to undermine existing institutions, rather than let China benefit from them. Future institutions will result from the strategic interactions among core players. Rapid changes and disruptions also create uncertainty and have pushed people to seek comfort in domestic narratives and focal points (Akerlof & Snower, 2016; Shiller, 2019). These focal points have a dangerous side effect: by creating parallel interpretations of events, they generate great misperceptions about the actions of other countries. These forces provide the backdrop for recent interactions between Europe and China. At a broad level, the former Trump administration brought Asia (including China) closer to Europe and vice versa, but deep obstacles exist. The EU–China CAI in December 2020 was the quintessential result of this Trump-induced rapprochement. However, the

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Chinese authoritarian turn in domestic governance, including in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, as well as its outward security moves in the South China Sea are exerting a great counterforce in EU–China interactions, especially within public opinion, the European Parliament, and key national parliaments. In October 2018, the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Brussels provided an interesting lens to read these forces. The shrewd Prime Minister Lee Hsien-Long of Singapore observed that the EU was torn between the U.S. and China, frustrated by both, and searched a path forward. Asked about their mood, PM Lee said he sensed the Europeans were anxious. “They also have a lot of business with China, at the same time America is crucial to them. It’s not just a big economic partner, but a treaty ally for the NATO members. How do they manage both relationships and stay friends with both?” he said. “They don’t really want to be forced to go one way or the other, just as we don’t want to be forced to have to choose sides.”1

Three Great Dilemmas for the EU Under the former Trump administration and the hardening of the Xi regime in China (albeit in official support of multilateralism), the EU entered a paradox of strategic positioning within a difficult strategic triangle. Of course, EU–U.S. relations are built on decades and centuries of human ties, common political values, common security interests, and very deep diplomatic ties. At the same time, the essence of the EU project has entrenched the EU behind a deep belief in multilateralism, global institutions, and a normative-legalistic approach to world affairs. Trump’s turn against these objectives generated a profound crisis in EU–U.S. trust. This turn of events pushed the EU toward Asia and China and created a new strategic opportunity for EU–China relations. At the same time, this push was highly paradoxical: as the U.S. turned against the liberal international, illiberal China became a key partner for the EU to defend the rules-based economic and environmental international order. This situation of recent years has presented three great dilemmas to the EU.

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The European Dilemma with Trump’s America: Turning Against the Rules–Based International Order The essence of the EU’s dilemma is that it stands for two core priorities and that these priorities are now at odds with each other. First, the EU stands for a community of democracies supporting human rights and embedded in a U.S.-centered security alliance. Second, the EU stands for multilateralism as its core DNA and for global cooperation to address top systemic risks such as climate change, pandemics, poverty, racism, and human rights. The EU associates this second priority with the concept of rules-based international order, a term first used by Australia under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2008,2 and later adopted by the EU, Canada, and others. For example, the EU worked hard and succeeded in having the term rules-based international order included in the G20 declaration in Buenos Aires on December 1, 2018 (paragraph 5).3 The problem, of course, is that this expression focuses on a set of international rules, norms, and institutions centered on the UN in almost a constitutional sense. But it has never fully existed as Mearsheimer eloquently argues (Mearsheimer, 2018, 2019). American scholars of the international political economy tend to refer to the label of Liberal International Order (LIO), defined by Ikenberry as a “fused order” combining elements of hierarchy (U.S. hegemony) and elements of constitutional limits (Ikenberry, 2011). For him, the LIO relies on “strategic understandings and hegemonic bargains” (Ibidem, p. 2). In terms of the typology of international orders, this post-WWII version of the LIO is a combination of hierarchical order and constitutional order, with a “loose system of multilateral rules and institutions” (Ibidem, p. 7). In other worlds, the LIO has always relied on a benevolent America as the enforcer of last resort for this order. Rule violation by America in its deadly struggle with the USSR as part of the Cold War could be tolerated (with regrets) by partners. But American partners always believed in its commitment to advancing higher goals. Under Trump, this fused order at the heart of European beliefs was in full-blown crisis, as the U.S. dropped any pretense to stand for global rules. Realist policy analyst Robert Kagan writes: “the United States starts to look more like a rogue superpower than a nation defending any order of any kind” (Kagan, 2018, p. 138). In other words, the U.S. has

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suddenly turned against its own creation across the board, creating a huge case of schizophrenia for the EU in dealing with its core value partner. Furthermore, as the Trump administration embarked on a long series of threats against the EU or Germany and launched tariffs targeting the EU, the American change of heartbecame personal and costly. The list of European grievances with the U.S. from 2017 to 2020 was getting longer by the day and included: • The American trade war against the EU; • The American de facto dismantling of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body in December 2019; • The increasing securitization of high technology; • The advocacy of national interests and patriotism at the UN General Assembly (against globalists); • The exit from the Paris agreement on climate change and dismantling of U.S. climate policies; • The dismantling of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and active use of secondary sanctions to force European firms to follow suit; • The active threats against the International Criminal Court; • The dismantling of global arms control regimes; • The support for authoritarian regimes in Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and, initially China; • The strong doubts against NATO and Article 5 (on mutual security); • The gutting of the G7 and of the G20 (with the emblematic harsh confrontations with Chancellor Merkel at the G7 and G20 in 2017, and with Merkel, Trudeau and Macron in 2018); • The withdrawal from and financial gutting of the WHO in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020; • The gutting of international norms on migration; • The regular threats of use of (massive) force with North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, and others. As Macron put it in his interview with The Economist in November 2019: The United States remains our major ally, we need them, we are close and we share the same values. I care a lot about this relationship and have invested a great deal in it with President Trump. But we find ourselves for

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the first time with an American president who doesn’t share our idea of the European project, and American policy is diverging from this project. We need to draw conclusions from the consequences. (…) So, firstly, Europe is gradually losing track of its history; secondly, a change in American strategy is taking place; thirdly, the rebalancing of the world goes hand in hand with the rise—over the last 15 years—of China as a power, which creates the risk of bipolarisation and clearly marginalises Europe. And add to the risk of a United States/China “G2” the reemergence of authoritarian powers on the fringes of Europe, which also weakens us very significantly. This re-emergence of authoritarian powers, essentially Turkey and Russia, which are the two main players in our neighbourhood policy, and the consequences of the Arab Spring, creates a kind of turmoil.

In other words, the EU is facing an ultimate nightmare: the creator of the rules-based order that is so foundational to the EU order turns into its destroyer. Despite a long common history, trust is deeply affected, and concrete solutions must be found to solve global problems without the United States, and in fact against the United States. The depth of European disappointment in the U.S. was exemplified by shifts in public opinion during the pandemic of 2020. In May 2020, the Pew Institution reported that only 37% of Germans felt that their country should be close to the U.S., versus 36% saying that the country should be close to China.4 Similar or worse polls have been reported in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The European Dilemma with China’s Approach to the Liberal International Order China’s approach to the LIO is mixed and complex. While it does not espouse the political dimension of the LIO vision (democracy and civic political human rights), it supports global economic and environmental governance, as well as the UN-based order (Brown, 2018; Johnston, 2019; Mazarr et al., 2018; Ren, 2012; Tiberghien, 2018; Wolf, 2019). This generates a great paradox for the EU: is China emerging as the new partner in advancing the multilateral order, despite its authoritarian nature? China is a particularly challenging partner for the EU in its quest for buttressing the rules-based international order, due to the high degree of dissonance in its behavior.

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First, China offers a globalist face to the EU and to the world. Xi has made very convincing speeches at Davos in 2017 and around the world on the win-win nature of globalization and the necessity for all countries to work together in multilateral venues to manage this globalization. China supports the UN and is a highly regarded contributor to UN Peace-keeping missions. China is a partial convert to the global economic and environmental order and has a good track record in the G20, on climate change since 2014, on the implementation of the convention for biodiversity (CBC, including Cartagena protocol and Nagoya protocol) (Tiberghien, 2017, 2018). China played a positive role in the agreement at the UN for universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and has been a strong advocate ever since. China has supported the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism and has had a good track record in implementing rulings its lost, despite the larger dispute with the U.S. and other countries on the issues of state capitalism, subsidies, and intellectual property rights (Blustein, 2019). As an example, China joined with the EU, Canada, India, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, and Turkey in filing an initial complaint against U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum at the WTO on October 19, 2018. In early 2020, China surprisingly joined the EU and 17 other nations in accepting a system of mandatory mediation to replace the WTO dispute settlement that the U.S. destroyed. Of course, the China–EU understanding on global economic and environmental governance does have caveats around issues of non-reciprocity in market access, the size of state economy in China and of course the clash around the UN Law of the Sea ruling regarding the South China Sea. China has also refused to join the International Criminal Court or support Responsibility to Protect norms, both strongly advocated by the EU. Second, there is the hardening authoritarian regime of Xi Jinping in China (Economy, 2018; McGregor, 2019; Minzner, 2018; Shambaugh, 2016). Under Xi, space for social contestation and university freedom has shrunk, lawyers have been arrested, and party control has gone more high tech. political crackdown has reached new level with the massive internment of up to 1 Million Uighurs in Xinjiang and the series of hard decisions on Hong Kong since August 31, 2014, culminating in the June 2020 implementation of a sweeping new security law on Hong Kong through the Beijing National People’s Congress, rather than the Hong Kong-based Legislative Council (LEGCO). The question for the EU becomes: can the EU trust China when political values are different

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and when the political evolution of China is going in the authoritarian direction? Finally, the EU faces a third side of China abroad, namely that of a rising power pushing its diplomatic advantage wherever possible. China has been very successfully in leveraging its developing country status in the WTO since 2001 to justify non-reciprocal access for trade and investment, causing a growing disruption in European economies. China raised alarm bells in Europe when it took over an advanced German robotics company, Kuka, in a move that could not have been possible for a European company in China. Even more crucially, China has been advancing an old-style divide and rule approach in Europe by developing its own engagement with Central and European countries (some in the EU and some non-EU members), dubbed 17 + 1 (formerly 16 + 1), although Lithuania announced its departure from the group in February 2021. That has allowed China to develop a cozier relationship with countries such as Hungary or Serbia and gain leverage within the EU, in a move that the EU has found offensive. In recent years, the 17 + 1 issue has been a powerful irritant in relationships.5 European diplomats also report frustration toward the dissonance between multilateralist diplomats on the one hand and security officials engaging in spying or infiltration on the heels of such diplomats. Similar concerns have been raised by Europeans around BRI advances in Eastern Europe. In sum, how should the EU reconcile these three incompatible faces presented by China? Can the EU build trust with China on the basis of the common commitment to multilateralism and find ways to neutralize the other two dimensions? Dealing with the U.S.–China Confrontation Finally, the EU was forced to consider the enormous collateral damage of the worsening U.S.–China interaction during the Trump administration. As the two sides escalate an increasingly bitter trade war, a cyber war (and a U.S. blockade of Huawei), a worsening arms race and security tension, the space for autonomous action by the EU may shrink. After all, whether or not the EU supports the U.S. move toward a Cold War with China, the EU is a security ally of the United States. For the EU, the initial US moves against China in the trade arena did appear warranted. The EU shared grievances about unequal market

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access and lack of reciprocity with China, even though the EU favored a WTO-compatible multilateral approach in solving such grievances. By 2018–2020, the U.S. confrontation of China increasingly took ideological and security connotations with talks of active decoupling, Cold War, and politicization. The EU felt increasingly hesitant, wondering if the U.S. was trying to fix problems or more fundamentally squash the rise of China as a new power in the global system. In the latter case, the EU feared the potential huge collateral damage for the global order and peace in the world. Nicolas Véron, an influential European policy analyst (and co-founder of the think tank Bruegel) and his co-author (Sarsenbayev) summarized the situation and their recommendations in the following terms: The EU should not aim to follow the U.S. in any unreasonable escalation with China. This may quite possibly entail some difficult or even painful moments for the EU–U.S. relationship. Such a prospect, however, is partly mitigated by the fact that the EU will almost certainly be far from alone in that situation. Thus, it is more important than ever for the EU to cultivate relationships with other parties that may be similarly caught in the midst of the tension between the U.S. and China. These include most of the rest of the G20 group and advanced economies, the only significant exception currently being Russia. (Sarsenbayev & Veron, 2020, p. 102)

More broadly, the EU should prepare itself for a world in which it may need to: further affirm its strategic autonomy. A U.S.–China escalation is neither inevitable nor desirable. But if it happens, it could well become a powerful catalyst, forcing the EU to arm itself with more instruments of an independent actor on the global stage. Both the euro crisis and the Brexit negotiations suggest that, when confronted with a vital threat, the EU has the capacity to achieve unity of purpose, despite the evident disarray of its governance and the inefficiencies that stem from it. A world-changing deterioration of the U.S.–China relationship could plausibly be the crucible of a more self-aware EU on the international stage. (Ibidem, p. 103)

In any case, the U.S.–China confrontation became deeply worrying to the EU and has led Josep Borrell (or Emmanuel Macron) to call for a power-based approach to the EU to survive in this context.

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A Bumpy Policy Journey: From G20 Cooperation and AIIB to the March 2019 Strategic Document and COVID-19 We turn here to the empirical analysis of key recent milestones in the EU’s attempt to navigate the paradox of strategic positioning under geopolitical confrontation and partial internal unity. The EU-28 absorbs 16% of Chinese exports (second after the U.S. at 19%) and represents 13% of Chinese imports (2018 data).6 This is the primary source of leverage for the EU with China. For the EU, China represents eleven percent of exports (after the U.S. at 20%) and 20% of imports (versus the U.S. at 14%). These numbers are changing fast and China’s share is going up relative to the US. But it is important to note upfront that Europe–China relations have traditionally been led by large member states, rather than EU institutions, due to the low degree of integration of foreign policy and the particular importance that large member states place on managing great powers like China, the U.S., and Russia. The opening of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China was a national event, and France played a particularly important role by choosing to open such relations in 1964, seven years ahead of the U.S. and many other countries. The first official relations between China and the EU took place in 1975 with the European Commitment, but the first comprehensive partnership agreement only came in 1995. Since 1998, the EU has held an annual summit with China, but in many ways, the first truly strategic effort by the EU to come up with an integrated approach to China happened in March 2019 with its strategic communication on China. 2009–2018: Partial Strategic Rapprochement and Global Governance Cooperation The 2008–2009 financial crisis and the following G20 summitry led to new cooperative steps between China and the EU. On many key frontline issues at the G20, the EU members found a degree of common understanding with Chinese negotiators. For example, France tried to push several structural financial reforms with the Cannes Summit in 2011, including the introduction of a Tobin tax on capital flows, forbearance for capital controls, discussion of International Monetary System reforms (to reduce the role of the US$), addressing volatility in global commodity markets. On those issues, France and its European partners (except the UK) confronted the U.S. veto and met with Chinese tacit support, even

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though China did not intend to engage in a battle with the U.S. on such battle fronts. China gained a stronger foothold by providing highly needed financial support to Greece, Portugal, and Eastern European countries during the 2011–2013 Euro crisis, at a time when EU internal solidarity was fraught. 2015 was a historical milestone in the EU–China convergence on global governance. First, in March 2015, in a stunning development, all European countries decided to join the Chinese-led AIIB against strong U.S. warnings and lobbying. The U.S. found itself isolated with Japan and Canada on its side. Canada later defected and joined the AIIB as well. For European leaders, the reasoning was simple. The Chinese plan for the AIIB corresponded to a real gap in infrastructure financing in Asia and adhered to good governance principles. In addition, it appeared that China was finally answering Robert Zoellick’s call for becoming a “responsible stakeholder.” Europeans demonstrated that the U.S. opposition to the AIIB was a case of abuse of power, especially in the context when the U.S. was also refusing to ratify the 2010 G20 agreement to increase China’s voting share at the IMF from 3.1% to a mere 6.2%.7 Second, China was a strong partner in reaching the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015 after early high-level agreements with the U.S. (November 2014, September 2015) and France (November 2015). At critical moments during the COP21, China, the U.S., and France (along with group leaders) came together and solved issues. The last hour on the last morning saw Xie, Kerry, Fabius cooperating closely (e.g., Fabius asking Xie to go talk to Nicaragua, etc.). Canada’s Minister McKenna notes: “China was actually good and helpful. China was very helpful in bringing along countries that they had influence with.”8 For Laurent Fabius, “Xie was really decisive.”9 As for Xie Zhenghua himself, he recalls: “I met every day with Ban, Figueres, Fabius, and heads of groups to work on the differences. Later, we worked on the use of terms for certain articles several times. At the end, when some countries found problems with the agreement, I worked on these countries repeatedly.”10 The Paris Agreement established a new European esteem in China’s commitment to multilateralism and global governance, although irritants and mistrust remained around questions of human rights, WTO status, or export restrictions. In the wake of Trump’s election in 2016, momentum for significant cooperation between the EU and China increased, along with the degree of internal EU cohesion in the approach to China.11 Progress, however,

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became dependent on a combination of significant overtures from China, forbearance by the U.S., and a degree of European public support. The EU and China identified a series of joint objectives: preserving the Paris climate agreement, preserving the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, preserving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran. But they struggled to make real progress on any of those, in the face of determined opposition by the U.S. They made progress in other domains of global environmental governance: biodiversity, global ocean protection, and supporting the SDGs. By 2018, concerns grew in Europe about China’s Manufacturing 2025 program, a program to become the lead manufacturing power in ten high technology fields of the future that overlapped nearly perfectly with areas of leadership by Germany and the rest of Europe. Concerns also grew about the BRI and about the degree of asymmetric engagement with China. As well, the EU increasingly struggled to converge to a unified approach. Eastern European and Southern European countries such as Hungary and Greece became strong advocates for closer relations with China, while Nordic countries like Sweden and even Germany and France grew more reluctant. In its June 2018 Proposal to the European Parliament and Council, the Commission and the Office of the High Representative insisted on promoting “reciprocity, a level playing field and fair competition across all areas of cooperation.”12 The proposal also reiterated that the EU and China should “promote global public goods, sustainable development and international security in line with our respective UN and G20 responsibilities.” The March 12, 2019—EU Strategic Communication on China and Partial Hardening The EU internal process of adjustment to changing U.S. and Chinese realities culminated in the first real strategic document produced by the EU on China.13 This document tried to offer a balanced approach but is mostly remembered for introducing the concept of China as a “systemic rival” into the conversation. In truth the approach by the EU was broadly balanced and stated in full: China can no longer be regarded as a developing country. It is a key global actor and leading technological power. Its increasing presence in the world,

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including in Europe, should be accompanied by greater responsibilities for upholding the rules-based international order, as well as greater reciprocity, non-discrimination, and openness of its system (…). China is, simultaneously, in different policy areas, a cooperation partner with whom the EU has closely aligned objectives, a negotiating partner with whom the EU needs to find a balance of interests, an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership, and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance (European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, 2019, p. 1).

Apparently, the term “systemic rival,” which riled China, was inserted late in the negotiation process and partly under U.S. pressure. Veron and Sarsenbayev write: “our understanding, based on interviews with relevant participants, is that the phrase labelling China ‘a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance’ was inserted at the very end of the document drafting sequence out of considerations of political opportunity rather than a structured process of elaboration of a collective strategic stance.” They add: “as for the expression ‘systemic rival,’ it is ambiguous at best. On the face of it, it appears to assume systemic leadership ambitions on the side of the EU itself, which as suggested above is far from the default EU stance in general.” They conclude: “we suggest, therefore, that this phrase of the EU strategy paper, while evidently significant and memorable, may be read as more opportunistic than strategic; and is aimed more at a U.S. governmental audience than at China, or indeed than at a domestic audience within the EU—even as it is likely to have been vetted in at least a few national capitals” (Sarsenbayev & Veron, 2020, p. 101). It is however interesting to observe that the term “systemic rival” has become increasingly entrenched in the EU discourse on China since 2019. And the term has been cited by other countries around the world, especially the U.S. The document recommended cooperation with China on UN activities, climate, the JCPOA with Iran, and Eurasian connectivity. But it also recommended insisting on reciprocity and openness in economic relations. By the Fall of 2019, the document seems to have brought increase access and leverage for the EU in Beijing in principle, while actual attention by Beijing officials was being sucked by the urgency of managing relations with the U.S.14 The EU did make progress in some of its priorities with Beijing at that time: airspace negotiations, agreement on protecting geographical indicators in trade, and discussion on

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WTO reforms (which led to China joining the EU and Canada-led mediation agreement to provide a temporary workaround the collapsed dispute settlement mechanism in January 2020). The new Von der Leyen Commission after December 1, 2019 took a stronger position on China, particularly on the issues of Xinjiang and Hong Kong, as well as reciprocity of trade and investment. Negotiations toward a Bilateral Investment Treatment (the CAI) that would gain the EU fair access in China became the top priority for the EU institutional agenda, with an eventual successful end to negotiations in December 2020 and signatures pending at the time of writing. COVID-19 and the Hong Kong Issue in 2020 In 2020, COVID-19 took the world by storm. Originating in Wuhan, the virus turned into a global pandemic and soon a massive social and economic shock. In a matter of a few weeks, it turned steady even if declining global economic growth into the greatest recession since the Great Depression.15 Overnight, the world shut down about a third of global economic output, without proper coordination.16 Taking place at a time of global discontent about globalization, American rebellion against multilateralism, and U.S.–China trade and security confrontation, the crisis could not come at a worse time. The crisis buffeted EU–China relations in several ways. First, the initial lack of transparency by China between December 31, 2019, and January 20, 2020, as well as initial hesitation, caused delay and frustration around the world, including Europe. Then, in turn, China managed to impress the world through its drastic quarantine, hospital building, and electronic tracing systems. These measures proved massively effective but also difficult to accept in liberal democracies. China used the good momentum to donate or sell medical equipment (especially masks) around the world, including hard-hit European countries such as Italy. This generated some positive goodwill. Finally, China unleashed harsh diplomatic rhetoric attacking countries like France, Sweden, and the UK for their ineffective responses. This so-called “wolf warrior” approach generated huge backlash and cost China some of the gains it had made in terms of soft power or influence. These episodes reveal the struggles of balancing act between proengagement and pro domestic opinion factions within the Chinese establishment, at a time when the U.S. measures against China are harsher

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by the week. But China’s incoherence has confused Europe and decreased the trust in China as a strategic partner for the rules-based international order. One can add that Europe is even more disappointed by U.S. actions. One critical episode in EU–China relations came on May 18–19 at the annual World Health Assembly, the critical governance meeting of the WHO. The EU managed to build a large coalition of countries in favor of a scientific but authentic international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. Critically, the EU managed to build the leverage and arguments to convince China to accept this international inquiry. This was a high point for EU global impact and for demonstrating the EU’s pivotal role in relations to China, the U.S., and global governance. By late May, however, a new crisis came to buffet EU–China relations when the Chinese government decided to adopt a Beijing-imposed National Security Law (NSL) to Hong Kong to finally implement the Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law. The issue is turning into a powerful rallying point within Western countries against China and bring the EU and the U.S. closer together. Nonetheless, the EU pointed refused to join the common statement issued by the U.S., the UK, Canada, and Australia on May 28, choosing instead to issue its own milder statement on May 29. It has been reported that no EU country except Sweden supported actual sanctions at this point. The concern by the EU has been in avoiding a vicious circle and to preserve space for China to pull back from the brink. The stakes and rhetoric increased further after the actual imposition of the NSL in late June 2020 and the series of arrests and actions taken under the Law during the latter part of 2020. These actions culminated in the decision by the National People’s Congress in March 2021 to rewrite the electoral system of Hong Kong and vet all future candidates to the legislature and executive for their “patriotic” credentials. The Hong Kong issue could play a growing spoiler role in EU–China relations.

Conclusion A combination of global disruptions and the Trump administration’s turn against the rules-based international order have generated unusual opportunities for the EU and China to cooperate over global governance. The EU and China have common interests in domains such as fighting climate change, saving and reforming the WTO, supporting the UN and multilateralism. However, that strategic opening has also been hard to transform

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into real actions, because of the clash of values and over human rights, lack of EU internal unity, and strong U.S. influence in Europe. As advocated by Josep Borrell, Europe could gain in strategic space by advancing a coherent strategy with China, backed by effective leverage and unity of purpose. These gains would be a net contribution to global prosperity and peace. However, this requires rapid transformation within European political institutions and increased strategic thought, a tall order in the best of times. COVID-19, repression in Xinjiang, and the Hong Kong crisis made this more difficult. In this context, the major agreement reached by China and the EU on December 30, 2020, over their long-negotiated investment treaty, represented a major strategic move by both players in a more uncertain world. It represented a breakthrough in the EU’s capacity to drive a hard bargain, force concessions, and make a strategic move in response to U.S. trade deals and the signature of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) among 15 Asian countries in November 2020. The future will tell whether the EU is able to ratify this bold agreement and reconcile its strategic economic interests with its security alliance and value agenda.

Notes 1. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/multilateral-system-benefits-allpm-lee. 2. Source: http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/advoca ting-the-rules-based-order/. 3. Source: https://templatelab.com/buenos-aires-leaders-declaration/ and https://www.politico.eu/article/g20-leaders-reaffirm-rules-based-intern ational-order/. 4. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/05/18/amid-cor onavirus-crisis-americans-and-germans-see-changing-world-in-differentways/. 5. Source: confidential high-level interviews with EU officials, November 2019, December 2020, May 2020. 6. Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics. Data table “External Trade by Counterpart”, DOTS. http://data.imf.org/?sk=9D6028D4-F14A-464CA2F2-59B2CD424B85&sId=1409151240976. 7. Source: interviews with high-level European diplomats, Spring 2015. 8. Author’s interview with Minister Catherine McKenna on November 9, 2016 in Ottawa. 9. Author’s interview with Minister Laurent Fabius, Chair of the French Constitutional Court, Paris, December 14, 2016.

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10. Personal interview with Minister Xie Zhenghua (Vice Chairman of NDRC, former Minister of environment, Chief Climate Negotiator of the PRC since 2008) on May 17, 2017 in Beijing. 11. Source: Fraser Cameron, Director of the EU-Asia Centre (EU-based think tank created in 2011 to promote relations between the EU and Asia). August 28, 2018. “How Trump is Pushing Asia and Europe together.” 12. http://eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/china/docs/joint_communica tion_to_the_european_parliament_and_the_council_-_elements_for_ a_new_eu_strategy_on_china.pdf. 13. European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy 2019, March 12. 14. Personal interview with high European official, October 2019. 15. https://blogs.imf.org/2020/04/14/the-great-lockdown-worst-eco nomic-downturn-since-the-great-depression/. 16. Evaluation by Olivier Blanchard, former Chief Economist of the IMF. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/intelligence-matters/id1286906 615?i=1000473009680.

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World Development Indicators. (2019). The World Bank. http://databank.wor ldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators. Xu, Y., Ramanathan, V., & Victor, D. (2018). Global warming will happen faster than we think. Nature, 564, 30–32.

CHAPTER 3

Making Sense of the EU–China Relations: Partners and Rivals Wei Liang

Introduction China’s economic power and political influence have grown at unprecedented speed and scale in the past decades. The EU and China are at a complex and important crossroads in their relationship. Both are seeking to reflect on the changing bilateral, regional, and global dynamics and respond with more effective policies toward each other. China’s growing economic and political clout has been increasingly felt in the EU. China has now become an influential actor in the international system. Rather than a rule-follower that wanted to be socialized and recognized by the West, China is seeking to reform the existing global rules and develop an alternative mode of global governance in its favor. Both Brussels and Beijing have realized that they have a wide range of areas of common interests—in economic, political, environmental, and diplomatic terms. While they have developed a closer-than-ever partnership, they have also acknowledged that they disagree and diverge on a number of important

W. Liang (B) Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Monterey, CA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_3

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issue areas. The EU has come to realize that a more effective and pragmatic policy toward China is necessary in order to enhance European interests and uphold EU values. The EU and China are two of the three largest economies and traders in the world. In 2019, China was the third-largest partner for EU exports of goods (9% of total extra-EU exports) and largest for EU imports of goods (19% of total extra-EU imports). The EU deficit in trade in goods with China reached a record high of e164 billion (Eurostat, 2020). During the same period, China has become a major investor in Europe. A closer economic tie between the two sides has generated both business opportunities and risks. Over time, China has moved up on global value chains and can compete head-to-head with the EU on some of its strategic sectors. However, domestically China has failed to significantly liberalize its economy as promised upon its WTO accession. Externally, it has also accumulated sufficient financial power to project economic statecraft in Europe. It seems that China has turned itself to be a more equal partner and competitor of the EU in the global political economy. The EU–China relations have transformed in recent years. This change was primarily driven by China’s growing influence and presence in the EU and its all-around stand-off with the U.S. With the trade conflict and a full-blown geopolitical and geo-economic competition between the U.S. and China, the EU faces the pressing policy dilemma of formulating an effective China policy to strategically position itself in the rivalry between a global hegemon and rising power. Bilaterally, the EU and China have had some fundamental divergences in ideology and global values, such as human rights and humanitarian intervention, in addition to the trade tensions and fight for influence in Eastern and Southern Europe. This chapter analyzes the progression of China as both a strategic partner and a systemic rival at the same time, and how this new understanding of China has shed lights on the current and future EU’s China policy. Different from U.S.–China relations, the dominance of an economic rationale is evident in the literature on EU–China relations. The EU and China do not face any direct military conflict, nor territorial disputes. Geographically, they are further apart and hence do not compete in their respective sphere of influence (namely, Eastern Europe for the EU and Southeast Asia for China). Much of the policy discussions surrounding the bilateral relationship has focused on two areas, the EU and China’s role in multilateral institutions addressing various global challenges and the bilateral economic interests and trade/investment dispute

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settlement. This chapter examines these two important areas embedded in the EU–China bilateral relationship, through case studies of global climate change talks and European states’ gravitation toward the two most important Chinese foreign policy initiatives in recent years: the AIIB and the BRI. Specifically, this chapter explores this research question: what are the factors that have accounted for the EU’s policy choices toward China in the past decade? These three cases have been chosen as they represent the most significant events that have shaped the bilateral relationship since the turn of the new century. The cooperation and co-leadership in global climate change negotiation show the goals of China and EU overlap in key areas of mutual interest in global governance and multilateralism. The EU is also more open and flexible to engage China with its initiative to create parallel multilateral institutions with the U.S. being excluded. However, evidence is presented to explain how fundamental imbalances and conflicts of interest persist in the EU–China bilateral trade and investment relations, as illustrated by China’s economic expansion and strategic presence into Europe through its BRI projects. The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. The next section presents a review of the current studies on EU–China relations, followed by an overall assessment of the evolving EU–China relationship since the 1990s. It then examines the factors that have affected the EU’s China policy shift through three case studies. Finally, the chapter concludes with a note on the current development and its implication for the future of EU–China relations.

Literature Review The existing literature on China and the EU has largely focused on three major questions. The first question looks at the triangular relationship between the U.S., the EU, and China, namely, how the U.S. and the EU differently perceive China’s geopolitical rise, the sources of disagreement on their China policy; and how the U.S. has shaped EU–China relations (Farnell & Irwin Crookes, 2016). Transatlantic alliance is the foundation of the post-WWII international order. The U.S. and the EU share common interests, values, principles, and beliefs in democracy and neoliberalism. But they have formulated their China policies differently. Many scholars pointed out that the U.S. has placed greater strategic importance to its China policy than the EU because of their different geopolitical calculation in the Asia-Pacific region. David Shambaugh explicitly stated

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that “if Europe had any significant strategic interests or military presence in East Asia, for example, or was committed to Taiwan’s security, European leaders would probably be much less tempted to lift the arms embargo” (Shambaugh, 2005). The EU and the U.S. share concerns on human rights, but with different approaches. The U.S. tends to more frequently use forums such as the United Nations human rights resolutions and public diplomacy, while the EU has preferred bilateral dialogues (Shambaugh, 2005). It seems that the EU has put greater emphasis on individual human rights, such as ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet (Men & Shen, 2014). More recent studies on the triangular relations emphasize on the policy challenges the EU is facing today. It has been squeezed in the great power competition. Europe, as Luis Simon puts it, is at the same time “subject and object” of the growing tension between the U.S. and China (Simon, 2019). Geopolitics and geo-economics still play a role in the EU’s China policymaking. It shares many concerns with the U.S. regarding China’s domestic authoritarian rule and aggressive expansion globally, but it is not in the same position to directly confront China on those fronts. More importantly, although the EU agrees with the U.S.’ diagnosis on China’s problems, it does not support the prescription provided by the former Trump administration: decoupling from China, retreating from globalization, and abandoning multilateral institutions. The second set of research assesses the intra-regional debate in the EU on its China policy. The European Union is facing bargaining pressures between and within its own member states. Although the EU is structured on the basis of pool sovereignty, individual states still vary in terms of the extent they prioritize economic interests over non-economic concerns, and the importance of their bilateral relationships with non-EU countries. This renders EU foreign policy as fragmented and lacking a strategic approach (Rühlig, 2018). Divergent views and national policies on how to deal with China has turned to be an internal debate on whether the EU is a “community of solidarity based on common values” or whether it should be reduced to a “Single Market” (Rühlig, 2018). Even on the human rights issue, which is one of the fundamental values holding the EU together, there is a division among EU states on how hard to defend this principle against China. In 2017, Greece blocked the EU Statement on China Human Rights at the UN (Emmott & Koutantou, 2017). Viktor Orban’s statement from January (2018) is indicative of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries’ use of China as an alternative option, and thus leverage, in their dealings with the EU: “if the European Union

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cannot provide financial support, we will turn to China” (Roughneen, 2018). The third set of literature examines the changing policy perspective of the EU on China and that of China on the EU. Several recent works captured the perception change in both sides. Around 2010, surveys show that both the general public and the elite in China had a strong feeling of “favoring the EU over the U.S. and Russia” and their overall view of Europe was very positive (Dong, 2014). Chinese perception of the EU has shifted from an overall positive and favorable view to that of a declining power. Whereas the Chinese populace once viewed the EU as an exemplar of regional integration, an important global player, a crucial “pole” in global order, and a progressive and normative power (Chang & Pieke, 2018; Men & Balducci, 2010; Zhu, 2008) today, more Chinese public and policy scholars view the EU as a declining power in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, its dealing with the EU in the Ukraine crisis, the refugee crisis, and “Brexit” (Chang & Pieke, 2018; Zhang & Yu, 2013). Similarly, there is a noticeable trend within the EU to securitizing China’s rising economic foothold in Europe. European think tanks advocate a narrative that asserts Chinese presence in Europe is not only a challenge to the EU’s economic interests and diplomatic cohesion, but also an existential threat to European unity and democracy (Rogelja & Tsimonis, 2020). A recent report released by two German think tanks, the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI) and the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies (MERICS) is titled “Authoritarian Advance: Responding to China’s Growing Political Influence in Europe” (Benner et al., 2018). As a result of this congruence, the European “China threat” discourse is already legitimizing policy initiatives targeted against China, which in turn will reinforce a more assertive policy response from China.

An Overview of EU–China Bilateral Relations (1990–2020): From Strange Neighbors, Economic Partner, Competitor to Systemic Rival? For much of the twentieth century, the China–Europe relationship was best characterized as limited. Relatively speaking the two sides did not have close interactions, both politically and economically. They considered themselves to be “distant neighbors” (Kapur, 1990) and maintained a

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“secondary relationship” (Yahuda, 1994). China established formal diplomatic relations in 1975, but it was not until 1998 that the two sides began holding regular summits (Gill & Murphy, 2008). As such, in 2000 the EU completed bilateral negotiation with China to formally support China’s accession into the WTO. Soon after in 2001 the two sides announced to establish a “comprehensive partnership,” which was upgraded to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” in 2003. Since the turn of the new century, China-Europe relations—both at the EU–China level and across the range of China’s bilateral relations with European countries—greatly intensified. Since China’s WTO accession in 2001, EU–China bilateral trade and economic ties have developed and expanded steadily. The EU–China economic relationship was highly complementary at that time. The EU quickly became China’s top trading partner, one of the largest foreign direct investors, and the largest foreign supplier of technology and equipment to China. By 2004 the total stock of European FDI in China already amounted to more than US$35 billion. Apart from economic complementarity, the two sides have explored many more areas of common interests including cultural exchanges and diplomatic visits. Bilateral trade volume grew on an average of 40% annually. Between 2000 and 2007, China and Europe enjoyed a honeymoon and a boon in interaction. Just as European Commission President Romano Prodi remarked, “If it is not a marriage, it is at least a very serious engagement” (Prodi, 2004). The French government proclaimed 2004 as the “Year of China.” It was seen from the U.S. as an “emerging axis in world affairs.” (Shambaugh, 2004). But the construction of the partnership was not without any problems. A couple of new irritants emerged during this period. From the Chinese side, it began to pressure the EU to lift the arms embargo which was imposed after the Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989. The lifting required a consensus among all EU member states. Internally, France and Germany supported the lifting of the ban in anticipation of deeper economic ties with China, but it was opposed by the Nordic countries (Narramore, 2008). The U.S. also explicitly warned the EU the potential consequences to transatlantic relationships if the EU and the U.S. could not hold the same position on this matter (Alison, 2005). Different from China’s demand on lifting the arms embargo, the emerging concern from the EU side was focused on growing trade deficit and textile dispute. The gradual phase-out of the 40-year long Multifiber Agreement (MFA) and China’s WTO entry worked together to cause an import surge of

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Chinese textile products in the EU market. Despite the fact that China’s WTO accession protocol required that all the safeguard measures against Chinese textile products must be removed by the end of 2008, China reached an agreement with the EU to develop a joint monitoring system to control the level of Chinese textile exports to the EU market. This agreement showed the willingness of the two sides to settle bilateral economic disputes with flexibility in order not to jeopardize bilateral relations in the long run. The year 2008, however, saw the EU–China relationship start to flatten out. Economic tensions have further intensified. When China became a more significant trading partner and FDI destination for the EU companies, it was expected by the EU and others to show greater reciprocity, non-discrimination, and openness. But in reality, the EU firms have still encountered opaque and fluidly domestic regulations, WTO non-compliance, currency manipulation, and investment barriers. Chinese firms and European firms are increasingly competitors in the Chinese, European, and third markets. In the economic realm, trade tensions further intensified along with the surge of China’s exports to the EU market. The EU worked hard to monitor the compliance of Beijing’s WTO accession commitments and the negative impact on domestic producers from China’s export surge into the EU market. Between 1995 and 2014 the EU initiated 99 Antidumping (AD) cases against China. This constitutes 28% of overall European AD initiations in that period (EU Parliament, 2016). Just like the U.S., the EU has quickly turned Chinese companies as their biggest targets for launching antidumping investigations (Eckhardt, 2019). Furthermore, China began to invest extensively in the EU market since the Eurocrisis in 2008–2009. This new development has raised skepticism within the EU regarding China’s intentions and ambitions. The EU and China came to agree that they needed to redefine and consolidate bilateral relations after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. In 2013, Brussels issued the EU–China Strategic Agenda for Cooperation to outline the blueprint for furthering ties among China, the EU, and its member states. In March 2014, Xi Jinping visited Brussels. The leadership of China and the EU decided to forge a “partnership for peace, growth, reform and civilization” to guide the development of EU–China relations in the decades to come (Feng, 2014). Since 2016, it is clear that the EU has revised its China policy with the understanding that the

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premise of the EU’s long-standing engagement policy toward China gradually collapsed. China has now been seen as an aggressive competitor in trade and investment in each other’s markets, and in the third market. The EU has embarked on a more realistic approach toward China. It is more open to reveal the differences between the two sides and call for more “reciprocity” in its dealings with China. Regarding trade relations, new issues emerged while the old ones have not been successfully addressed. Besides the continuous dumping of Chinese exports into the EU market, the EU has expanded its focus on China’s structural problems, i.e., the lack of intellectual property right protections, the reinforcement of its industrial policy to promote state-owned enterprises, and support home-grown strategic sectors. It was a turning point in the EU’s trade policy when it brought the solar panel dispute with China to the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) in 2013. It marked the beginning of competitive Chinese technology and capital-intensive producers taking global market shares away from the established European firms, often times with the policy support of the Chinese government. Gradually, the EU’s use of Antidumping duties against Chinese exports have slowed and concentrated in a few sectors. In 2019 there were 61 AD cases against China being in force, which represents 51% of all EU AD duties in force. Most EU AD measures are imposed in the metals sector (28 cases in force in 2019), followed by the chemical and pharmaceutical sector (15 cases), and machinery and electrical equipment (five cases). Chinese AD measures against the EU also focus on chemicals and pharmaceuticals (six cases in force in 2019) and metals (three cases) (EU Parliament, 2020). It shows the domestic sectors that both sides want to protect and that they are identical. This is the best illustration that China’s trade profile has become less complementary and more competitive with EU companies. Facing higher labor costs, greater competition from Chinese firms, and more aggressive state interventions by the Chinese government, European manufacturing, and retailing firms began to gradually retreat from the Chinese market. EU FDI into China declined from US$8.8 billion in 2016 to US$7.2 billion in 2018 (EU Parliament, 2020). The EU Chamber of Commerce published its 2018 position paper, in which it raised 14 major concerns about Chinese policies and regulations including an opaque regulatory environment and lack of transparency, preferential treatment to SOEs, and forced technology transfer (European Union Chamber of Commerce, 2018). President Von der Leyen of the European Commission put it bluntly that the EU “expects the same access

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to the Chinese market as the Chinese have in Europe.” In other words, reciprocity has become indispensable in order to move forward with an investment treaty and a more balanced relationship (Le Corre, 2020). This signals several messages. First, the EU will treat China as an equal partner, so it won’t continue to provide any kind of preferences the EU has provided to China. Second, the EU has lost both the confidence and patience to engage China and its hopes for China to transition to a liberal, free-market economy. The 2016 Strategy on China crafted by the EU Commission remains the cornerstone of EU engagement, providing the basis for delivering an EU policy shift toward a more realistic, assertive, and multifaceted approach (EU Commission, 2016). In March 2019, the EU issued a strategic policy paper declaring China a “systemic rival” for the first time. This policy shift signals a departure from the EU’s long-held engagement policy, as stated by the French President Emmanuel Macron, “the period of European naivety of China had to end” (Ferguson, 2019). The timing of this resonates with Washington’s China policy shift, which began calling China a “long-term strategic competitor” since December 2017. But one important difference between the EU and the U.S. toward China is that the U.S. has formally identified China as a “revisionist” power that “seeks to displace the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region,” while the EU has just come to recognize the potentially negative impact of China’s aggressive expansion in Europe and the threat perceived is to a much less extent. This important distinction is best characterized by the European Commission that “China is, simultaneously, a cooperation partner with whom the EU has closely aligned objectives, a negotiating partner with whom the EU needs to find a balance of interests, an economic competitor in pursuit of technological leadership, and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.” (EU Commission, 2019) Compared with Washington’s policy shift from engagement to containment, the EU approach is multilayered—more assertive but cooperation is still a necessity.

Case Study Analysis China’s evolving position in global governance over the last four decades shows a clear trajectory from socialization and active participation and engagement only, to pursuing reform from within existing institutions, to currently building new institutions while continuing to remain deeply

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involved in the reform agenda of existing international institutions (Liang, 2020). Beijing has identified a new doctrine of global developmentalism by emphasizing the importance of infrastructure building and all types of connectivity to achieve development goals. Under Xi Jinping’s stewardship, China has begun to consciously challenge the existing hegemon by creating alternative institutions since 2013. One notable example is China’s initiative in creating new global development institutions. In just over a decade, China has founded or co-founded two new multilateral development banks (MDBs), namely, the AIIB and the New Development Bank (NDB). During the same period, at least 13 regional and bilateral funds have increased Chinese development finance abroad by orders of magnitude (Chin & Gallagher, 2019). China is neither purely a savior nor scofflaw of the global system, and while China defends the status quo in some areas, it acts more so as a reformer in others depending on the interactions of both China and the respective international institutions (Kastner et al., 2018). It seems that China is not dissatisfied with the fundamental rules of the existing global order but its status in the hierarchy of the order (Zhao, 2018). The global climate change talk, the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) and BRICS NDB are the most important foreign policy initiatives carried out by China in recent years. The EU has adopted different policy responses toward China, from full cooperation and potential co-leadership with climate change, to negotiated engagement with the AIIB and full-blown skepticism with the BRI. An examination of the factors that have contributed to the variation helps us better understand the different components that are affecting and shaping past and future EU–China relations. Global Climate Talk: Cooperation and a De Facto Co-Leadership in the UNFCCC Climate change mitigation requires deep international cooperation. A brief case analysis of how nations managed to reach the Paris Agreement in 2015 and the EU–China collaboration to keep the agreement credible and alive thereafter shows the willingness of these two players to work together to defend the UN multilateral environmental regime. The United States refused to take on its leadership role in global climate negotiations since the 1990s, which provided a power vacuum for the EU to act as “the strongest proponent of international environmental law” (Kelemen & Vogel, 2010). The EU has been at the forefront of

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this global initiative for more than two decades. It has persistently called for the establishment of binding international climate agreements by putting forward its own ambitious binding greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets and setting examples for others (Underdal, 1994). In October 2014, the EU announced its 2030 targets: a binding 40% GHG emissions reduction target (relative to 1990 levels), a renewable energy target of 27%, and a minimum energy efficiency improvement of 27%. However, the EU failed to exhibit effective leadership by not being able to bring the U.S. and China onboard before 2015. The U.S. and China, the two largest global emitters, refused to commit to the emission reduction goals necessary for collective global action. What broke the deadlock of the climate negotiation was the effort led by President Obama through a bilateral agreement signed between the U.S. and China in 2014, which cleared the largest obstacles and laid the groundwork for reaching the Paris Agreement. In this agreement, the U.S. committed to reduce U.S. emissions by 17% below the 2005 levels by 2020 and China pledged to “reduce the emissions of CO2 per unit of GDP by 60–65% from the 2005 level by 2030.” (Gao, 2016) President Obama also held private talks with other BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, and India). Throughout the process, the EU played a supportive and normative role to help mobilize global support (Torney, 2014). Partly due to pressure from a new European-led “high ambition coalition,” the goals set by the Paris Agreement were more ambitious than in the past, and it ended the bifurcation of the Kyoto Protocol, an element which China and India wanted to retain (Pearson, 2019). While U.S. leadership of the process was significantly more proactive, and EU participation also crucial, the symbolic and political importance of China’s contribution cannot be denied (Schreurs, 2016). The Paris Agreement has, however, brought new problems and concerns in global environmental politics. First, based on a UN report, the national pledges in emissions reductions under the Paris Agreement are insufficient to meet the stated goal to limit warming this century to 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. It warned that there would be more than twice the 1.5-degree target if countries meet their pledges (Sengupta, 2019). Second, the U.S. under former President Trump withdrew from the agreement, which requires additional pledges and greater cooperation from the rest of the world to fill both the emission reduction and global leadership gap left by the U.S. Third, it is built upon a pledge and review system by moving away from emission reduction targets and

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timetables that are internationally negotiated and legally binding. Rather than allocating emissions based on a top-down limit, the Paris agreement depends on bottom-up “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs). All signatories are required to submit national mitigation targets (so-called NDCs) to the UN, and to prepare policies to achieve these targets. All countries are to communicate new NDCs every five years, each round to be more ambitious than the last. At the same time, the goals specified within each country’s NDC are separate from the Paris agreement, and not internationally legally binding to countries. This hybrid approach between binding requirements for submissions, but non-binding specific targets, was a negotiation compromise between the EU and the U.S. and China (Pearson, 2019). More importantly, the Paris Agreement represents a departure from previously developed global climate justice initiatives. It has also departed from the UN principle of “common and differentiated responsibilities” as the developing countries made more emission reduction commitments than the developed countries. As Todd Stern, U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change, had made clear during the Durban conference, “if equity’s in, then we’re out” to refer to the importance of making all emerging economies contribute their fair share in mitigation (Pickering et al., 2012; Yan & Torney, 2016). This shift in international consensus served the U.S. interests but compromised the prospect of multilateral cooperation. All in all, the biggest challenge facing the world today is how to fix these problems and continue to implement emission reduction targets despite all the unexpected disruptions. Against this backdrop, we have seen strengthened cooperation between the EU and China—the world’s largest GHG emitter, but also the largest investor in renewable energy and an increasingly vocal advocate for climate action in the post-Paris era. This climate collaboration was driven by China’s continuous climate policy shift, away from its longstanding reluctance for change. Domestically, China has entered a “New Normal” where the quality of growth has been emphasized by the Central and local governments. President Xi Jinping explicitly called for actions to transition China to a low-carbon nation. At the 19th CPC Congress, Xi highlighted in his speech that “Clear waters and green mountains are as valuable as mountains of gold and silver.” (Chen, 2018) Internationally, it also came to realize that becoming a global climate change leader could work as an effective soft power play (Liu, 2017).

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The leadership vacuum created by the Trump administration’s decision in July 2017 to pull out of the Paris Agreement was viewed as a new opportunity for China to co-assume leadership with the EU in the field of global climate governance. Shortly after, Brussels, Beijing, and Ottawa coconvened a global climate meeting in Montreal in September to advance the implementation of the Paris Agreement. EU sources described it as a “pretty remarkable achievement,” given past differences between China, the developing nations, and the West (Neslen & Mathiesen, 2017). In June 2017, EU states reached a joint climate statement with China. Both Chinese and European diplomats held the same position in dismissing then-President Trump’s suggestion that the agreement be renegotiated so as to be more favorable to the U.S. (Schreurs, 2017). More significantly, China and the EU signed their first bilateral agreement on climate in June 2017 to commit to co-lead global climate diplomacy to ensure the full compliance of the Paris agreement. They promised to work with other UN members to create a US$100 billion climate fund annually to help developing countries cope with climate change (Sengupta, 2019). It marks a turning point in the power structure of global climate governance, even as the two sides failed to issue this statement due to the EU’s rejection of China’s request to be recognized as a market economy (Geall, 2017). At the Eighth EU–China high-level strategic dialogue on June 1, 2018, European and Chinese leaders adopted a joint summit statement, including a statement on climate change and clean energy. It seems that a new mode of North–South co-leadership in order to address this pressing global challenge has emerged. It may be a progressive development to make the global climate governance more inclusive China now seems to share similar norms with the EU and other pro-environmentalism countries about sustainable development. As this post-Paris power structure is still evolving, it is still too early to predict the effectiveness of the EU–China collaboration. Some scholars have pointed out a number of constraints to this cooperation, including inherently different views on world order (Freeman, 2019), ever-increasing bilateral trade frictions, and economic competition (Geall, 2020). The recent events, including the U.S.–China trade war and decoupling, and the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, made many states revisit their Paris pledges. 2020 is a critical year to determine the prospect of implementing the Paris Agreement. Before the COP25 in Madrid in December 2019, EU leaders meeting in Brussels agreed to make the current 27-member bloc carbon neutral by 2050. However, little progress was made at the

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global climate talk in Madrid in December 2019. State representatives only agreed to a text with vague pledges to enhance their Paris emissions reduction targets. This watered-down text failed to address the key agenda items: setting a rulebook for the Paris Agreement and designing a global carbon market (Waldholz, 2019). This has left little time before November 2020 for countries to submit new targets under the Paris Agreement. Everyone was hoping that a bilateral agreement between the EU and China will be reached before COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021. Many policy observers feel this bilateral EU–China deal will help build necessary momentum and set good examples to other countries to recommit to the Paris Agreement, just as back in 2014 when the U.S. and China struck a deal and together announced plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to pave way for the conclusion of the Paris Agreement. Indeed, EU–China cooperation and co-leadership is indispensable to ensure the enforcement of the Paris Agreement and to maintain the credibility of the UNFCCC as the only multilateral climate change negotiation and governance framework. It seems that China is interested to take on some sort of global climate leadership. Its recent announcement to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 was a very positive signal in the midst of global economic slowdown and pandemic as China alone accounts for 28% of total global emissions. However, China also admits that it is still a relatively inexperienced player in global governance and may not be capable of managing a large number of shifting interests and alliances within the UN framework. This complexity factor remains in ongoing post-Paris negotiations and creates the necessity and potential for EU–China co-leadership. AIIB: Negotiated Engagement The institutional strategy adopted by China with the launch of the AIIB aims to serve two purposes: first, to increase its influence and status in a new multilateral institution by excluding the U.S. but welcoming all others; and second, to propagate a set of rules, principles, and norms that not only promote China’s interest, but also better reflect China’s emerging vision on how to improve global governance. This is one salient example of China’s emerging institutional statecraft (Ikenberry & Lim, 2017). Beijing carefully calculated the options it had and viewed that the creation of a new MDB will serve its interests better than

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continuing to only rely on the existing MDBs, such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (Kastner et al., 2020). But this Chinese institutional statecraft wouldn’t succeed until other countries showed support by signing up for membership. This illustrates the importance of attracting the participation from European states even though the AIIB was a China-sponsored multilateral institution that falls outside the westerndominated Bretton Woods institutional system. It is therefore important to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that have contributed to the decision made by these 17 European states to join the AIIB as founding members in 2015. Xi Jinping first proposed the idea of establishing the AIIB in October 2013, when he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting that year. Xi’s aspiration was to create a new MDB to “promote the connectivity of infrastructure in the region and to inject new driving forces into economic development,” and equally importantly, to “create an innovative mechanism in order to improve global financial governance” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China, 2014c). As this was the first multilateral institution that China has ever initiated, Beijing wanted it to make sure it could attract enough supporters to participate in the AIIB. At the onset, Beijing set a goal to create a regional institution to recruit members mainly from Asia (Yang, 2016). It had not planned for non-Asian countries to join the AIIB (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China, 2014b). As this is the very first MDB that China has sponsored, the Chinese government was not confident that other countries would respond positively.1 After all, it requires other countries’ participation in order to make it a truly multilateral institution. The U.S. strongly opposed the initiative and the Obama administration explicitly dissuaded U.S. allies from joining the AIIB (Anderlini, 2015; Weiss, 2017). Hence, Beijing worked hard to boost the number of founding members for the AIIB and considered it one of the most important indicators of China’s success in expanding its global influence. The UK was the first European country to join the AIIB in March 2015 and it was followed a few days later by France, Germany, and Italy, which came as a truly nice surprise for Beijing. Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden also became founding members shortly thereafter. Among the 57 founding members, 20 were non-regional members. European states alone accounted for 17 of the non-regional members. Large European states’ enthusiastic response was a game-changer for Beijing. Consequently, China dropped its initial plan

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on establishing an exclusively regional bank and allotted 25% of capital shares to non-regional members (Sun, 2015). The inclusion of major European countries in the AIIB was viewed as a remarkable achievement to promote Beijing’s role in global governance, as it has turned the AIIB into a truly multilateral institution and has contributed much-needed legitimacy to this China-led MDB. But the decision made by those 17 European states “divided the West’ and was called ‘America’s diplomatic failure” (Le Corre, 2015). What drove European enthusiasm for the AIIB despite the U.S.’ pressure and the AIIB’s purported challenge to the Western-centered international development financing? First, those European states see the AIIB as an alternative multilateral institution even though it excluded the U.S. The creation of the AIIB was a reaction to the frustration of slow reform within the current global governance institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, and more importantly, a defensive move to the U.S. policy shift to “rebalance China” and “pivot to Asia” since 2008 (Wang, 2016). It was also created with the goal to advance China’s global influence. However, it does not intend to challenge the existing rule-based world order. The AIIB aims to complement the existing system of global development financing rather than overthrow it. With its sole focus on infrastructure, and an initial regional focus, it did not intend to replace the existing multilateral MDBs such as the World Bank and the ADB. This has been achieved mostly through an explicit effort to align its governance structure and operational protocol with the existing MDBs at the initial stage of institutional design. Mr. Liqun Jin, the inaugural president and chairman of the board of directors, appointed Natalie Lichtenstein, an American Law Professor and former Assistant General Counsel of the World Bank, as General Counsel for the AIIB to draft its Charter. Jin himself also had extensive MDB experience, as a former vice minister at China’s Ministry of Finance who was in charge of the World Bank office, vice president of the ADB, and an alternative executive director at the World Bank. The majority of the current AIIB staff members had working experiences in other MDBs. According to Natalie Lichtenstein, the principal drafter of the AIIB Charter, “credibility for a brand new financial institution could be enhanced by reliance on arrangements that were known, workable and respected.” (Lichtenstein, 2018). Both observers and critics have compared the AIIB to the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank. Since its creation, the AIIB has largely followed the governance features and decision-making procedures of these two

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existing institutions. The three banks are similar in structural design: each feature three layers of administration with a Board of Governors, Board of Directors, and management in the form of Presidents and other senior staff (Lichtenstein, 2018). This posture to ensure the AIIB rules are compatible with existing MDBs provided reassurance for those European states to participate. Second, many European states held a divergent view from the U.S. on the Chinese move to create alternative multilateral institutions. While the U.S. felt it should by no means support or endorse this initiative (Perlez, 2014, 2015), many European states believed that the best way to ensure that the China-sponsored institutions would maintain an international standard was to be involved in the process of institutional design negotiations. Therefore, advanced countries effectively contested the China-led multilateralism by advancing the convergence of the AIIB’s organizational design to accommodate Western preferences (Knoerich & Urdinez, 2019). European members indeed played a key role in the negotiations leading to the Articles of Agreement (AOA). In the joint statement issued by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Germany, France, and Italy, they declared that they are keen to join the AIIB as founding members “in order to work on establishing an institution that will adhere to best practices in the areas of governance, security, loans and public procurement” (Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, France, 2015). A recent assessment confirmed that European states have successfully contributed to the current high-standard rules maintained by the AIIB. The standard was set so high and the loan conditionality was so strict that some developing countries saw them as an unnecessary burden (Gabusi, 2019). Regarding voting power, Germany itself is the fourth-largest shareholder behind China, India, and Russia. Germany and the other Euro area member countries formed a joint voting group, the Euro Area Constituency (EAC). With a total voting power of 15%, it enables the EAC to exercise considerable influence in the decision-making process. Working with other like-minded developed states, they can easily hold the necessary 25%-plus voting power to block major decisions, which require a majority vote of at least 75% under the bank’s Articles of Agreement (German Federal Ministry of Finance, 2019). With the consideration of improving efficiency and reducing cost, the AIIB established its board of directors as non-resident. In order to get more involved in the decision-making process, Germany chose to split the position in two and based its director at the German Embassy in Beijing in addition to the secretary based in the ministry of finance in Berlin. Berlin’s well-placed representation in

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the AIIB illustrates that its “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach appears to be working so far (Stanzel, 2017). Third, European states made the decision to join as they saw tangible business and investment opportunities in the region, as well as recognizing the growing importance of China’s financial power after the 2008 global financial and Eurozone crises. Empirical study suggests that those European states who expected greater economic gains in developing Asia are more likely to join the AIIB (Chen, 2018). The economic motivation behind those key European states’ decisions should not be undermined. There is a great demand for infrastructure financing among developing countries. According to the World Economic Forum, the world is facing a US$15 trillion infrastructure gap by 2040 (World Economic Forum, 2019). The existing MDBs simply can’t fill the gap. China, as the largest holder of foreign reserves in the world, can provide an alternative source of finance. There are promising business opportunities for European states. The UK sought to strengthen its global financial center status by managing AIIB transactions (Domínguez, 2015). As admitted by the London authorities, “demands of transferring savings to investment is a big opportunity” (Tian, 2015). The UK made the decision by assessing that its potential economic gain would outweigh a possible U.S. retaliation (Dyer & Parker, 2015). Similarly, Germany has been the EU country with the highest level of export of goods to China. It had great economic incentive to be part of the AIIB’s procurement on machinery and equipment and it will probably be the country to benefit the most from the AIIB’s procurement (power, transportation, communications, etc.). China’s new strategy is to try to establish new institutions and platforms as tools for Beijing to play the kind of role China cannot play in the ADB or the WB. European states’ involvement has enhanced the credibility and legitimacy of the AIIB through their essential sponsorship of a developing country that is a new player in the field of development financing. In this case, the 17 European states that chose to join the AIIB as founding members adopted the position to engage China from within the new multilateral institution and at the same time to pursue their own economic interests. BRI: Growing Skepticism The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), previously known as the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) strategy, has become a branding effort of China to

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grow its international influence through economic engagement. Hence, it serves as a good case study to help understand China’s relations with Europe. China’s rapid growth has caused the Europeans to reflect on how they should respond and could benefit, and the BRI sharpens that thinking. First announced in 2013, the BRI is an ambitious initiative to strengthen the world’s second-largest economy’s investment, influence, and trade links to the rest of the world. To the Chinese government, the twenty-first-century version of the Silk Road will take shape around a vast network of transportation, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure, linking Asia to Europe and Africa through Central and South Asia and accompanied by strengthened trade and investment and increased peopleto-people exchanges (National Development and Reform Commission, 2015). The plan involves more than 65 countries. The “belt” consists of the Silk Road Economic Belt that will expand trade and investment overland to Central Asia and Europe. The “road” refers to the twentyfirst century Maritime Silk Road that consists of the East and South China Seas, the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and finally reaches Africa and Europe. Together, they account for one-third of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and two-thirds of the world’s population. According to Morgan Stanley’s estimation, China’s overall expenses through the BRI could reach US$1.2–1.3 trillion by 2027 (Chatzky & McBride, 2020). These countries along the route were randomly grouped together by a vague concept modeled after the ancient Silk Road. The core of this policy initiative is a China-sponsored and China-centered globalization. It has emphasized “openness and inclusivity” and it seems that the only country that has been excluded from the BRI so far has been the U.S. The EU is a vital part of China’s BRI because it is the destination of both the “Belt” and the “Road.” On 28 March 2015, during the Boao Forum for Asia, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), in conjunction with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, released an “action plan” for the Belt and Road. Entitled “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and twenty-first century Maritime Silk Road,” the document sets out a vision in which Chinese-led infrastructure construction, reduced tariffs, and simplified customs administration would allow trade to flow seamlessly between China and Europe by both rail and cargo ship. Chinese goods travelling to Europe via the maritime route take a relatively long time to reach their destinations: anywhere between 20 and 40 days. In contrast, an inland trade route spanning from Xinjiang to eastern Europe

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through Ukraine is expected to allow Chinese products to reach the European market in 11 days (Brugier, 2014). The Chongqing–Duisburg railway line has been in operation since 2011 and offers daily service since 2018. It reduces the transportation time between these two cities by 12 days (Skala-Kuhmann, 2019). Duisburg has now become a logistic hub for China–European trade and around 80% of trains from China make Duisburg their first European stop before goods are distributed throughout the European market via Khorgos on the China–Kazakhstan border. Another freight train line starts from Xinjiang and rides through Kazakhstan and Russia to the Netherlands and Italy. A more recent railway project was launched in 2018 to connect Vienna and the Chinese city Chengdu. By 2018, a total of 48 Chinese cities have launched 65 freight train routes, reaching 14 countries and more than 40 cities in Europe (Xinhua News, 2019). The BRI represents Beijing’s implicit gesture to incorporate the EU into its new global blueprint. The BRI has been driven by China’s position in the global economy and its concerns about growing tensions with the U.S. Trade has been the driving force behind China’s economic miracle in the past three decades. As the world factory of manufactured products, China imports energy, raw materials, and intermediate parts from the developing world and technology and capital from the developed world and then export back to the developed markets. In this sense, the U.S.–China trade conflicts and the U.S. trade deficit is not a bilateral issue, but rather, a systemic problem and a direct result of the globalized production network developed in the last three decades. Facing the growing impatience of the U.S. government to solve bilateral trade problems unilaterally, Beijing has planned to use the BRI as a means to reduce its dependence on the U.S. market by developing economic corridors to enter new markets along the silk road and enhance its export share in the European market. Strategically, the BRI is also Beijing’s attempt to seek a breakthrough from the geopolitical encirclement in the Asia-Pacific through the Indo-Pacific strategy led by the U.S. (Wang, 2016). This policy calculation indicates Beijing’s perception that the EU is a more cooperative partner that won’t choose to completely side with the U.S. to counterbalance China. China has adopted different approaches toward different parts of Europe, which has been criticized by many European think tanks as a “divide and rule” approach. Initially, the major economies of the European Union, including Germany, France, and the UK, were eager to gain

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from the BRI, or indeed any initiative of China’s that holds the promise of new business for them. China has, per the request of the IMF, G20, and its bilateral negotiations with countries in debt crisis, contributed to a Eurozone bailout. Rather than buying bonds directly from EU governments, China preferred to encourage private Chinese companies and SOEs to help Europe by purchasing cheap European assets, which was more aligned with China’s “going out” strategy and considered safer to invest in the real economy. China’s deep pockets and generous investments were turning to Southern Europe. In 2010, the total stock of Chinese direct investment in the EU was only over 6.1 billion euro. In two years, its investment stock had quadrupled to nearly 27 billion euro (Anderlini, 2014). The biggest deals back then included China’s Wanhua industrial group taking full control of the Hungarian chemical maker BorsodChem for US$1.6 billion and a US$2 billion takeover by China’s BlueStar of Norway’s chemical company Elkem (Richburg, 2012). China’s motivations included supporting recovery in its biggest exports, protecting the value of the 600 billion euros of sovereign debt it owns in the EU, and most importantly, to be recognized as a responsible global stakeholder and banker to the world. The latter was consistent with the driver of the BRI, which was fully conceptualized a couple of years later. Contrary to China’s strategy to acquire high-tech companies in Western Europe, Beijing has focused on acquiring strategic assets, esp. seaports in Southern Europe. Since the 2008 financial crisis, China has become a significant creditor to those severely indebted European Union nations including Portugal, Greece, and Italy who were all forced to privatize some of their state assets following the euro-debt crisis, making their economies partly dependent on Chinese investors. Greece, Italy, and Portugal are linkages between China and other European countries in the maritime Silk Road. The sovereign debt crisis in 2009 that took place in the Eurozone marked a turning point for China’s EU strategy. Greece was the first country to announce in August 2018 that it was formally joining China’s BRI. In 2016, China’s shipping firm Cosco purchased a majority stake in the Piraeus port and has set goals to update the port facility to turn it to be the largest port in Europe. Located in the Saronic Gulf, it is at a strategic location between Asia and Europe and China views it as an entry into the European market. The Piraeus port is one of the many strategic assets that China acquired since the Euro debt crisis.

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Initially focused on Western Europe as a prime target for Chinese investments, China has turned increasingly to Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) in promoting BRI. The institutional framework within which this targeting has taken place is the “16 + 1 network,” which was established in 2012 as a multilateral cooperation format for dialogue and cooperation between China, eleven EU member states, and five Western Balkan countries. The 16 + 1 format, also called the China–CEEC (Central and Eastern European Countries) Summit, is a cooperation platform initiated by China in 2012 to promote China’s engagement with a group of eleven EU members and five Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The 16 + 1 (now 17 + 1 with the addition of Greece) is widely seen as an integral part of China’s BRI in Europe. According to one study conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China has invested US$15.4 billion in infrastructure, transport, and information and communications technology projects through 16 + 1. China’s investment has been heavily tilted toward non-EU countries. Since 2012, 70% of investment projects have been in those five non-EU countries (Hillman & McCalpin, 2019). This strategy was partly driven by the idea that developing countries in the region have a higher demand for infrastructure projects, and partly because it would be easier for Beijing to exert political influence on those non-EU countries. In addition, they are less constrained by EU rules and regulations on governance and transparency, so they could also be more accommodating to the Chinese approach. Europe has surely seen business opportunities from China’s trade with and investment in the region. Bruno Maçães, a Portuguese politician, said in his book The Dawn of Eurasia: “One would think that the historic project of reviving the land routes between Europe and Asia is one in which Europe should play an active role” (Maçães, 2018). Despite the fact that the EU Commission has not come up with a single position toward the BRI, many European companies have already participated and benefited in trade, logistics, and infrastructure building of the BRI projects. For example, Siemens opened a Belt and Road office in Beijing in 2018 and signed a dozen cooperation agreements with China construction and telecommunication companies (Skala-Kuhmann, 2019). Though still at the early stage of development, several important criticisms have been raised by the European Commission and individual states and companies.

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First, despite that China has repeatedly reminded the rest of the world that the BRI is aimed to be a “win-win” and bring tangible economic benefits to the participating countries, there is soaring concern that China has benefited overwhelmingly at the price of others. Although the infrastructure built and the trade links developed by China in host countries aim to be open and inclusive, there are rising concerns that improved connectivity will make trade with China easier and therefore increase those countries’ trade dependence on China (Dossani et al., 2020). The CEE (Central and Eastern European) countries claimed that their trade deficit stood at a total of US$75 billion as of 2018 (Elmer, 2020). A report, “the Road Less Traveled: European Involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” released in January 2020 by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China concluded that European companies have played a “peripheral role” in BRI projects, describing their level of involvement as “crumbs from the table” (European Chamber, 2020). Second, Western European states began to share the U.S. concern of potential security threats as most Chinese investments in these states have concentrated in the Merger and Acquisition (M&A) of advanced technology. The UK and Germany have been China’s favorite investment locations in Europe since 2000. A Chinese company, Midea, takeover of Germany’s leading robotics group, Kuka, in 2016 was a wake-up call. Despite the initial government’s intention to cap Midea’s share at 49%, Midea was able to possess 94.55% of the Kuka shares in August 2016. According to a spokesman of the German Economics Ministry, an early examination of the acquisition would threaten the security and the public order of Germany’ was constrained as “the ministry can only launch a formal inquiry against the sale if crucial German interests such as telecommunications or water and power safety are affected” (Deutsche Welle, 2016). Also, in 2016, another Chinese company Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund LP bid for the acquisition of German semiconductor firm Aixtron. The German government withdrew the clearance certificate for the deal it already issued after U.S. President Barack Obama redflagged the deal (Hooijmaaijers, 2019). Consequently, Germany, France, and Italy moved to send a joint letter to the European Commission advocating that EU member states “should have more scope to investigate individual takeovers and, where applicable, block them” (Euractiv, 2017). With the implementation of the new EU investment screening regulation since March 2019, China’s total investment in the EU has sharply declined. It has also switched away from Germany and France to Nordic

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countries such as Sweden and Finland. China’s investment in the sensitive sectors of EU states will become harder in the coming years. Thirdly, until today China has not yet defined the scope or made concrete plans for this initiative. It seems to be serving China’s interests best with its vagueness. It is intended to be multilateral but has been done solely through bilateral arrangements. It has no overarching institutionalization, no formal membership protocols, no publicized accession or exit terms, no founding charters, and no written governance rules. Therefore, the Chinese BRI strategy has been criticized by some EU policy observers as “a land of mirages where you either take the illusions at face value or descend into an empirical black hole” (Shepard, 2020). It might undermine European principles such as rules-based public tenders, reciprocal market access, and European environmental and social standards. As part of the policy response, the EU also launched its Europe–Asia connectivity initiative and signed a partner agreement with Japan to provide funding for the infrastructure projects. The EU initiative is centered on “sustainable investment,” transparency, and market-based rules. It counters the Chinese BRI approach which is characterized with “inclusive globalization,” flexibility, and sometimes geopolitics-driven motives. Lastly, the EU worries about China’s “divide and rule” strategy and the internal division it has caused. To date, about half of the EU members have formalized their participation in the BRI. During Beijing’s second BRI Summit in 2019, seven presidents or prime ministers from the EU went to Beijing. Additionally, the EU became increasingly critical of the 17 + 1 as it might undermine EU unity on its China policy. China has carefully “desecuritized” its economic engagement in the EU’s periphery states with the narratives it deployed. Regional actors have also presented China as an economic, political, and normative alternative to the EU (Jakimów, 2019). This new regional dynamic has clearly compromised the EU effort to harmonize its policy and strengthen its political leadership and economic dominance in the region. French President Emmanuel Macron warned in 2018 that the BRI could make the European partner countries “vassal states” (Chatzky & McBride, 2020). Brussels has begun to reformulate its agenda so as to bind the Balkan states to its own policies and objectives, constraining their ability to independently shape their relationship with Beijing.

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What Accounted for the Wide Variations of the EU Responses toward Climate Change, AIIB and BRI? First, both China and the EU endorse and advocate for multilateralism. This common interest has been highlighted by China in its “Policy Paper on the EU” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, 2014a). Beijing holds the vision that the global governance system should not be monopolized by a single country and the current global governance deficit is partly due to the underrepresentation of emerging powers, including itself. China, not just the EU, should be recognized as one polar in the world order.2 The EU shares the belief that the unilateralist U.S. does not serve the best interests of the world, but it prioritizes the importance of a multilayered and culturally diversified polarity (Geeraerts, 2011). This underlying difference has been consistent between the two sides. As early as the first EU–China Summit in 1998, the Chinese proposed to use the term “multipolarity” in the final joint declaration. “The EU rejected the idea and instead prefers multilateralism to multipolarity” (Men, 2008, p. 4). “According to Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commissioner for External Relations, ‘For the EU… it is not the number of poles which counts, but rather the basis on which they operate. Our vision is a world governed by rules created and monitored by multilateral institutions’” (Men, 2008, p. 4; quoted from Ferrero-Waldner, 2005). Despite this important difference, “the EU, as a global player on the international stage, shares China’s concerns for a more balanced international order based on effective multilateralism, and wants to engage China as a responsible power in the management of global issues.”3 This has explained why the EU wanted to collaborate with China on global climate change, which has been conducted within the existing multilateral framework of the UNFCCC. And even in the AIIB, many EU members chose to support by joining as founding members. As the EU countries could contribute to set up a high international standard for the governing rules and regulations through negotiation. Its current governance structure is endorsed by the EU members as a rules-based multilateral development bank. However, the BRI presents a clear departure from rule-based multilateralism. Although the BRI seems like a multilateral institution with a large number of country participants, China has in reality adopted a “hub and spoke” approach to develop bilateral cooperation with the countries

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involved. It has not developed any concrete rules and is not institutionalized. Consequently, this BRI strategy has cast lots of distrust from the European states. Second, the unilateralism upheld by the former Trump administration had effectively distanced the EU. Being the most important ally of the U.S., it is still a victim of the “America First” policy in both economic and security areas. The U.S. imposed punitive duty on European steel and aluminum put the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiation in deadlock. The unilateral policy of the U.S. has pushed the EU to be more open-minded to other alternative multilateral institutions led by non-U.S. players. This partly explains the flexible approach the EU adopted to join the AIIB because they want a “seat at the table” in order to sway decisions toward their own (status quo) objectives, not because they support China’s global economic leadership (Broz et al., 2020). But as the BRI presents a direct competition of economic benefits, political influence, and strategic importance in the EU’s backyard, then participation in the BRI is viewed as a direct threat to the European interests.

Conclusion Through the case studies of global climate change talks, and EU members’ position toward its participation in the China-sponsored AIIB and BRI, this chapter argues that with the erosion of the traditional transatlantic coalition, the EU and China have found common interests in maintaining the existing multilateral world order (the United Nations) and supporting the new multilateral institutions if it is held up to the international rules and standards (the AIIB). But the EU has had a growing concern with China’s penetration in the EU market through high-tech investments and the BRI initiative, as it has largely been based on bilateral approaches and tried to exert political influence to various parts of Europe. China will thus be, simultaneously and in different policy areas, a cooperation partner with whom the EU has closely aligned objectives (climate change), a negotiating partner with whom the EU needs to find a balance of interests (AIIB), and an economic competitor and even systemic rival with whom the EU needs to defend its interest and value (BRI). Economics and politics are closely intertwined. In the midst of the deep-rooted distrust about Beijing’s state capitalism and its negative impact on the European business community, there is an emerging

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trend to construct China as security and geopolitical threat. The global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disruption on the global economy and Beijing’s decision to impose national security legislation in Hong Kong has further irritated European states and impressed the need to make a more hardline policy approach toward China. The recently concluded EU–China Summit in June 2020 confirmed that the EU has toughened its position on China by emphasizing the importance to defend European interests and values in a complex and vital partnership, as suggested by the official EU statement issued after the summit (European Commission Press Release, 2020). Given the current developments in and outside the EU, it is likely that the relationship between the EU and China will continue to deteriorate for the foreseeable future. Internally, EU states began to question the willingness of China to uphold the global rules written by the Western countries when and where it does not serve China’s own interest. While China has often repeated its legitimate request for reforming global governance to give greater participation and decision-making power to emerging economies, it has not always been willing to accept new rules reflecting the responsibility and accountability that come with its increased role. Selectively upholding some norms at the expense of others weakens the sustainability of the rules-based international order.4 Economically, the EU will also disengage with China if it would not be able to level the playing field and provide the reciprocity it has received from the European market. The bilateral relationship has evolved in the last three decades that the EU is no longer crafting its policy based on economic and normative calculations, instead, it has added another layer of complexity by including defensive interest to protect Europe’s unity from China’s aggressive expansion of influence in the region. This new element of the EU’s interest in dealing with China means that the EU will choose to push back whenever it is considered necessary. Externally, the U.S. has further pressured the European states to align with Washington to begin “decoupling with China.” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for the “alliance of democracy” to fight the “Communist China,” which could be the beginning of a new Cold War driven by ideological differences.

Notes 1. Interviews held in Beijing with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and AIIB managers, March 2017 and summer 2019.

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2. Interviews with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials in Beijing, March 2019. 3. EU’s China Policy Paper of 2006, “EU-China: Closer Partners, Growing Responsibilities,” COM (2006) 631 final, p. 2, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri= CELEX:52003DC0533&from=EN. 4. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/communica tion-eu-china-a-strategic-outlook.pdf.

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Domínguez, G. (2015, March 18). Why Europe defies the US to join a Chinaled bank. Deutsch Welle. http://www.dw.com/en/why-europe-defies-the-usto-join-a-chinaled-bank/a-18322773. Accessed 19 May 2018. Dong, L. (2014). Chinese perceptions of the European union. Journal of Contemporary China, 23(88), 756–779. Dossani, R., Bouey, J., & Zhu, K. (2020). Demystifying the belt and road initiative: A clarification of its key features, objectives and impacts. RAND Corporation. Dyer, G., & Parker, G. (2015, March 12). US attacks UK’s ‘constant accommodation’ with China. Financial Times. Eckhardt, J. (2019). Law and diplomacy in EU-China trade relations—A historical Overview. In F. Gaenssmantel, & C. Wu (Eds.), Law and diplomacy in the management of EU-Asia trade and investment relations. Routledge. Elmer, K. (2020, April 7). Europe’s ‘17 + 1’ countries dissatisfied with China relations, report says, as Summit is postponed. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3078830/eur opes-171-countries-dissatisfied-china-relations-report-says. Accessed 1 May 2020. Emmott, R., & Koutantou, A. (2017, June 18). Greece blocks EU statement on China human rights at U.N. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/ us-eu-un-rights/greece-blocks-eu-statement-on-china-human-rights-at-u-nidUSKBN1990FP. Accessed 5 November 2019. EU Commission. (2016). Joint communication to the European parliament and the council: Elements for a new EU strategy on China. http://eeas.europa. eu/archives/docs/china/docs/joint_communication_to_the_european_par liament_and_the_council_-_elements_for_a_new_eu_strategy_on_china.pdf. Accessed 1 March 2020. EU Commission. (2019, March 12). EU-China—A strategic outlook. European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-politi cal/files/communication-eu-china-a-strategic-outlook.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2020. EU Parliament. (2016). Directorate-general for external policies policy department. New trade rules for China? opportunities and threats for the EU. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/ 535021/EXPO_STU(2016)535021_EN.pdf. Accessed 15 January 2020. EU Parliament. (2020). EU-China trade and investment relations in challenging times. https://www.bruegel.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ EXPO_STU2020603492_EN.pdf Accessed 1 June 2020. Euractiv. (2017, February 16). Commission says proposal to block Chinese takeovers is ‘worth discussing’. https://www.euractiv.com/section/trade-soc iety/news/commission-says-proposal-to-block-chinese-takeovers-is-worth-dis cussing/. Accessed 15 March 2020.

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European Chamber. (2020). The road less travelled: European involvement in China’s BRI . https://www.europeanchamber.com.cn/en/publications-beltand-road-initiative. Accessed 15 March 2020. European Commission Press Release. (2020, June 22). EU-China Summit: Defending EU interest and values in a complex and vital partnership. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1159. Accessed 1 July 2020. European Union Chamber of Commerce. (2018, 18 September). European business in China position paper: 2018/2019. https://www.europeancham ber.com.cn/en/publicationsarchive/658/European_Business_in_China_Pos ition_Paper_2018_2019. Accessed 1 July 2020. Eurostat. (2020). China-EU trade in goods: e164 billion deficit in 2019. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN20200320-1. Accessed 1 March 2020. Farnell, J., & Irwin Crookes, P. (2016). The politics of EU-China economic relations: An uneasy partnership. Palgrave Macmillan. Feng, Z. (2014, April 3). Xi’s initiatives for EU partnership. China Daily. Ferguson, J. (2019, November 26). Europe needs China’s billions. But does it know the price? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commen tisfree/2019/nov/26/europe-china-billions-strings-attached. Accessed 15 January 2020. Ferrero-Waldner, B. (2005, July 4). The EU, China and the quest for a multilateral world. European commission. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pressc orner/detail/en/speech_05_414. Accessed 20 July 2020. Freeman, D. (2019). The EU-US-China triangles and the Paris agreement: A clash of order? In J. Men et al. (Eds.), The evolving relationship between China, the EU and the USA: A new global order? Routledge. Gabusi, G. (2019). Global standards in the AIIB: The contribution of the European states. The Global Policy, 10(4), 631–638. Gao, Y. (2016). China’s response to climate change issues after Paris climate change conference. Advances in Climate Change Research, 7 (4), 235–240. Geall, S. (2017). Clear waters and green mountains: Will Xi Jinping take lead on climate change? Lowy Institute for International Policy. Accessed 4 June 2020. Geall, S. (2020, July 6). China still needs to curb King Coal. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/a8c082b4-5ac9-4446-bd4f-756bad 11f765. Accessed 15 July 2020. Geeraerts, G. (2011). China, the EU, and the new multipolarity. European Review, 19(1), 57–67. German Federal Ministry of Finance. (2019, April 3). AIIB achieves its major milestones in its first three years. https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/

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Content/EN/Standardartikel/Topics/Financial_markets/Articles/2019-0403-AIIB-milestones.html. Accessed 2 March 2020. Gill, B., & Murphy, M. (2008). China-Europe relations: Implications and policy responses for the United States. A report of the CSIS freeman chair in China studies, CSIS. https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/leg acy_files/files/media/csis/pubs/080507-gill-chinaeuroperelations-web.pdf. Accessed 8 November 2019. Hillman, J., & McCalpin M. (2019, 11 April). Will China’s ‘16 + 1’ format divide Europe? Center for strategic and international studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/will-chinas-161-format-divide-europe. Accessed 5 November 2019. Hooijmaaijers, B. (2019). Blackening skies for Chinese investment in the EU? Journal of Chinese Political Science, 24, 451–470. Ikenberry, C. J., & Lim, D. J. (2017). China’s emerging institutional statecraft: The Asian infrastructure investment bank and the prospects for counter-hegemony. Project on international order and strategy at brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/chinas-emerging-institutional-sta tecraft/. Accessed 22 June 2019. Jakimów, M. (2019). Desecuritisation as a soft power strategy: The belt and road initiative, european fragmentation and China’s normative influence in Central-Eastern Europe. Asia Europe Journal, 17, 369–385. Kapur, H. (1990). Distant neighbours: China and Europe. Pinter Publishers. Kastner, S. L., Pearson, M. M., & Rector, C. (2018). China’s strategic multilateralism: Investing in global governance. Cambridge University Press. Kastner, S. L., et al. (2020) China and global governance: Opportunistic multilateralism. Global Policy, 11(1), 164–169. Kelemen, R. D., & Vogel, D. (2010). Trading places: The role of the United States and the European union in international environmental politics. Comparative Political Studies, 43(4), 427–456. Knoerich, J., & Urdinez, F. (2019). Contesting contested multilateralism: Why the west joined the rest in founding the Asian infrastructure investment bank. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 12(3), 333–370. Le Corre, P. (2015, March 17). Dividing the West: China’s new investment bank and America’s diplomatic failure. Brookings institute. https://www.bro okings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2015/03/17/dividing-the-west-chinasnew-investment-bank-and-americas-diplomatic-failure/. Accessed 2 March 2019. Le Corre, P. (2020, July 1). The EU’s new defensive approach to a rising China. Carnegie Melon Endowment. https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/ 07/01/eu-s-new-defensive-approach-to-rising-china-pub-82231. Accessed 15 July 2020.

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Liang, W. (2020). China’s institutional statecraft under Xi Jinping: Has the AIIB served China’s interest? Journal of Contemporary China. https://doi.org/10. 1080/10670564.2020.1790903. Lichtenstein, N. (2018). Governance of the Asian infrastructure investment bank in comparative context. AIIB yearbook of international law: 50–67. https://www.aiib.org/en/about-aiib/who-we-are/yearbook/_ download/governance-aiib-comparative.pdf. Accessed 5 January 2019. Liu, C. (2017, February 4). The real reason for China’s U-turn on climate change. South China Morning Post. Maçães, B. (2018). The dawn of Eurasia: On the trail of the new world order. Allen Lane. Men, J. (2008). EU-China relations: Problems and promises. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, 8(13). http://aei.pitt.edu/9060/1/ MenEUchinaLong08edi.pdf. Accessed 12 March 2020. Men, J., & Balducci, G. (Eds.) (2010). Prospects and challenges for EU-China relations in the 21st century. Peter Lang. Men, J., & Shen, W. (eds.) (2014). The European Union, the United States and China: Towards a new International order? Edward Elgar. Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, France. (2015, March 17). Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)—France, Italy and Germany announce their intention to become founding members of the AIIB. https://www.diplom atie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/economic-diplomacy-foreign-trade/ news/article/asian-infrastructure-investment. Accessed 8 July 2019. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. (2014a, April 2). China’s policy paper on the EU: Deepen the China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership for mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_6 65385/wjzcs/t1143406.shtml. Accessed 12 March 2020. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. (2014b, March 7). Lou Jiwei answers reporters’ questions on the establishment of AIIB. Chinese Ministry of Finance. http://gss.mof.gov.cn/mofhome/guojisi/zhuantilanmu/yth/ 201506/t20150617_1257665.html. Accessed 15 May 2018. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China. (2014c, October 24). Xi Jinping meets with representatives from various countries attending the signing ceremony of the MOU on preparing to establish the Asian infrastructure investment bank. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1204639. shtml. Accessed 1 August 2019. Narramore, T. (2008). China and Europe: Engagement, multipolarity and strategy. The Pacific Review, 21(1), 87–108. National Development and Reform Commission. (2015, March 28). Vision and actions on jointly building silk road economic belt and 21st-century maritime silk road. National development and reform commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China, and Ministry of Commerce, China. https://en.ndrc.

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gov.cn/newsrelease_8232/201503/t20150330_1193900.html. Accessed 20 July 2020. Neslen, A., & Mathiesen, K. (2017, September 13). EU, China and Canada to take lead on climate at montreal meeting. Climate Change News. Accessed 12 January 2020. https://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/09/ 13/china-eu-canada-take-lead-climate. Pearson, M. M. (2019). China and global climate change governance. In K. Zeng (Ed.), Handbook on the international political economy of China (pp. 411– 423). Edward Elgar Publishing. Perlez, J. (2014, October 9). U.S. opposing China’s answer to world bank. New York Times. Perlez, J. (2015, April 2). Stampede to join China’s development bank stuns even its founder. New York Times. Pickering, J., Vanderheiden, S., & Miller, S. (2012). “If equity’s in, we’re out”: Scope for fairness in the next global climate agreement. Ethics & International Affairs, 26(4), 423–443. Prodi, R. (2004). Relations between the EU and China: More than just business. Speech at the EU-China business forum. Brussels. https://ec.europa.eu/com mission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_04_227. Accessed 12 November 2019. Richburg, K. B. (2012, February 29). China wary of helping Europe weather its bebt crisis. The Washington Post. Rogelja, I., & Tsimonis, K. (2020). Narrating the China threat: Securitising Chinese economic presence in Europe. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 13(1), 103–133. Roughneen, S. (2018, September 21). EU crafts Asia infrastructure plan as belt and road makes inroads. Nikkei Asian Review. https://asia.nikkei.com/Pol itics/Internationalrelations/EU-crafts-Asia-infrastructure-plan-as-Belt-andRoad-makes-inroads. Accessed 1 November 2019. Rühlig, T. N. (2018). Political values in EU-China relations: Towards a “Principled” or a “Pragmatic” approach. In T. N. Rühlig et al. (Eds.), Political values in EU-China relations, European Think-Tank Network on China (ETNC). https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/publications-ifri/ouv rages-ifri/political-values-europe-china-relations. Accessed 2 April 2020. Schreurs, M. A. (2016). The Paris climate agreement and the three largest emitters: China, the United States, and the European Union. Politics and Governance, 4(3), 219–223. Schreurs, M. (2017). The European Union and the Paris climate agreement: Moving forward without the United States. Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment, 15(3), 192–195. Sengupta, S. (2019, November 26). ‘ Bleak’ U.N. report on a planet in Peril looms over new climate talks. New York Times.

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CHAPTER 4

Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Free Trade Agreements with European States in an Age of U.S. Protectionism Lukas K. Danner

Introduction After the U.S. general election presidential campaigning in the course of 2016 and the election of Donald J. Trump to the office of U.S. president in November 2016 and following inauguration in January 2017 were the harbinger and eventual realization, respectively, that the former champion of free trade, the U.S., would change course in that regard (Baker, 2017; Jackson, 2016).1 The following weeks and months would see many protectionist moves on the part of the Trump administration, including but not limited to imposing tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, questioning and eventually renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada into the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), as well as pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which had only just been signed in

L. K. Danner (B) University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_4

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February of 2016. Naturally, this created the opposite of an international environment conducive to advancing free trade globally, albeit during a time of relatively steady growth, which of course made the measures enacted by the Trump administration seem counterintuitive—standing as solely populist-type actions and appearing to be divorced from all rational, utilitarian back thought. As a consequence, the international community looked toward Europe, and especially of course the European Union (EU) in the hope to continue to uphold free trade being that it—even after the devastating June 2016 Brexit referendum and the now-defunct negotiations toward the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—still constituted the largest single trading block in the world. Naturally, the EU also communicated clearly that it stood by its economic values and would continue to advance free trade despite the U.S. voluntarily giving up its leadership role—both rhetorically and in action. Similarly, the third all-important geographic area for global trade next to North America and Europe, Northeast Asia, specifically the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of Korea (ROK), and Japan, were equally faced with a retrenching U.S. ally, in the case of the latter two, and partnering competitor, in the case of the former Northeast Asian nation. Of course, the PRC has not always been only advancing free trade either, being that it still keeps access to its own, coveted market under high regulations for international companies wanting to enter it and trade its products there, as well as what concerns export quota for some rare earths over which it has held a quasi-monopoly for many years, e.g., having enacted export restrictions of rare earths in 2010 (AFP, 2010a).2 However, similar to its stance on environmental pollution which changed over the past years and has China now as one of the key champions of global green politics, for example in connection with the 2015 Paris Agreement, PRC President Xi Jinping has promised to be championing free trade globally. This became especially clear in mid-January of 2017, when he delivered a speech at the Davos World Economic Forum around the same time that Trump was inaugurated as U.S. president, when the former guaranteed to advance free trade, while the latter announced his protectionist agenda (Elliott & Wearden, 2017; Yan, 2017). Counter to the Trump administration, Xi’s PRC would “remain committed to developing global free trade and investment, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation through opening-up and say no to protectionism” (CGTN, 2017). Likewise, Japan and Korea, as largely export-oriented economies,

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were equally interested to continue with a broad free trade global regime despite U.S. retrenchment. Free trade agreements (FTAs) have been one of the types of economic cooperation of choice for countries to come closer, to somewhat counteract the trend of the past decade in which “the Doha Round of talks under the World Trade Organization [were] largely moribund, some nations have been seeking partnerships below the global level” (Jolly, 2013). This chapter will take a close look at the ongoing and concluded negotiations as well as the ratification of FTAs between the abovementioned Northeast Asian nations and European nations—individually, such as with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member countries as well as with the EU—within the past decade but, of course, with a focus on the current situation that emerged after 2016. Insofar, it will ask whether these agreements are part of a long-term free trade strategy of Europeans, Japan, the ROK, and the PRC, and, if so, what that strategy is composed of, and whether recent FTAs are in compensation of missing U.S. commitment to free trade. In addition, the chapter will assess whether these FTAs and associated negotiations were in reaction to the rise of China.

China and Europe3 In 2018, out of China’s total imports and exports in the amount of US$4.62 trillion, US$854 billion were with European countries, that is, roughly 18.5% of its total (China, 2019). This stands in contrast to 2017 in which China’s total imports and exports amounted to US$4.11 trillion out of which US$756 billion was with European countries, or 18.4 percent of its total—ultimately exemplifying an increasing trend of an already rather large share in China’s foreign trade (China, 2018). As part of China’s international trade, engaging in the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade regime as well as additional free trade agreements in bilateral, trilateral (potentially with Japan and Korea), and multilateral formats with both nation-states and intergovernmental organizations (such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN]) or supranational institutions (such as, potentially, with the EU) are integral strategic features to amplify its export orientation (China, 2020a). Naturally, this started with a higher intensity after China officially became

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a member nation of the WTO in late 2001.4 Nevertheless, China’s accession to the WTO did not equate full membership without any restrictions but actually featured a more phased approach in some respects: China accepted an accession protocol that would allow Chinese trading partners to impose restrictions on Chinese exports under conditions that are substantially weaker than those WTO members must ordinarily meet before imposing import restrictions. (…) Furthermore, China has accepted limitations on its ability to retaliate that are more stringent than the limitations contained in the Safeguards Agreement. (…) China has also agreed to accept discriminatory terms in its protocol of accession in antidumping. Under U.S. trade law, China has for many years been treated as a nonmarket economy in antidumping cases. (…) This creates a double standard that could easily be abused by domestic producers in competition with Chinese exporters. Nevertheless, the Chinese government has allowed the U.S. and other trading partners to use the “nonmarket economy” methodology in antidumping investigations for up to fifteen years after accession. (Branstetter & Lardy, 2004, pp. 655f.)

While China accepted these conditions as negotiated with the WTO— known as its accession protocol—in order to get the coveted entry as a member into the organization (and, naturally, China profited immensely from it), and, with that, did not receive full market economy status, it still pursued a strategy to receive full market economy status through another route: China entered into negotiations with nation-states interested to conclude an FTA with it which of course involved better conditions to trading with it as well as better access to its internal market. As part of these negotiations to conclude an FTA, it made it a condition for the prospective partner that they recognize it as possessing full market economy status. The obvious economic benefit in this request to get recognized with this status is implicit to this and the connection to the WTO accession protocol a given, but there is another layer to this, i.e., that of China’s general status-seeking and prestige-acquiring behavior on the international stage. What is more, if and when China was recognized by a Western, liberal democracy which is highly developed and also part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), then a recognition coming from a country with these features would be celebrated and valued even more so by the Middle Kingdom. Needless to say, most countries that fit these features are located on the European continent and, therefore, concluding FTAs with European nations was

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and is high on China’s agenda, though, for those countries that are EU member states, the responsibility actually lies with Brussels to negotiate and conclude an FTA or similar agreement on behalf of the EU and its member states—in line with the wide-ranging economic responsibilities that are transferred from member states to the EU. For Western Europe, this leaves the EFTA member states, Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, for China to pursue as FTA partners and, indeed, it has concluded FTAs with the former two and is in negotiations with the latter (China, 2020a). As for the EU, it came to terms with the PRC over several rounds of negotiations toward a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment which concluded negotiations in December 2020, though, that would of course not quite rise to the level of an FTA and focus on mutual investment conditions, if signed and ratified in the outstanding process (Commission, 2020a). However, again, many of China’s actions in that regard are not only economic in nature but tend to carry political and symbolic importance not necessarily secondary to the importance for Chinese trade. China–Iceland China started to enter into negotiations with Iceland on an FTA in April 2007 after having run a feasibility study on such an FTA a year prior (China, 2020b). Subsequently, several rounds of talks in the FTA negotiations were completed over the course of the following two years. In the meantime, Iceland had entered into a financial crisis and also decided to officially apply for EU membership by handing in its application in July 2009. While the former can be said to have had no direct impact on the FTA negotiations, the latter meant that—during its EU access negotiations—Iceland had to freeze its negotiations with China while it was seeking to enter the EU as a full member (Škoba, 2013). Equally, it would have meant that, were Iceland to become an EU member, it would have had to terminate the FTA negotiations with China and other FTAs it had concluded prior (Jolly, 2013). Because of a shift in public opinion and as a result of domestic general elections, the Icelandic government decided to freeze its application to become an EU member and access negotiations were halted. FTA negotiation talks with China resumed and swiftly concluded. The FTA between the two was officially signed on April 15, 2013, in Beijing by then-Icelandic Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade Skarphéðinsson and the Chinese Minister of

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Commerce Gao Hucheng (Iceland, 2020). This presented the second FTA with an OECD country—after China’s FTA with New Zealand— and the first FTA with a European country. As with all other FTAs that China signs, Iceland acknowledged China’s full market economy status by entering into it. Naturally, voices emerged in the West questioning China’s motives of having sought an FTA with Iceland and whether it was truly just about economic relations (Škoba, 2013). Many did not see it as a coincidence that only several weeks later, China was given the status of permanent observer in the Arctic Council, in which Iceland is of course a founding member—insinuating that the Sino–Icelandic FTA may be of less economic value to China but rather more of a geopolitical, geo-economic puzzle piece in its Arctic strategy (Škoba, 2013). Naturally, though, the symbolic value that an FTA with a European country that is also in the OECD has to China, in which that country acknowledges its full market economy status, should not be discounted, too. When one looks at the trade volume in 2008 and 2018, trade between the two free trade partners increased, which was to be expected, though the economic advantage of the FTA is unmistakenly tipped in favor of China: In 2008, the Middle Kingdom was Iceland’s tenth most important export destination for goods and services in the amount of US$117 million, and sixth most important import origin for goods and services in the amount of US$408 million, resulting in a trade deficit for Iceland at US$290 million (Bank, 2020a); whereas, in 2018, Icelandic exports to China ranked eighth highest in volume at US$144 million, and Chinese imports to Iceland ranked second highest in volume at US$680 million, creating a trade deficit for Iceland in the amount of US$535 million (Ibidem). As to the question of whether the conclusion of the Sino–Icelandic FTA is a byproduct of the rise of China as well as the general retrenchment of the U.S. from the international stage, there are certainly indicators present that speak for an affirmative answer to these questions: In 2006, the U.S. had rather quickly left their decade-old presence on the Keflavik Naval Air Base in Southwest Iceland, despite pledging to keep promises in regards to its contractual obligations to defend Iceland, if necessary, besides the fact that both are party to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and this may or may not have left a vacuum for Iceland—although not in substance but perhaps in perception (Veal, 2019); combined with the rise (or re-rise) of China and the fact that the Great Recession in 2007/2008 started and mostly impacted

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the West and left China largely unscathed and a motor to renewed growth and even acting as creditor to some Western nations, implementing aggressive government bond buying schemes in some European states, to taking over of a good number of struggling European companies with long-standing technological expertise, this Sino-Icelandic FTA could be argued to have come to fruition in an environment fueled by both—U.S.–American retrenchment as well as the (re-)rise of China. China–Switzerland China’s FTA (and negotiations leading up to) with Switzerland follow much of the same points when it comes to symbolism and prestige as with the FTA with Iceland. Switzerland, an EFTA member and OECD member like Iceland, is a European country which is very developed and would add value on multiple fronts to China’s FTA portfolio. And, indeed, China’s trade volume with Switzerland is much larger than that with Iceland. In February 2011 the negotiations between China and Switzerland were officially launched with the first round taking place two months later in Bern in April 2011. After several rounds of negotiations, the Sino–Swiss FTA was finally signed in July 2013, roughly two and a half years after the negotiations started (China, 2020c). With this FTA with Switzerland, China now had its second agreement with a European country, first on the European continent, and third one with an OECD member country (after New Zealand and Iceland). As mentioned above, this particular bilateral relationship also features a much more significant trade volume. In 2018, Switzerland exported goods and services valued at US$30.3 billion to China and imported goods and services in the amount of US$14.8 billion from China (Bank, 2020b). This makes Switzerland one of the rare cases in the West that profits with a balance of trade surplus of US$15.5 billion. That made China Switzerland’s third most important trade partner for exports by trade volume in 2018, and sixth most important for imports (Ibidem). Compared to the year before the signing of the FTA, 2012, China has risen tremendously in the importance to Switzerland, as it was only eighth in ranking for Swiss exports (behind Hong Kong in the seventh spot), and only seventh for Swiss imports (Ibidem). Similarly, between the trade volume with China of approximately US$20 billion in 2012, the US$45.1 billion in 2018 present an increase of 125% (Ibidem). And whereas Switzerland was carrying a trade

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deficit with China of US$1.1 billion in 2012, it turned into the abovementioned significant trade surplus in 2018. Certainly, also the Sino–Swiss FTA came into being in an international environment similar to the Sino– Icelandic one, however, the Swiss were never as committed to American security provision as the Icelandic are. But, in principle, the same argumentation could be equally valid for this FTA—just on a purely economic level. China–Norway While the FTAs with Iceland and Switzerland are the only FTAs of China with European nation-status as of this writing, the negotiations with another EFTA state, Norway, are quite advanced at the stage that they currently are and the FTA that they have been negotiating toward has been said to be ready for signing in soon for some time already and was recently rumored to have experienced a further delay due to the COVID19 pandemic (Nan, 2020). Like the Sino–Icelandic FTA, the negotiations which began many years before it was signed and featured a hiatus of several years due to the Icelandic EU membership application, the Sino– Norwegian FTA negotiations had experienced a pause in which they were frozen intermittently (China, 2020d): First, however, the two started an FTA feasibility study in 2007, and already at this stage Norway recognized the full market economy status of China via a Memorandum of Understanding (China, 2007). Subsequently, the first round of negotiations was held in Norway in September of 2008 (Ruengchinda, 2019). Negotiations continued until around eight in 2010 (China, 2020d; China, 2020e). What set the FTA negotiations—as well as Sino–Norwegian relations in general—back and caused a seven-year pause in them was the announcement of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in October 2010 to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident who had been taken into custody two years prior (Branigan, 2010). In 2016, after approximately six years, Norway and China made first steps toward resuming their bilateral relations and eyed a restart of the negotiations toward the FTA (China, 2020f, 2020g; Milne, 2016; Sverdrup-Thygeson & Lanteigne, 2016). In April 2017, the two came to an agreement on the resumption of FTA negotiations the ninth round of which was then slated for August 2017 in Beijing (China, 2020f). Fast-forward several more rounds, the sixteenth and, thus far, last round of negotiations took place in September 2019 in Wuhan (China, 2020d). Since the last third

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of 2018 the talks accelerated and significantly advanced progress to the extent that, since late 2019, news articles spoke of an imminent signatureready FTA deal between China and Norway, and then, more recently, a delay due to COVID-19 (Nan, 2020; Ruengchinda, 2019).5 In terms of trade volume with China, Norwegian exports to China totaled US$1.6 billion in 2007—the year prior to the start of negotiations—(ranking fourteenth) and imports from China came in at US$4.8 billion (ranking fifth) for a trade deficit of US$3.2 billion for Norway (Bank, 2020c). Eleven years later, in 2018, albeit still without an officially signed FTA, trade volume continued to rise with China: Now ranking as the tenth most important destination for Norwegian exports worth US$2.6 billion and third most important for imports worth US$8.8 billion, the trade deficit for Norway increased to US$6.2 billion (Ibidem). As to the question of whether or not the Sino–Norwegian free trade negotiations and prospective FTA would be due to U.S. retrenchment and protectionism—and with that the rise of China which is seeking to fill a void left by the U.S.—the Minister of Fisheries and Seafood of Norway, Harald Nesvik, said (though, in response to a question regarding the U.S.–China trade war, which is not unrelated perhaps) that “‘[t]rade wars between big nations will influence all of us[.] (…) It’s better that nations trade with each other than build walls against their borders, so these FTA negotiations that Norway has with several countries are very important’” (Ruengchinda, 2019). China–EU The European Union, though quite integrated with the abovementioned EFTA nations via cooperation in the single market and common membership (for many EU member states apart from some, like Ireland) in the Schengen Agreement, presents a much larger trade volume for China and a prize that may be far-fetched at this stage to associate with an FTA. Rather, the negotiations that have been underway with the EU for a few years recently culminated in their December 2020 successful conclusion for an investment treaty, though, one that is meant to facilitate free trade and an even playing field for European companies in China—giving European companies wanting to invest in China at least the same securities as Chinese companies enjoy in the European single market. The so-called, yet-to-be-signed EU–China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), per the European Commission, aims to “create new investment

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opportunities for European companies by opening China’s market and eliminating discriminatory laws and practices that prevent them from competing in the Chinese market on an equal basis with Chinese companies and companies from other third countries” (Commission, 2020a). Despite not quite reaching the degree of an FTA, this investment treaty is still somewhat more than just that, as China and the EU “agreed that it [goes] beyond a traditional investment protection agreement to cover market access for investment and a number of important disciplines. It (…) also include[s] provisions on sustainable development and dispute resolution” (Ibidem). The first step was taken in February 2012 as a result of the fourteenth EU–China Summit with the signatures on a political agreement to begin negotiating toward this investment agreement and that such pursuit was in their mutual interest (Commission, 2020a). In November 2013, an agreement was reached during the sixteenth EU–China Summit that the first round of negotiations toward such a treaty would follow about two months later, in January 2014 (China, 2014). Soon thereafter, the second round took place in March 2014, to the concluding thirty-fifth round in December 2020 (China, 2020h; Commission, 2021; Ibidem). Though—as of March 2021—the treaty has yet to be signed and ratified, the EU has already made good use of it in one particular manner: attention-seeking toward its western ally, the U.S., that it does have options besides it. At least that was the case for a long time before former President Donald J. Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, after which the thinking may have changed within the EU that it may be time to diversify away from the U.S.—not just in terms of economic cooperation but also in other areas, such as security, given the rhetoric about the obsolescence of NATO, among other signs, coming out of the White House. Though, at least immediately after Trump’s inauguration, the EU was scrambling to host an earlier than originally planned summit with China—supposedly as a subtle message to the Trump administration at the time, i.e., that they would look toward China (and others), if the trade partnership crumbled with the U.S. (Reuters, 2017).

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Japan and Europe Japan–Switzerland Japan’s first FTA with a European nation was with Switzerland. This is despite the fact that even though about a decade after the conclusion of the FTA, the volume in the Swiss–Japanese trade relationship is not among the most important ones for Japan, even within just Europe: The share of trade in goods with Switzerland made up 0.51% of Japan’s total exports and 1.04% of Japan’s total imports in 2018 (Bank, 2020d). In that year, Japan exported US$3.8 billion to Switzerland and imported US$7.75 billion from Switzerland, generating a trade surplus for Switzerland in the amount of US$3.95 billion (Bank, 2020d). While for Japan, Switzerland is the number twenty-six most important singlenation trading partner (or number twenty-one when grouping Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Belgium together as EU27), Japan is certainly more important to Switzerland as it constitutes its trading partner with the thirteenth largest trade volume, and when excluding its European partners its third-largest trade volume after the U.S. and China (Bank, 2020b; Bank, 2020d). Regarding the Swiss–Japanese FTA, preparation for negotiations took place in March 2007 as a result of a joint governmental study group which looked into ways to foster the trade relationship (Japan, 2011). The first round of negotiations started in May 2007 with the last and eighth round ending in September 2008 (Ibidem). The FTA, which “is officially called an economic partnership agreement [(EPA) as it] (…) cover[s] cooperation in investment and services, in addition to trade in goods[,]” (News, 2009) was signed in Tokyo on February 19, 2009, and—after ratifications took place subsequently—entered into force on September 1, 2009 (Ibidem). While the trade between Japan and Switzerland is at a modest level as mentioned above, entering into an FTA with a European nation that is important but not an EU member could—in retrospect—be interpreted as a type of backdoor strategy with the eventual goal of an FTA with the EU, which indeed were to happen about less than a decade thereafter. Switzerland, on the other hand, profited immensely from this FTA and continues to reap a hefty trade surplus thanks to its exports to Japan.

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Japan–EU Historically, trade between European nations and Japan has been with a profitable advantage for the latter, at least when recounting the last few decades during which “[t]he (…) trade relationship between the EU and Japan used to be characterised by big trade surpluses in favour of Japan” (Commission, 2020b). That relationship, however, reversed in recent years: Trade in goods between Japan and the EU in 2019 totaled e 124 billion in 2019 with exports to Japan making up e61.1 billion and imports from Japan e62.9 billion (Commission, 2020b). From 2017, where total trade in goods between the two totaled e111.2 billion, and exports to Japan e54.1 billion and imports from Japan e57.1 billion, this represents a decrease of a trade deficit for the EU from e3 billion to now e1.7 billion, and an overall increase in trade of e12.8 billion, equivalent to 12.5% (Ibidem). Though the EU suffers a deficit in the trade in goods with Japan, this is more than recuperated by trade in services: In 2018, EU–Japanese trade in services totaled e42.5 billion, made up of e14.6 billion services imported from Japan to the EU and e27.9 billion services exported from the EU to Japan, generating a trade surplus of e13.3 billion for the EU (Ibidem). Compared with 2016, trade in services between the EU and Japan had totaled e4.8 billion less than in 2018 at e37.7 billion (e14.5 billion imports from Japan; e23.2 billion exports to Japan) and a trade surplus for the EU of e8.6 billion (Ibidem). As such, in 2019, Japan was a very important trading partner for the EU which came in just after the top five trade partners (U.S., China, Switzerland, Russia, and Turkey) at rank six and the main five item groups in goods traded between the two were machinery and appliances, transport equipment, chemical products, optical or photographic instruments (both ways) as well as plastics and rubber from Japan to the EU and food, beverages and tobacco from the EU to Japan (Commission, 2020c, p. 2). Conversely, for Japan, the EU was the third most important trading partner for both imports and exports—making up about 10.3% of its trade with the world in 2019 (Ibidem, p. 8). While it is clear that—as liberal democracies—Japan and the EU block of nations are committed to free trade, capitalism, privatization, and deregulation, they have only engaged in thinking about an FTA between each other more recently. In fact, and this may be part of the explanation for this delay, “[l]ess than a decade ago, both Japan and

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the European Union were seen as protectionist and the odds of them signing a comprehensive free trade agreement (…) seemed low” (Lungu, 2019). Nevertheless, as the European Commission wrote in an info sheet promoting the negotiated (and—at the time—not-yet-signed) FTA (like the agreement with Switzerland, officially called an EPA) with Japan, “[t]his new deal would send a powerful signal to the rest of the world that two large economies are resisting protectionism and that openness to trade remains one of the best tools to shape globalisation” (Commission, 2018, p. 3). The occasion for which aforementioned info sheet was published was the ceremonial signing of the so-called Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and Japan on July 17, 2018, in Tokyo (Japan, 2018a). Before that, the two parties had been considering an FTA since the early 2010s and the first round of negotiations officially began in April 2013 (Japan, 2018b). The negotiations concluded with round eighteen four years later, which started in April 2017 (Ibidem). After July 17, 2018, signing in Tokyo, ratifications took place and the FTA entered into force on February 1, 2019 (Japan, 2018c). This action created the largest free trade area in the world with a share of global GDP of more than one-third, and, at the time of signing, “the deal [was] the first and only international trade agreement to include a clear commitment to fight climate change and support implementation of the Paris agreement” (Commission, 2018). The timing of the announcement of this new trade deal and its ceremonial signing on July 17, 2018, can—in retrospect—not possibly be interpreted as a mere coincidence, as it left the impression that the three statesmen that were present for the signing in Tokyo “Japan’s (…) Shinzo Abe, and the EU leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker sought to establish themselves as the flag-bearers of the free world, in response to then-President Donald Trump’s show of apparent solidarity with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on” July 16, 2018, i.e., just the day before the signing (Boffey, 2018). This, again, goes very much into the vein of the behavior on the part of the EU that may be characterized as attention seeking and letting the U.S. know that it has options—in this case also one that it acted on. Indeed, the EU–Japan talks could well be said to have been stuck around the year 2015, 2016, but with the campaign, election, and eventual inauguration of former President Donald Trump, they picked up steam and led to being finalized in the course of 2017. Though it is not part of the analysis here, the same was true for the trade agreement between the EU and Canada (Comprehensive Economic and Trade

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Agreement; CETA). And, indeed, the Economic Partnership Agreement between Japan and the EU came together with two additional agreements, that is, an Adequacy Agreement which “creat[ed] the world’s largest area of safe data flows” (Commission, 2019), as well as a Strategic Partnership Agreement, conveying a very strong commitment in the EU– Japanese relationship (Lungu, 2019). Another layer to the EU–Japan FTA is naturally the fact that the Trump administration had abandoned the TPP in January 2017—just a few days after the inauguration—as one of the first acts (Baker, 2017). The TPP would have of course included Japan together with the U.S. but it was not to happen as planned by Trump’s predecessor, President Obama, who had meant to “link a dozen nations from Canada and Chile to Australia and Japan in a complex web of trade rules, (…) to permanently tie the United States to East Asia and create an economic bulwark against a rising China” (Ibidem).

South Korea and Europe Korea–EFTA South Korea’s first FTA with partners in Europe—as well as the first FTA with a regional bloc of multiple countries—was with the EFTA states Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland (Korea, 2006). Trade with the four EFTA states is modest for South Korea’s standards—like Japan, an export-oriented market nation—at a total trade in goods and services volume of approximately US$8 billion in 2018 (Bank, 2020e). Due to a high volume of imports in goods and services from Switzerland (US$3 billion) compared to exports to Switzerland (US$0.5 billion), the trade surpluses South Korea ran with Norway (+US$1.25 billion) and Iceland (+US$18.8 million) still made for an overall trade deficit with the EFTA states of US$1.28 billion in 2018 to South Korea’s disadvantage (Ibidem).6 As mentioned above, this FTA was among the very first FTAs that Korea concluded as the third FTA on record after its deals with Chile and Singapore which took effect in April 2004 and March 2006, respectively (Korea, 2020). After negotiations, the EFTA states and Korea signed the FTA in Hong Kong on December 15, 2005 (Association, 2020). After ratifications, the agreement took effect on September 1, 2006, for trade between Korea and Norway, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, and on October 1, 2006, also for trade between Korea and Iceland (Ibidem).

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Strategically, the Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlights the fact that “[t]he Korea-EFTA FTA carries significance in that it has established a bridgehead for Korea’s entry into the European market” (Korea, 2020). Korea–EU Indeed, through the backdoor of the deal with the EFTA states, an FTA with the EU was likely facilitated. An additional contributing factor was surely the “Global Europe” initiative which was announced by the EU in 2006 and “has focused on enhanced market access, which works as the main rationale behind the EU approach towards FTAs” (Council, 2020; Serrano, 2016, p. 487). The FTA negotiations with Korea thereafter led to the first actual FTA concluded within this initiative to come to more comprehensive trade agreements with partners with the abovementioned one with Japan following about a decade thereafter. Negotiations between Korea and the EU had begun in May 2007 and concluded after seven rounds of negotiation in October 2009 culminating in the EU–South Korea Summit in Brussels in October 2010 on the occasion of which it was signed. After ratification by the European and South Korea parliaments, the agreement went provisionally into effect on July 1, 2011, and started fully applying in 2015 (Kim, 2010). Trade-in goods between the EU and Korea in 2017 as at a total of e87.5 billion with a slight deficit of e0.5 billion for the EU with e44 billion imports from Korea and e43.5 billion exports to Korea (Commission, 2020d). In 2019, this deficit was exacerbated to e4 billion with e47.4 billion of goods imported from Korea and e43.3 billion exported to Korea, having generated a total of e90.7 billion trade volume (Ibidem). However, looking at the trade in services, the EU–Korea trade relationship balances out: Out of the total 2017 EU–Korean trade in services of e17.3 billion, e6.5 billion in services were imported from Korea while e10.8 billion were exported to Korea, and out of the total 2019 EU–Korean services trade of e19 billion total, there were e7.6 billion imports from Korea and e11.4 billion exports to Korea—having generated trade in services surplus for the EU in the amount of e4.3 billion and e3.8 billion in 2017 and 2019, respectively (Ibidem). Naturally, the agreement process, ratification, and entering into force has taken place between the EU and South Korea many years before the Trump administration but there was a dynamic that happened between the Obama administration (which in turn had inherited the FTA and

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negotiations leading up to it from the Bush administration) and the EU at the time that was competitive in nature, too (AFP, 2010b): While the FTA text of the EU–Korea FTA was initialed in 2009 and was signed in October 2010, as mentioned above, the U.S. had concluded its negotiations with Korea and signed a first text in 2007 but what followed was a hiatus of over three years with another version then finally signed in December 2010 between the U.S. and Korea (Ibidem). Due to the October 2010 EU–Korea Summit in Brussels, a new wind was blown into the U.S.–Korea FTA which had been stuck for those three years, and—in reaction to the EU–Korea deal—“White House and Congress urged the passage of the South Korea-U.S. FTA in order to avoid U.S. exporters from losing market share in South Korea from the passage of the Korea-EU FTA” (Meltzer, 2011). This then seems to have unlocked the situation and made the December 2010 signing of the U.S.–Korea deal eventually possible, which was ratified in 2011 and finally applied in March 2012 (Gleason et al., 2012). Korea was unaffected by the TPP decision of the Trump administration in 2017 since it was not part of the negotiated deal. However, after first threatening to prepare a withdrawal of the U.S. from the FTA with Korea and giving an assessment of the Bush–Obama-era FTA as “horrible,” ex-President Trump did instead open a renegotiation of the original agreement in late 2017 which concluded only several months later and was aimed at having more U.S. cars exported to Korea (Paletta 2017; Shane 2018). From a Korean viewpoint, though, seeking a deal with the EU as well as the U.S. certainly made good sense, as this seems to have benefitted the peninsular nation in the best ways, though, inciting trade-related competition between the two heavyweights.

Conclusion In conclusion, trade between China, Japan, South Korea with Europe has reached an all-time high in its importance during the Trump administration as the most integral pillar upholding free trade in the world. Much of this is supported by FTAs that are either bilateral or multilateral in nature between either EFTA nations with the East Asian countries or between the EU and South Korea and Japan. In addition, the negotiations toward an investment treaty between the EU and China have concluded as of December 2020 and is planned to be signed imminently as of writing. Especially what concerns the Japan–EU FTA, a more or

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less direct connection can be made with the protectionist stance of the Trump administration at the time and its withdrawal from the TPP deal that included Japan. Given the (re-)rise of China, the fact that Korea not only concluded a trade deal with the U.S. but also with the EU and EFTA nations, is conclusive given that it sees itself at the mercy of China as the smaller nation (albeit relatively large home market compared to the majority of other countries in the world) in East Asia. Equally, China and Japan following Korea’s lead, though for mostly different reasons, was a possibly unintended consequence of the Korean deals with Japan having concluded FTAs with Switzerland and the EU and China with Iceland, Switzerland, and currently in negotiations with Norway for an FTA and the soon to be signed and ratified abovementioned investment treaty (CAI) with the EU. All three of the East Asian nations started small to go bigger in terms of partnership with Europeans, i.e., what some might call a backdoor strategy. This meant for Korea to first sign a deal with the EFTA nations, then with the EU; for China to agree on an FTA with Iceland, then Switzerland, and have been in negotiations with Norway (FTA) and have concluded negotiations with the EU (investment treaty); and for Japan to conclude an FTA with Switzerland and then the EU most recently. For the EU, the comprehensive FTAs have become part of its “Global Europe” strategy since the mid-2000s and the EU– Korea FTA was the first finished FTA as a result of this strategy which continues to this day as of August 2020. Looking ahead, much is dependent on whether current President Joe Biden can regain lost ground and whether there would be a second term for Trump (or the election of a Trump-like Republican president) in 2024 likely resulting in more protectionism on the part of the U.S. and—as a consequential reaction—more championing of free trade on the part of Europeans and East Asians.

Notes 1. Earlier versions of parts of this chapter have previously been presented at the “Contemporary EU-China Relations” roundtable of the Miami-Florida Jean Monnet Center of Excellence on October 22, 2018, and the 15th East Asia Security Symposium and Conference on June 29, 2018. The author would like to thank Bibek Chand, Anna Hayes, Jonathan H. Ping, and Jin Zeng for helpful comments. All remaining errors are those of the author alone. 2. For an elaborated account of the 2010 rare earth export restrictions and the context, see, e.g., Danner (2018), pp. 102–117.

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3. See, e.g., Danner (2018), pp. 117–126, for more information on China’s FTA strategy. To be clear, when this section refers to China and its government and market (with which FTAs are signed and which is impacted by FTAs, respectively) what is effectively addressed is mainland China. Analysis does not take into account, for example, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macao. 4. For an extensive account of China’s accession to the WTO, see, e.g., Bhattasali et al. (2004), or Halverson (2004). 5. Whether the Sino-Norwegian free trade negotiations are indeed going to lead to a signing of an FTA very soon is of course unclear. The Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Seafood, Harald Nesvik, was cautiously optimistic in late 2019, though with the necessary respect toward the unpredictability of negotiations, when he said that “[i]t’s very hard to say when you‘re going to finish these kinds of negotiations, because very often when you think you see the light in the tunnel, it’s not the light, it’s the train [that is] coming” (Ruengchinda, 2019). 6. As a result of the Customs Treaty signed in 1923, Liechtenstein and Switzerland share an economic area (Switzerland, 2020). Thus, import and export numbers in most sources for Swiss–Korean trade often include items imported from and exported to Liechtenstein in this context of South Korean foreign trade. Though modest, South Korea ran a trade deficit with Liechtenstein in 2018 having exported US$10.2 million to and imported US$13.2 million from Liechtenstein (Service, 2020).

References AFP. (2010a, September 24). China blocked exports of rare earth metals to Japan, traders claim. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ china-business/8022484/China-blocked-exports-of-rare-earth-metals-toJapan-traders-claim.html. Accessed 5 February 2020. AFP. (2010b, December 5). US, South Korea sign sweeping free-trade agreement. Taipei times. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/ 2010/12/05/2003490144. Accessed 20 June 2020. Association, European Free Trade. (2020). Korea, Republic of. European free trade association. https://www.efta.int/free-trade/free-trade-agr eements/korea. Accessed 30 June 2020. Baker, P. (2017, January 23). Trump abandons trans-pacific partnership, Obama’s signature trade deal. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/ 01/23/us/politics/tpp-trump-trade-nafta.html. Accessed 23 January 2020. Bank, World. (2020a). Iceland exports, imports and trade balance by country and region. World integrated trade solution. https://wits.worldbank.org/Countr yProfile/en/Country/ISL/Year/LTST/Summary. Accessed 15 June 2020.

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PART III

Europe & Southeast Asia

CHAPTER 5

The ASEAN–EU Relations and the ASEAN Regional Integration Siremorn Asvapromtada

Introduction Relationships, both multilateral and bilateral, are widespread across continents. The inter-regional relations—defined as relations between regional organizations—are also numerous. This chapter discusses the interregional relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU). These two regional organizations have had an extended inter-regional history; they celebrated their 40th commemorative anniversary in 2017 for their dialogue relationship. Moreover, they have already agreed to upgrade their relationship to a strategic partnership in 2019. While trade and investment have remained the most critical issues in the ASEAN–EU relations, noneconomic cooperation has further strengthened the relationship between the two regions. Such relations have expanded from political to sociocultural cooperation. This chapter analyzes ASEAN–EU relations through a specific program on ASEAN integration. Such a program is not only

S. Asvapromtada (B) Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_5

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important for ASEAN to move forwards ASEAN Community, an ultimate objective on political-security, economic, and sociocultural cooperation, but it also has mutual benefits for both ASEAN and the EU. On the one hand, ASEAN has received resources and in-kind aid from the EU while learning from the organization. On the other hand, the EU is able to establish an even more thriving relationship with its vital partner. This chapter begins by tracing the relationship between ASEAN and the EU. Then, it analyzes the depth and the width of the cooperation between ASEAN and the EU. After that, it discusses the opportunities for ASEAN integration with the support from the EU. Besides the opportunities from the EU support, the program of ASEAN integration is also strengthened by China which is another significant partner of ASEAN. In other words, ASEAN has been playing a crucial role to seize opportunities from both the EU and China to its advantage. The chapter then proceeds to discuss specific challenges related to the role of the EU in ASEAN integration. It finally argues that the improved relationship and cooperation between ASEAN and the EU have significantly contributed to the ASEAN regional integration process.

Tracing the Relationship Between ASEAN and the EU Before the legal institutional establishment of the European Union, the European Economic Community (EEC) was the first institution that established an informal inter-regional relationship with ASEAN in 1972. The relationship between ASEAN and the then EEC formalized in 1977 when the latter became ASEAN’s Dialogue Partner. As a Dialogue Partner, the EEC had participated in the Post-Ministerial Conferences after the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting. Then, the so-called ASEAN–EEC Ministerial Meeting (AEMM) was created for the first time when foreign ministers of ASEAN and the EEC formally met in Brussels in 1978. In 1980, five countries of ASEAN—namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—signed a Cooperation Agreement with the EEC during the second AEMM in Kuala Lumpur. The agreement can be considered as the first fundamental legal framework of the continuing relationship between the two institutions. Despite it being considered a trade agreement, the Cooperation Agreement provides a path to other non-trade-related cooperation. Article 5 of the agreement recommends the establishment of a Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) to promote

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and review cooperation activities. The first ASEAN–EEC JCC emphasizes economic, commercial, and development cooperation between the two blocs. The ASEAN–EEC JCC has four subcommittees, namely, Trade, Economic and Industrial Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Forests; and informal working groups. The evolution of the European Community into the European Union (EU) by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 did not downgrade the interregional relationship between the two regions. Instead, another mechanism was added to support the existing work of the JCC, AEMM, and the Post-Ministerial Conference. The European Commission’s Joint Declaration of the 11th AEMM at Karlsruhe, Germany (1994) states, “The Ministers agreed to the creation of an ad hoc and informal eminent persons group from both regions in order to further enhance ASEAN-EU relations.” Moreover, the Ministers recommended creating ASEAN–EU Senior Officials Meeting (ASEAN–EU SOM) to further strengthen cooperation between the two blocks. Both the Eminent Persons Group and the ASEAN–EU SOM are the additional mechanism that increases dialogue and consultation process on issues beyond trade and investment that were the initial cooperation of the two organizations. Showing strong interest in the relationship with ASEAN, the EU adopted a new strategy toward its counterpart. The 1996 EU Communication document titled “EU-ASEAN: Creating a New Dynamic” provides policy recommendations for the EU (The European Commission 1996). It recommends the formalization of an inter-regional agreement and establishment of an action plan, particularly in political issues. Another important policy paper at the turn of the new century is “Europe and Asia: A Strategic Framework for Enhanced Partnerships,” published in 2001 (The Commission of the European Community, 2001). The document emphasizes the importance of Asia as an economic and political partner for the EU. Two approaches were recommended, including dialogue with ASEAN as a whole and bilateral relationship between the EU and individual Southeast Asian countries (2001, p. 22). Later on in 2003, the European Commission issued “Communication Launches a New Partnership with South East Asia,” outlining six strategic priorities for the relationship with Southeast Asia (The European Commission, 2003). The six priorities include supporting regional stability and the fight against terrorism; human rights, democratic principles, and good governance; mainstreaming justice and home affairs issues; injecting a new dynamism into regional trade and investment relations; continuing

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to support the development of less prosperous countries; and intensifying dialogue and cooperation in specific policy areas (2003). Having the status as dialogue partners for 30 years, ASEAN and the EU strengthened their relationship in 2007 when they endorsed the Nuremberg Declaration on an EU–ASEAN Enhanced Partnership. The declaration emphasizes the importance of deeper and wider cooperation on political, security, economic, energy security, climate change, environment, sociocultural, and development issues (The European Union External Action, 2007). It sets long-term vision on ASEAN–EU relations. A Plan of Action to Implement the Nuremberg Declaration on an EU-ASEAN Enhanced Partnership was adopted. It translates the objectives of the Declaration into substantial activities that ASEAN and the EU executed. After the first plan of action, two additional plans of action follow, including the Bandar Seri Begawan Plan of Action to Strengthen the ASEAN–EU Enhanced Partnership (2013–2017) and the ASEAN–EU Plan of Action (2018–2022). The EU further demonstrates its interests in enhancing cooperation with ASEAN. The EU acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) in 2012. The accession to TAC provides the EU the path to engage more with the region, particularly in political and security issues, for TAC is a precondition to membership of the East Asia Summit. The 20th EU–ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in 2014, under the theme of “Towards Strategic Partnership for Peace, Stability, and Prosperity” signaled the desire of upgrading their dialogue partnership status to a strategic partnership. The Statement noted considerable progress on cooperation between ASEAN and the EU (Council of the European Union, 2014). A strengthening relationship toward strategic partnership was reiterated in the Council Conclusion on EU–ASEAN Relations in June 2015 (Council of the European Union, 2015). Concrete evidence on the closer relationship between the EU and ASEAN can be observed in the occasion where the EU inaugurated the EU Mission to ASEAN on August 8, 2015. Given the deepening cooperation and previous statements on upgrading the relationship between the two regions, the EU and ASEAN remained as dialogue partners until 2019. The Joint Statement of the 22nd EU–ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Brussels in January 2019 (Council of the European Union, 2019) is a significant milestone in

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the relationship, for the two parties agreed in principle to upgrade the EU–ASEAN relations to a Strategic Partnership.

Analyzing the Depth and Width of the Cooperation between ASEAN and the EU As ASEAN becomes to achieve more political and economic confidence, it can play central roles in engaging with external partners. How deep and wide ASEAN’s relationship with external partners depends partially on the partners’ policy toward ASEAN. Although the US has been an active partner with ASEAN, it has recently paid more attention to security cooperation than other issues in the region. Moreover, Petri and Plummer (2014) argue that the United States has paid more attention to selective bilateral cooperation with some Southeast Asian countries. As a result, regional projects on cooperation and integration have been undermined. Member states of ASEAN also perceive the United States less influential power than China while the EU has been admired by ASEAN members as the leader of rule-based order and international laws (Tang et.al., 2020). Although there is neither a clear definition of strategic partners nor differences between strategic partners and dialogue partners in both the EU and ASEAN legal documents, it can be assumed that being strategic partners, both the EU and ASEAN will have to strengthen their cooperation and consultation on most, if not all, issues. ASEAN Charter (2019) categorizes the status of external parties as dialogue partners, sectoral dialogue partners, development partners, special observers, guests, and another status that may be established (Article 44 of the ASEAN Charter). Nevertheless, the status of a strategic partner is not mentioned or specified in any legal ASEAN document. Despite long cooperation between ASEAN and the EU, ASEAN still does not have concrete strategies toward the EU. In the case of the EU, Reiterer (2013) argues that internal and external conditions are necessary for parties to become strategic partners. He asserts that, “internally, after some years of trust and confidence building among partners an upgrade to ‘strategic partnership’ has to meet the agreement internally of all member states and the EU institutions. Externally, a strategic partnership has to rest on reciprocal interests, rights, and duties to realize mutually defined goals” (2013, p. 84). The Blue Book 2018 EU–ASEAN Cooperation (2018) highlights the New Plan of Action 2018–2022 on the desire of ASEAN and the EU to elevate their

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relationship from dialogue partners to strategic partners. Nevertheless, it remains unclear what makes a strategic partnership in the case of the EU– ASEAN relations. The existing dialogue partnership between the EU and ASEAN will continue no matter whether or not the relationship will be upgraded to a strategic partnership. ASEAN–EU relations have always been cited for the importance of trade and foreign direct investment. The EU is ASEAN’s second-largest trade partner while ASEAN is the EU’s third-largest trade partner after the US and China. Moreover, the EU provides the largest foreign direct investment in ASEAN. Allison (2015) argues that economic motivation that keeps the EU engaged in Southeast Asia has two folds. First, the EU needs access to the Southeast Asian markets and to provide a market for Southeast Asia goods. Second, the EU needs to ensure that they are not excluded from the economies of ASEAN and their member states. The EU, thus, is observed as an important economic actor in Southeast Asia. Besides trade and investment, ASEAN and the EU have a diverse relationship over a wide range of issues, from political to sociocultural projects. Strategically, the EU has been an important actor for ASEAN to its substantial power to balance against the US and China in Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, the EU’s security and strategic interests toward the region are not notably in focus. Normatively, the EU has been promoting and sharing its core principles of democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for human dignity, the principles of equality and solidarity, and respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law. Based on these principles, democracy and human rights have remained among the top concerns for the EU’s engagement with ASEAN. Institutionally, Ruland (2001) argues that the cooperation between ASEAN and the EU is of a low level of institutionalization, for it only relies on ministerial meetings, senior officials’ meetings, and some meetings of working groups. Moreover, inter-regional agreements are scant compared to bilateral agreements. However, the existing mechanism of inter-regional relationships has a long history and relative success in strengthening the EU–ASEAN relations. In addition to the inter-regional relationship, members of ASEAN and the EU have also advanced their bilateral relationship. Cameron (2013) argues that the key driving forces of the EU–Asia relations are bilateral agreements. While the 1980 Cooperation Agreement between the EU and ASEAN members provides a regulatory framework between the two

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regions, the partnership and cooperation agreements (PCAs) can be seen as an upgraded bilateral approach that the EU has been engaging with individual ASEAN members. The PCAs provide a general framework for bilateral economic relations as well as political and security cooperation. The EU began the negotiations with six ASEAN countries since 2004, namely Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Later, Vietnam and the EU signed the PCA in 2012. Ultimately, Wu (2013) observes that the PCAs were instrumental for the EU to promote its values such as democracy and human rights. Moreover, the PCAs between the EU and individual members of ASEAN are prerequisites for their bilateral free trade agreements. Currently, bilateral free trade agreement negotiations between the EU and some individual members of ASEAN are in place while bilateral agreement negotiation between the EU and Singapore, and the EU and Vietnam were completed in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Negotiations for the EU–ASEAN FTA were launched in 2007, but they were paused as bilateral agreements were pursued instead. This reflects the EU’s intention to advance some kind of trade relationship with countries in ASEAN when the inter-regional trade relations do not seem to move forward. For the EU, both bilateral PCAs and FTAs serve as stepping stones toward an overarching region-to-region agreement, which is the EU’s ultimate objective in engaging with ASEAN (EU Delegation in Jakarta, 2013). Moreover, bilateral agreements between the EU and individual members of ASEAN may assist narrowing gaps among ASEAN members, for more than half of bilateral agreements with ASEAN members are distributed to less developed states, namely, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam (EU Mission to ASEAN, 2019).

Opportunities for ASEAN Integration with the Support from the EU Throughout the long history of the EU–ASEAN relationship, the EU has had numerous projects to support ASEAN. However, the EU has designed and implemented two key programs to specifically enhance ASEAN integration. They are the ASEAN–EU Program for Regional Integration Support and the Regional Europe–ASEAN Dialogue Initiative. The former focuses on capacity building for ASEAN institutions while the latter emphasizes policy dialogues and exchanges. Both programs have been implemented in different phases with slight name

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changes. However, the main activities have remained to support ASEAN integration. The ASEAN–EU Program for Regional Integration Support (APRIS) programs have two phases, APRIS I and APRIS II. They are co-financed by the EU and ASEAN. According to Martin (2009, p. 89), the head of the APRIS program, “APRIS is aimed at supporting regional needs in relation to the agreement and delivery of current and future trade agreements, in the deepening of integration and in the improvement of regulatory frameworks that are pro-trade.” The EU and ASEAN signed the ASEAN–EU Program for Regional Integration Support (APRIS I) in September 2003. APRIS I aimed at improving ASEAN’s economic management systems and boosting capacity of the ASEAN Secretariat. Emphasizing policy formulation and cooperation, APRIS I followed the EU steps for economic integration (Allison, 2015). First, it aimed at establishing a single window for customs, then planned to remove non-tariff barriers and enhance external common tariff for ASEAN members. After that, it proceeded to harmonize production standard, production statistics, and classifications. Moreover, APRIS I also facilitated the consultation process to solve trade and investment issues. For technical assistance on institutionalization of ASEAN, APRIS I program included training ASEAN Secretariat staff on management systems, performance indicators, and auditing procedures. Continuing support on regional integration, APRIS II began in November 2006. It was co-financed by the ASEAN Secretariat and the European Commission. It stressed on implementation and integration of policy formulated in APRIS I (Martin, 2009). It intended to support the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by promoting institutional connectivity. Like APRIS I, APRIS II applied the EU model on regional integration to ASEAN. In addition, APRIS II also helped strengthen ASEAN Secretariat on legal services and enhanced dispute settlement mechanisms. Moreover, APRIS II supported ASEAN–EU inter-regional relations through the development of the Trans-Regional EU–ASEAN Trade Initiative (TREATI) that supports ASEAN in agriculture and industry and facilitates inter-regional trade between the two regions, as well as the Regional Europe–ASEAN Dialogue Initiative (READI) that the EU provided supports for policy dialogue and exchanges on common interests and non-trade issues, such as disaster management and preparedness, science and technology, and climate change.

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Institutional building of ASEAN was one of the outstanding examples that APRIS I and II achieved. APRIS II flyer (The European Union External Action, n.d.-a) highlighted that, “the APRIS Program funded a series of meetings in Brussels for members of the ASEAN Committee of Permanent Representatives. The ASEAN CPR, as it is generally known, is loosely modelled on its European equivalent COREPER (Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States to the European Union), and is expected to help strengthen and accelerate ASEAN’s Community building process by supporting the work of the ASEAN Community Councils and ASEAN Sectoral Ministerial Bodies (in the preparation of meetings and the pursuit of regional consensus).” (Italic in parenthesis added by the author to clarify the abbreviation). After APRIS II was finalized, the ASEAN Regional Integration Support Programme (ARISE) started to continue the technical support program funded by the EU to support trade facilitation in ASEAN between 2013 and 2016. It enhanced the ASEAN to create a single market and production base. It was considered as one of the most important EU–ASEAN programs for regional economic integration. Three main components included high-level capacity building, support to the realization of ASEAN single market for goods, and ASEAN Secretariat capacity building. The Bandar Seri Begawan Plan of Action to strengthen the ASEAN– EU Enhanced Partnership (2013–2017) emphasizes, “the ASEAN Regional Integration Support Programme by the EU (ARISE) as a key instrument for supporting ASEAN integration with its specific focus on strengthening the overall process of ASEAN economic integration and assisting progress toward achieving the free flow of goods within ASEAN through enhanced trade facilitation measures and progress toward removing non-trade barriers, as well as strengthening the capacity of the ASEAN Secretariat to support AEC implementation and integration” (Mission of the European Union to ASEAN, 2012, pp. 16–17). Also, the Bandar Seri Begawan Plan of Action specified—for the first time in such a document—how the EU would assist ASEAN in terms of institutional support. Three approaches include capacity building in the ASEAN Secretariat and other ASEAN institutions; exchange programs between ASEAN and EU institutions; and institutional linkages through the exchange of officials, the sharing of best practices and visits between Committees of Permanent Representatives of ASEAN and the EU (Mission of the European Union to ASEAN 2012, pp. 40–41).

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Based on the Bandar Seri Begawan Plan of Action, the EU 2014–2020 Regional Multiannual Indicative Program for Asia indicated that the EU will continuously support ASEAN integration from 2014 through 2020 (The European Union External Action, n.d.-c). The document suggested that the EU supported ASEAN regional integration in three main areas, namely, connectivity through sustainable and inclusive economic integration and trade; climate change, environment and disaster management; and a comprehensive dialogue facility (European Union External Action, n.d.-c). The objective is to support ASEAN to ultimately achieve ASEAN Community which includes ASEAN Political and Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community, and ASEAN Sociocultural Community. The Enhanced ASEAN Regional Integration Support by the EU Plus (ARISE Plus) is a five-year technical assistance program that started in November 2017 to follow the predecessor ARISE. To date, it is the EU’s largest ever support program for ASEAN. The Overall Work Plan (ARISE Plus Program, n.d.) emphasizes a significant increase of resources available for relevant projects with the overall objective, “to support greater economic integration in ASEAN through the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025 (AECBP).” Four components of ARISE Plus include trade facilitation and transparency; standards and conformity assessment in particular healthcare and agro-based products; customs, transport, and ACTS; and ASEAN economic integration monitoring and statistics. There are both ARISE Plus Regional Projects and ARISE Plus National Projects. Although the EU is the source of funding for the program, ARISE Plus emphasizes the implementation of the AECBP 2025. Moreover, it aims at strengthening the institutional capacity of ASEAN. The nature of projects on ASEAN integration is that the EU provides support through technical assistance to the least developed countries in the region, namely, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam (EU Delegation in Jakarta, 2013). Furthermore, the Project Steering Committee— which is the highest body governing ARISE Plus—comprised of both delegations from both the EU and ASEAN (ARISE Plus Program n.d.). Their key roles are to monitor implementation, facilitate implementation, review work plans, and follow-up progress of projects. Together with ARISE Plus, the Enhanced Regional EU–ASEAN Dialogue Instrument (E-READI) was also launched in 2017. “The overall objective of the E-READI is to support ASEAN integration aiming at poverty reduction through inclusive and sustainable growth, while

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the specific objective is to support the implementation of the ASEAN Community blueprints, drawing on European experience and know-how through sectoral policy dialogues. It is a follow-up of the READI and READI Human Rights programmes” (European Union External Action, n.d.-b). The E-READI facilitates policy dialogue that aims to strengthen EU–ASEAN partnership and ASEAN regional integration through experience sharing on policy priorities such as environment and climate change, smart cities, fisheries policy, and gender equality. In 2018, the EREADI contributed to facilitating policy dialogues between the EU and ASEAN in four thematic areas, including economic and trade connectivity; environment and climate change; human rights, gender equality, and safe migration; and science and technology (EU Mission to ASEAN 2019). All in all, the strengthening relationship between the ASEAN and the EU has been beneficial for ASEAN integration. Realizing different experiences among regions, the EU does not promote its model of regional integration to ASEAN. Instead, the EU has helped ASEAN to shape its own version of regional integration. Wong (2012) argues that EU integration is not a model for ASEAN integration, but it is a point of reference where ASEAN looks up to and adapts to its own history and organizational culture. Pushpanathan (2003), a former Deputy Secretary-General for ASEAN Economic Community, succinctly summarized that, “the relationship between ASEAN and its dialogue partners was put on an equal footing instead of a donor-client relationship where the dialogue partner had the upper hand on cooperation activities. Cooperation is now based on joint decisions and joint planning and implementation of cooperation activities. Increasingly, ASEAN and its dialogue partners are using cost-sharing approaches in implementing projects with due consideration being given to the new ASEAN member countries. Development cooperation is more focused on larger programmes of mutual benefit and which would have a greater impact on the development of the region and on the dialogue relations.”

China as Another Propelling Actor for ASEAN Integration As Southeast Asia has increasingly been an important region, a relationship with ASEAN has become attractive for external powers. China and the US are also dialogue partners of ASEAN besides the EU. They all

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play significant roles in the region. One may argue that ASEAN integration is a means that ASEAN chose to strategically encounter competition with the external powers in the region. For example, Jetschke (2013) argues that the driving force on ASEAN integration comes from within the region through ASEAN’s perception of economic competition from China. However, China has remained to be another crucial actor in ASEAN integration. This section briefly examines ASEAN-China relations and China’s support in the ASEAN integration process. ASEAN–China relations have been in a wide variety of areas including political-security, economic, and sociocultural cooperation. China became a participant of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994 and a dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1996. Not only that China was the first non-ASEAN to sign the Treaty of Amity in Southeast Asia in 2003, but ASEAN–China relations were also upgraded to a strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in that year. Also, the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between ASEAN and China (the ACFTA Agreement) was signed in November 2002, leading to further agreements between the two parties. Munakata (2003) viewed that such China’s active role in Southeast Asia was of a political calculation to lower the sense of both the economic and security threat of China to ASEAN members. Nonetheless, for ASEAN, the relationship with China was transformed from insecurity and threat to increasing cooperation, especially in the area of trade. Pushpanathan (2012), a former Deputy Secretary-General for ASEAN Economic Community, viewed that, “China is important to maintaining peace and stability in the region. Any incidents in the Taiwan Straits and the Korean Peninsula or fluctuation in the Chinese economy will have a bearing on the region and its economies. Thus, engaging China and working with China will be of interest to ASEAN.” Inevitably, China’s presence in Southeast Asia cannot be understated. Since 2009, China has become ASEAN’s largest external trading partner with bilateral trade reaching 17.2% of ASEAN’s total trade (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2019b). Moreover, ASEAN’s export to China grew at an average annual rate of 7.4% from 2010 to 2018 whereas ASEAN’s import from China increased 11.1% during the same period (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2019b). Foreign Direct Investment from China to ASEAN has also gradually been growing. While trade in goods remains the key, the service sector, especially tourism, has become crucial for ASEAN–China relations. Besides the benefit of promoting people-to-people contact between China

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and ASEAN states, the tourism sector has continued to bring potential income for ASEAN. It contributed 12.6% to the region’s GDP in 2018 (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2018). Visitors from China have made the top number in several ASEAN members. To implement the Joint Declaration on ASEAN–China Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity signed in 2003, the Plan of Action to Implement the Joint Declaration on ASEAN–China Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity (2016–2020) (ASEAN n.d.-b) built on the previous plan of action includes a wide range of areas for cooperation between ASEAN and China such as political cooperation, economic cooperation, and sociocultural cooperation. China’s strategy toward engagement with ASEAN has been under the realization of ASEAN centrality in regional projects. In other words, China has accepted ASEAN’s leading roles in regional cooperation such as ASEAN Plus Three, ARF, and East Asia Summit. For ASEAN regional integration, China has been supporting ASEAN integration projects through financial and technical support. According to ASEAN–China Strategic Partnership Vision 2030 (ASEAN n.d.-a), China has emphasized capacity building, resource mobilization, and connectivity. For instance, China has supported ASEAN projects to narrow the development gap among member states. Several subregional development projects are such as the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, the Greater Mekong Subregion, and the ASEAN-Mekong Basin Development Cooperation. Furthermore, China has continuously enhanced physical connectivity in ASEAN. The recent initiative includes China’s support on the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 and the Belt and Road Initiative. Nevertheless, China’s economic power in Southeast Asia may create some disadvantages for ASEAN regional integration. ASEAN intra-trade has been declined since 2008 while there is a gradual increase in trade with China over time. ASEAN members have sought out to substitute from China. Therefore, such a decline in intra-trade is a hindrance for ASEAN to achieve the objective of a single market (Menon et. al., 2019).

Challenges of ASEAN Integration with Regard to the EU Although ASEAN integration has been discussed among leaders and policymakers of the organization for several decades, there was no concrete program emphasizing the integration until the ASEAN Summit in 2000

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when the Head of States adopted a special program called the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI). Since then numerous activities and projects have been implementing to meet the goal for ASEAN integration. Even though the EU has been one of ASEAN’s most important dialogue partners who have long supported regional integration, there remain several challenges of ASEAN integration. Acknowledging the development gap among member countries, ASEAN launched the IAI in 2000 and adopted the Work Plans of the Initiative as collective efforts to narrow down the gap (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2016). What the EU has contributed to support ASEAN integration is demonstrated in the 2018–2022 Plan of Action between ASEAN and the EU, emphasizing projects that help the less developed members of ASEAN. In the 2018–2022 Plan of Action, the IAI is highlighted in the text. Moreover, the Plan of Action calls for the EU contribution on expertise and best practices on sustainable development in the Lower Mekong subregion, where the less developed members of ASEAN are located. A similar concern on the development gap is also found in the Overall Work Plan of ARISE Plus (ARISE Plus Program, n.d.). It mentions development gaps among ASEAN members in regulatory, technical, and infrastructural dimensions as a possible burden for overall ASEAN integration. Such challenges on the development gap among members of ASEAN remain, but the support from the EU has aimed to narrow the gap in order for ASEAN integration to gradually move forward. In addition, the EU has considered ASEAN integration as a rationale for its presence in the region. The EU’s achievement in regional integration has been a reference point for other regions’ integration. The literature on institutional design suggests that institutions differ in at least five different important features, namely, membership rules, the scope of issues covered, centralization of tasks, rules for controlling the institution, and flexibility of arrangements (Koremenos et al., 2001). Jetschke and Murray (2012) argued that ASEAN has its own institutional design which differs from the EU. In other words, ASEAN does not diffuse the norms of regional integration from the EU. However, ASEAN has learned and adopted some practices from the EU. ASEAN has always expressed appreciation to dialogue partners who have been supportive of the ASEAN integration program. Concurrently, ASEAN makes it explicit that it plays a central role and it is the key driver for the ASEAN integration program. ASEAN Charter clearly states

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ASEAN’s desire to play a central role and be a driver of regional arrangements and external relations. Article 1(15) states the purpose of ASEAN is to, “to maintain the centrality and proactive role of ASEAN as the primary driving force in its relations and cooperation with its external partners in a regional architecture that is open, transparent and inclusive” (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2019a, p. 5). Moreover, Article 41(3) on the conduct of external relations emphasizes that, “ASEAN shall be the primary driving force of regional arrangement that it initiates and maintains its centrality in regional cooperation and community building” (Ibidem, p. 31). Purposefully, ASEAN has been serving as a platform for its members to engage with external actors. The EU has long experience in both multilateralism and regionalism. Its experiences on institutional development have resulted in the establishment of organizational uniqueness. ASEAN has looked upon success from Europe for inspiration since the onset of the organization. Thanat Khoman, former Thai Foreign Minister who was one of the founders of ASEAN, emphasized that, “It should be put on record that, for many of us and for me in particular, our model has been and still is, the European Community, not because I was trained there, but because it is the most suitable form for us living in this part of the world -in spite of our parallel economies which are quite different from the European ones” (Khoman, 1992). Nevertheless, ASEAN has its own means to integrate among its member states. The EU model of a supranational institution with strong characteristics of legalism and formalism is not what ASEAN would like to ultimately pursue (Severino & Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006). There are fundamentally different rationale and mechanisms on regional integration between the EU and ASEAN. First, the EU integration emerged from cooperation in economic issues then it spilled over into the political sphere. The spillover effects gradually transformed the European Coal and Steel Community to the current European Union, where a supranational decision-making mechanism in some policies can be observed. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) demonstrated the significance of harmony in the economy among states as the very first approach to peace. The ECSC Treaty, also known as Treaty of Paris (1951, p. 3), stated that, “Recognizing that Europe can be built only through practical achievements which will, first of all, create real solidarity, and through the establishment of common bases for

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economic development,” and “Resolved to substitute for age-old rivalries the merging of their essential interests; to create, by establishing an economic community, the basis for a broader and deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts; and to lay the foundations for institutions which will give direction to a destiny henceforward shared.” In other words, the evolution of today’s EU emerged from economic integration projects that have transformed the relations among European countries such that peace and stability can be in place and other cooperation can take place. Conversely, the ASEAN was established from security and political necessity to build trust and confidence among non-Communist countries during the Vietnam War in 1967. Khoman, emphasized political and security reasons to explain why the establishment of ASEAN was in need. He stressed that the withdrawal of the colonial powers in Southeast Asia would attract external powers to interfere politics in the region, that it would be more effective to build cooperation among countries with proximity and shared common interests, that cooperation among Southeast Asian countries would strengthen their position and protect them against big power rivalry, and that cooperation and integration would serve the interests of the region (Khoman, 1992). Although the vision of ASEAN Community comprises three pillars, it can be observed that the ASEAN Economic Community might be the most achievable one while the ASEAN Political Community might be able to achieve a certain degree in the long run. Allison (2015, p. 77) argues that, “the EU’s unique path to economic integration has advantages for promoting its experience to ASEAN as although the EU single market is most definitely an unfinished project, it has demonstrated that creative alternatives to economic structures and agreements are possible. The disadvantages lie in the fact that as a consequence of its uniqueness, the EU cannot be viewed as entirely relevant to ASEAN due to the differences in their contexts.” Second, the decision-making mechanisms in the EU and ASEAN are divergent. The EU’s decision-making incorporates joint policymaking. The EU organs are enabled to make a decision by qualified majorities on certain issues and apply the decision to member states. For instance, in the areas of monetary and justice, the EU has relatively unified regionalized policies. On the other hand, decision-making in the ASEAN is made by consultation and consensus. The so-called ASEAN Way— decision-making based on consultation and consensus, and the principle

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of non-interference on domestic affairs of its fellow members—has been the practice and organizational culture of ASEAN. Wong (2012) argued that although ASEAN member states signed the ASEAN Charter, which was meant to make ASEAN a rules-based organization, ASEAN had remained to operate by norms. As a result, it is particularly difficult for the ASEAN to reach and enforce policy decisions for the region.

The ASEAN Community Today For political integration, ASEAN is not aspiring to become an institution with supranational authority. None of the ASEAN agreements indicate political requirements in order to participate in the organization. Furthermore, the ASEAN Way has guided ASEAN to avoid interference with the internal affairs of its members. In ASEAN Community Vision 2025 (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2015a, p. 13), leaders of ASEAN members envisioned ASEAN to be, “a peaceful, stable and resilient Community with enhanced capacity to respond effectively to challenges, and ASEAN as an outward-looking region within a global community of nations, while maintaining ASEAN centrality.” Moreover, member states will, “respect the principles of independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, non-interference, and national identity” (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2015c, p. 21). Political differences among ASEAN members are not considered as obstacles for the ASEAN community and solidarity. Rather, ASEAN members embrace common values of unity in diversity. Ultimate roles and objectives of ASEAN are, “to live in a region of lasting peace, security, stability, sustained economic growth, shared prosperity and social progress, and to promote our vital interests, ideals and aspirations” (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2019a, p. 2). The military coup in Myanmar on February 1, 2021, showcases the precariousness of the ASEAN Way. By principle, ASEAN cannot intervene directly in Myanmar but it has urged all sides to exercise utmost restraint and flexibility (Iwamoto & Tani, 2021). Individual members of ASEAN, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore expressed concerns about the suspension of democratic governance in Myanmar. However, direct intervention or any other forms of punitive measures were disregarded, specifically given the principle of non-interested in ASEAN’s Charter. As such, the ASEAN rhetoric revolves around peaceful reconciliation within Myanmar rather than any externally pressured measures (Jaipragas & Lim, 2021).

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For economic integration, ASEAN has diverse economic development levels among members. However, the fundamental principles of the elimination of tariffs and liberalization in trade and investment are upheld. AECBP 2025 (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2015b, p. 60) emphasized that ASEAN envisioned to, “create a deeply integrated and highly cohesive ASEAN economy that would support sustained high economic growth and resilience even in the face of global economic shocks and volatilities.” This does not necessarily mean that ASEAN will ultimately become an Economic Union with a single currency and centralized fiscal and monetary policy. Rather, ASEAN has a goal to become a single market and production base. ASEAN Economic Community is envisioned to be, “(i) a highly integrated and cohesive economy; (ii) a competitive, innovative, and dynamic ASEAN; (iii) enhanced connectivity and sectoral cooperation; (iv) a resilient, inclusive, people-oriented, and people-centered ASEAN; and (v) a global ASEAN” (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2015b, p. 59). Regardless of how deep economic integration is defined, economic cooperation is beneficial to all members. For sociocultural integration, ASEAN has recognized that sociocultural elements, particularly human and sustainable development, are significant to build ASEAN Community. ASEAN Sociocultural Community Blueprint 2025 (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2015d) highlighted the previous achievements that extreme poverty dramatically declined in ASEAN member states, that the middle class has expanded, and that health and education have improved the lives of people in the region, among others. While engaging with multiple sectors and stakeholders, ASEAN plays a central role in considerable numbers of cooperation in areas such as environment, disaster management, and health. Moreover, aiming to ease the regional integration process, ASEAN has several projects to narrow the development gap among its members.

Conclusion The evolution of ASEAN–EU relations has demonstrated the long and well-established interactions between the two parties. Both ASEAN and the EU have recognized the importance of each other from political, security, economic, and sociocultural issues. Both parties also have implemented significant steps to strengthen the relationship. At the global level, the EU has been an example of the most developed regional integration that many regional organizations look up to learn from its achievement.

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In addition, the EU has shown best practices and lessons learned for regional integration. For ASEAN, the EU has long been a reference point for ASEAN integration. To date, it has become internationally accepted that ASEAN has significantly been playing key roles in regional issues. With ASEAN’s initiation, the ASEAN integration program was designed to further promote regional cooperation and enhance connectivity among members. Moreover, ASEAN integration aims at narrowing the development gap and improving ASEAN’s competitiveness. Although ASEAN has been taking a central role in the ASEAN integration process, dialogue partners have helped ASEAN to gradually realize their objectives. The ASEAN–EU Program for Regional Integration Support and the Regional Europe– ASEAN Dialogue Initiative are the most notable co-financed programs between ASEAN and the EU. In addition, China—a powerful external power in the region—has also supported ASEAN integration projects. The long ASEAN–China relations have a positive impact on ASEAN integration process. In other words, working together with both the EU and China have been beneficial for ASEAN integration. Financial resources and other in-kind support such as best practices and successful case studies on the integration process are shared, exchanged, and learned from one another. ASEAN has been learning from the EU through projects emphasizing capacity building and training for ASEAN integration. However, ASEAN has also been learning among its members to solve regional problems and coordinate among themselves. In other words, financial and technical support from the EU have been enhancing ASEAN integration, but it does not necessarily mean that ASEAN has adopted specific institutional features from the EU. ASEAN has maintained its leadership for its own institutional design that is suitable for its organizational culture and history. The current achievement of the ASEAN integration toward the ASEAN Community can be observed. There remain numerous windows of opportunities for the ASEAN to succeed in the integration process at its own path and speed.

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Pushpanathan, S. (2012). Building an ASEAN-China strategic partnership opinion and editorial by S. Pushpanathan for The Jakarta Post 1 July 2004. ASEAN. https://asean.org/?static_post=building-an-asean-china-strategicpartnership-opinion-and-editorial-by-s-pushpanathan-for-the-jakarta-post-1july-2004-2. Accessed 2 February 2020. Reiterer, M. (2013). The role of strategic partnership in the EU’s relations with Asia. In T. Christiansen, E. Kirchner, & M. Philomena (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of EU-Asia relations (pp. 78–89). Palgrave Macmillan. Ruland, J. (2001). ASEAN and the European Union: A bumpy interregional relationship (Discussion Paper). Center for European Integration Studies. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/5073913.pdf. Accessed 27 January 2020. Severino, R., & Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. (2006). Southeast Asia in search of an ASEAN community: Insights from the former ASEAN secretarygeneral. ISEAS Publication. Tang, S. M., Hoang, T. H., Qian, A. S., Ong, G., & Thao, P. T. P. (2020). The state of Southeast Asia: 2020 survey report. ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. https://www.iseas.edu.sg/images/pdf/TheStateofSEASurve yReport_2020.pdf. Accessed 15 February 2020. The ASEAN Secretariat. (2015a). ASEAN community vision 2025. https:// asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/67.-December-2015-ASEAN2025-Forging-Ahead-Together-2nd-Reprint.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2020. The ASEAN Secretariat. (2015b). ASEAN economic community blueprint 2025. https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/67.-December2015-ASEAN-2025-Forging-Ahead-Together-2nd-Reprint.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2020. The ASEAN Secretariat. (2015c). ASEAN political-security community blueprint 2025. https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/67.-December2015-ASEAN-2025-Forging-Ahead-Together-2nd-Reprint.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2020. The ASEAN Secretariat. (2015d). ASEAN socio-cultural community blueprint 2025. https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/67.-December2015-ASEAN-2025-Forging-Ahead-Together-2nd-Reprint.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2020. The ASEAN Secretariat. (2016). Initiative for ASEAN integration (IAI) work plan III . https://asean.org/storage/2016/09/09rev2Content-IAIWork-Plan-III.pdf. Accessed 27 January 2020. The ASEAN Secretariat. (2018). ASEAN key figure 2018. https://asean.org/sto rage/2018/12/ASEAN-Key-Figures-2018.pdf. Accessed 30 January 2020. The ASEAN Secretariat. (2019a). ASEAN charter. https://asean.org/storage/ 2012/05/3.-November-2019-The-ASEAN-Charter-27th-Reprint_rev-271 1191.pdf. Accessed 25 January 2020.

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The ASEAN Secretariat. (2019b). ASEAN integration report 2019. https:// asean.org/storage/2019/11/ASEAN-integration-report-2019.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2020. The Commission of the European Community. (2001). EU-Asia: A strategic framework for enhanced partnership. https://aei.pitt.edu/38103/1/COM_ (2001)_469.pdf. Accessed 25 January 2020. The European Commission. (1994). Joint statement: The 11th ASEAN-EU ministerial meeting (AEMM) Karlsruhe, Germany 22–23 September 1994. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/PRES_94_195. Accessed 25 January 2020. The European Commission. (1996). EU-ASEAN: Creating a new dynamic. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_96_580. Accessed 25 January 2020. The European Commission. (2003). Communication launches a new partnership with South East Asia. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/ en/IP_03_961. Accessed 25 January 2020. The European Union External Action. (n.d.-a). APRIS II: The ASEAN programme for regional integration support phase II . https://www.eeas.eur opa.eu/archives/delegations/vietnam/documents/more_info/apris_flyers_ en.pdf. Accessed 30 January 2020. The European Union External Action. (n.d.-b). The enhanced regional EUASEAN dialogue instrument (E-READI). https://eeas.europa.eu/headquart ers/headquarters-homepage/49815/enhanced-regional-eu-asean-dialogueinstrument-e-readi_mt. Accessed 30 January 2020. The European Union External Action. (n.d.-c). The 2014–2020 regional multiannual indicative programme for Asia. https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/ regional-asia-mip-2014-2020_en.pdf. Accessed 30 January 2020. The European Union External Action. (2007). The Nuremberg Declaration on an EU-ASEAN enhanced partnership. https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/ 2007_16_nuremberg_declar.pdf. Accessed 25 January 2020. Wong, R. (2012). Model power or reference point? The EU and the ASEAN Charter. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 25(4), 669–682. Wu, C. (2013). The evolution of EU-ASEAN relations: Legal framework and policy change. National Taiwan University Law Review, 8(2), 329–372.

CHAPTER 6

An Analysis of EU Free Trade Agreements and Negotiations with Southeast Asian Countries Bibek Chand and Lukas K. Danner

Introduction The member countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have become increasingly involved in the global market in recent decades—not only because they are located at a critical juncture for waterway shipping routes at the nexus between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean which of course serve an important function in not only connecting those oceans but also Europe with Northeast Asia and the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula with the economic heavyweights China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Economically, geographically

B. Chand University of North Georgia, Oakwood, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. K. Danner (B) University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_6

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and historically, Southeast Asia is heavily linked to their Northeast Asian neighbors. Among a number of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), ASEAN is also connected to China with an FTA (ASEAN, 2020). With the rise of the Chinese economy, ASEAN also profited immensely from trading with China. However, there are also flip sides to this relationship, especially when it comes to the South China Sea (SCS) which is claimed by Beijing as far South as the shores of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei with several islands claims that are highly conflictual—sometimes with multiple overlapping territorial claims. As such, the presence of the United States (U.S.) has been a welcome counterweight to China, not just on the level of security dynamics but also as an important export market for ASEAN states. The combination of a dozen states, including Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam from Southeast Asia, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was a signature trade deal signed by the Obama administration in February 2016 with states from the Pacific rim and was meant as a counterweight to China. However, with then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump having run with one of the central promises for the office of U.S. president, the Trump administration then withdrew the signature from the TPP within a week of the inauguration of the former President Trump, on January 23, 2017 (Smith, 2017). Even without the U.S. as a partner, and with that, much less of an anti-China effect, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11) was still realized. Nevertheless, this gave new wind for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). In short, the pro-China FTA, which ended up coming to fruition and being signed in November 2020, has all ten ASEAN states plus China, Japan, the ROK, New Zealand, and Australia (with India having opted out of further participating in November 2019) (Kawashima, 2020; Pearson, 2020). Given this changed situation, i.e., a retrenching U.S. (and India) coupled with a possible (increased) dependence on a China that acts more assertively, especially in the SCS that is directly adjacent to Southeast Asia, the EU would be a very welcome alternative counterweight to engage more with the region—not just because both organizations are considered positive textbook cases of institutions striving for regional integration in their respective parts of the world. As of 2019, ASEAN (taken as a bloc) is the EU’s number three most important trading partner by total trade volume worldwide, just trailing the U.S. and China (European

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Commission, 2020a). And, in fact, after “[n]egotiations for a region-toregion trade and investment agreement between the EU and ASEAN were launched in 2007 and paused by mutual agreement in 2009 to give way to a bilateral format of negotiations[,]” the EU has started a strategy in 2010 with which it pursues “bilateral [FTAs] between the EU and ASEAN countries [which] will serve as building blocks towards a future EU-ASEAN agreement, [and] which remains the EU’s ultimate objective” (Ibidem). This chapter looks at the EU’s engagement on the level of FTAs with Southeast Asian countries with a focus on two sets of ASEAN states: Vietnam and Singapore, where deals have been concluded and are in effect as of 2019 and 2020, respectively, as well as Indonesia and Thailand, with which negotiations are ongoing since 2016 and on hold since 2014, respectively. While considering these deals and negotiations as new opportunities for cooperation, the chapter will also look into the situational circumstance (as described above), i.e., in how far the FTAs (and negotiations leading up to) may be in reaction to the rise of China and resulting over-dependence on it as well as a retrenchment and trade protectionism on the part of the U.S. under the Trump administration.

EU Trade Agreements with Select Southeast Asian Countries The EU and Singapore The very first free trade agreement with a Southeast Asian country was with Singapore. It was known as the EU–Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA). The launch of negotiations between the EU and Singapore toward an FTA were announced in December 2009 (European Commission, 2009). Formally, there were two simultaneous negotiations going on between the EU and Singapore: rounds of negotiations toward an FTA, as well as rounds of negotiations toward an investment protection agreement (Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore & European Union Delegation to Singapore, 2019). The bloc and the Southeast Asian city-state were able to wrap up free trade negotiations already in 2012, while the investment protection negotiations were to end successfully two years thereafter (Ibidem). The latter eventually led to what is formally known as the EU-Singapore Investment Protection Agreement (EUSIPA). The signatures under both of these agreements,

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the EUSFTA and the EUSIPA, were made in October 2018 (European Commission, 2020b). Subsequently, the European Parliament agreed to the two agreements in February 2019 as the penultimate step (European Parliament, 2019). Before the EUSFTA entered into force on November 21, 2019, the member countries of the EU also gave their endorsement on November 8 to it as well as the EUSIPA (Council of the EU, 2019). What concerns the EUSIPA, while it has undergone the two approval stages on the EU level in February and November, respectively, it actually requires ratification “by all EU Member States according to their own national procedures” before it could be applied (European Commission, 2020b). At the time of passage, the “EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström said [that] (…) the EU-Singapore trade agreement (…) will enhance [their] bilateral relationship, boost the EU’s commitment to ASEAN, and is a sign of strong support for the rules-based international order” (Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore & European Union Delegation to Singapore, 2019, p. 1). In 2019, Singapore was the EU’s number sixteen trading partner in total trade in good volume (Eurostat, 2020). With that, it was also the most important trading partner for the EU in the Southeast Asian region, when one looks at total trade volume (Ibidem). While there are other Southeast Asian countries that are more important concerning imports— Singapore ranks twenty-third in imports to the EU, the exports—in which Singapore ranks sixteenth—is where Singapore creates a large trade surplus for the EU (Ibidem). Conversely, for Singapore, the EU is the fourth most important partner in trade in goods—after the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Malaysia, and the United States (U.S.)—by overall trade volume, and number one most important partner in trade in services by overall trade volume (Department of Statistics of Singapore, 2020; World Bank, 2020a). Specifically, in 2018, trade in goods was at a total of e50.6 billion, out of which e31.2 billion were EU exports to Singapore, and e19.4 billion were EU imports from Singapore, aggregating to a surplus of e11.9 billion for the EU (European Commission, 2020b). For trade in services in 2018, the EU imported e22.7 billion from Singapore, and e30.2 billion in services were exported from the EU to Singapore—a surplus of e7.6 billion for the EU (Ibidem). What is remarkable about the negotiations and the post-negotiation process between the EU and Singapore is certainly the relatively long hiatus between the end of negotiations and the eventual signature. Having concluded negotiations toward the EUSFTA in 2012 and toward

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the EUSIPA in 2014, the signatures only followed in October 2018, which seems unusually long (European Commission, 2020b). Part of the explanation for this is certainly the fact that the European Commission asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for an opinion on whether the Commission in fact was authorized to negotiate all points in the original agreement and therefore only the EU-level institutions need to approve it before going into effect (International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017). Specifically, the European Commission asked the ECJ (European Court of Justice, 2017) as follows: Does the Union have the requisite competence to sign and conclude alone the Free Trade Agreement with Singapore? More specifically, • which provisions of the agreement fall within the Union’s exclusive competence? • which provisions of the agreement fall within the Union’s shared competence? and • is there any provision of the agreement that falls within the exclusive competence of the Member States?

And, indeed, the ECJ issued the opinion that [t]he Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Singapore falls within the exclusive competence of the European Union, with the exception of the following provisions, which fall within a competence shared between the European Union and the Member States: • the provisions of Section A (Investment Protection) of Chapter 9 (Investment) of that agreement, in so far as they relate to nondirect investment between the European Union and the Republic of Singapore; • the provisions of Section B (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) of Chapter 9; and • the provisions of Chapters 1 (Objectives and General Definitions), 14 (Transparency), 15 (Dispute Settlement between the Parties), 16 (Mediation Mechanism) and 17 (Institutional, General and Final Provisions) of that agreement, in so far as those provisions relate to the provisions of Chapter 9 and to the extent that the latter fall within a competence shared between the European Union and the Member States (Ibidem).

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This meant that—in order not to further delay the agreement—it would be easier to take out those provisions where the EU did not have the sole authority. Because of this, the hiatus could be partially explained. However, another consideration explaining the prolonged wait and the eventual time in which the agreement was signed, i.e., October 2018, may be the fact that Singapore was going to be part of the TPP from which the Trump administration then withdrew effective January 2017 (Smith, 2017). Of course, Singapore would become part of the successor agreement of the TPP, the TPP-11 with one less party than the original twelve given the U.S.’s withdrawal, though, naturally without the American heavyweight, the effect of a counterweight trade coalition to China is much less present. As the largest trading bloc in the world, to conclude the FTA with the EU, at least in those circumstances, was a welcome opportunity for Singapore. Indeed, the EU imports from Singapore between December 2019 and May 2020 (the first six months after the EUSFTA coming into effect in late November 2019)—despite the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the world economy—even increased by twelve percent compared to the same period a year prior (Choo, 2020). The EU–Vietnam With regard to trade deals with ASEAN countries, the EU–Vietnam FTA (EVFTA) was realized shortly after the EUSFTA as the second such deal of the EU with a Southeast Asian country. Negotiations between the EU and Vietnam started in June 2012 (European Commission, 2020a). Three years later into the negotiations, their conclusion was announced in August 2015 by the Vietnamese Minister of Trade Hoang and EU Commissioner for Trade Malmström (European Commission, 2015). What was eventually signed on June 30, 2019, was the abovementioned EVFTA as well as an investment protection treaty (European Commission, 2020c; Delegation of the European Union to Vietnam, 2019). The same opinion of the ECJ that was issued regarding the Singaporean deal of the EU now also applied to the Vietnamese case which meant that the European Parliament would first agree to both agreements, then the Council could sign off the EVFTA, while the national parliaments would all have to individually agree on the investment protection agreement in order for it to go into effect (European Court of Justice, 2017). The European Parliament moved both agreements forward on February 12,

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2020 (European Parliament, 2020). As a last step for the EVFTA, the Council gave its final approval on March 30, 2020 (Council of the EU, 2020). Most recently, the EVFTA entered into force on August 1, 2020, while the investment protection agreement will go into effect when fully ratified as outlined above (European Commission, 2020d). Vietnam is the second most important trading partner to the EU in Southeast Asia and the seventeenth most important in the world as of 2019 (Eurostat, 2020). For imports to the EU, Vietnam ranks number 11 worldwide, and for exports from the EU, Vietnam ranks 31 (Ibidem). In contrast, the EU is an even more important partner to Vietnam ranking fourth worldwide in overall trade volume—only trailing the PRC, the U.S., and the ROK (World Bank, 2020b). While Vietnam runs trade deficits with the Northeast Asian heavyweights (PRC, Japan, ROK), the relationship with the EU is the second most profitable to it after the one with the U.S. (Ibidem). In 2018, the EU exported e10.4 billion in goods to Vietnam and imported e32.4 billion in goods from Vietnam (European Commission, 2020c). This meant a deficit of e22 billion to the disadvantage of the EU. The same year, there were e2.1 billion in services being exported from the EU to Vietnam, and e1.8 billion in services being imported from Vietnam to the EU, resulting in a e0.4 billion surplus for the EU (Ibidem). However, the relationship on the whole, when one looks at both trade in goods and services, Vietnam profits from a big surplus of e21.6 billion. With Vietnam, which not only has had maritime territorial quarrels with China in the past but also was entangled in a war with China in 1979, the situation is not one-to-one comparable with Singapore which is the only other EU FTA partner thus far. What can certainly be said, however, is that Vietnam is going for a general hedging strategy—diversifying its economic partnerships on the whole. While the withdrawal of the U.S. from the TPP was surely not in its best strategic interest, it does also seriously engage in the RCEP, where it is currently pushing for an end to negotiations and a deal by the end of 2020 as the rotating RCEP negotiations presidency incumbent (Onishi & Sharma, 2020). Given the (re-)rise of China and the onset of American (re-)isolationism, the FTA and investment protection deals with the EU are going to reinforce Vietnam’s hedging strategy and are more than welcomed by it.

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The EU–Indonesia The trade relationship between Indonesia and the EU is a pretty extensive one. Their bilateral trade in goods amounted to e23.8 bn in 2019 (European Commission, 2020e). The EU is Indonesia’s third-largest trading partner while Indonesia is the EU’s 32nd largest trading partner (World Bank, 2020c). Even within ASEAN, Indonesia is the third-largest trading partner despite being the largest economy in the grouping. Indonesia’s status as the largest country in ASEAN, both economically and in terms of population, is of importance to the EU given its strategic location. Since the collapse of the TPP with the U.S.’s departure, the EU is an important economic and political partner for Indonesia. This is particularly true given that China–Indonesia relations have been marred by tensions, largely stemming from the nine-dash line claim of China on maritime territory that overlaps with Indonesia’s claims of exclusive economic zone, particularly in the North Natuna Sea (Reuters, 2020). Despite tensions, China is Indonesia’s fourth-largest trading partner (a place behind the EU) and Indonesia figures prominently in China’s push into Southeast Asia through the BRI (Mulyanto, 2020). Given this complicated relationship, Indonesia has sought to maintain ties with the U.S., China, and the EU given their economic importance regardless of the political disagreements with China. The EU–Indonesian relations have largely been framed by the EU’s Cooperation Agreement with ASEAN that was signed in 1980 (Ibidem). Direct bilateral ties were further formalized through the Framework Agreement signed in 2009. The objective of this Agreement was to strengthen the bilateral relationship and foster comprehensive dialogue between the two parties (European External Action Service, 2014). The Agreement specifically addresses cooperation on trade and investment, such as harmonization of policies through transparency of trade regulations, customs cooperation, and information exchange on policy changes in sectors such as agriculture, food, animal health, and waste management to name a few (Framework Agreement, 2014). Forestry and its sustainable usage are also explicitly highlighted, which is one of Indonesia’s largest resources and a resource Europe has a market for. Coincidentally, the same year that the Trump administration began its tenure in the U.S. and pulled out the U.S. from the TPP, EU and Indonesia launched negotiations for an FTA. Titled the Comprehensive

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Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), there have been nine rounds of negotiations. The first round of CEPA focused on trade in goods, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, customs and trade facilitation, government procurement to name a few issue areas of discussion (European Commission, 2016). Entering the ninth round of CEPA, the two sides are still in negotiation and these talks do not remain immune to disagreements. In 2019, Indonesia warned the EU of its stance on palm oil; the EU declared palm oil as unsustainable and that it would be phased out as a biodiesel between 2023 and 2030 (Reuters, 2019a). Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil. The Indonesian government went so far as to state that without palm oil, an FTA with the EU would be impossible and threatened to levy tariffs on dairy imports from the EU (Ibidem). Nevertheless, the two sides have continued to negotiate for an FTA. The CEPA negotiations, when contextualized within the dynamics of U.S. and Chinese maneuvering, showcase strategic and economic rationale. For Indonesia, the strategic reality of a more isolationist U.S. is a major concern due to its complicated relationship with China. While economically closely engaged with China, Indonesia has its own strategic concerns of growing assertiveness of China in the South China Sea. Internationally, Indonesia continues to support the open rules-based multilateral order, in line with the normative posture of the EU on the topic (Maruti, 2019). Increased American isolationism has been a major concern given the implications for trade along with security concerns in Southeast Asia. While the Trump Administration had not abandoned the U.S. focus on Asia, the international posturing of protectionism and isolationism fueled concerns of wedges in the region that China was able to fill into. Naturally, the EU is a desired partner due to its commitments to the international rules-based order and a growing economic linkage between Indonesia and the EU could foster closer strategic relations. Growing economic links with EU could stave off over-reliance on China and at the same time, work on greater congruence of their commitments to international norms. For the EU, Indonesia is not only a big market; rather, it could be a strategic partner in an international order characterized by declining U.S. multilateral commitments and a rising China.

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The EU–Thailand Thailand is the second-largest economy in ASEAN and the EU’s fourthlargest trading partner in the organization (European Commission, 2020f). The EU is also the second-largest investor in Thailand, making it an influential economic player in the country (World Bank, 2020d). Given this context, the EU and Thailand started negotiations on an FTA in 2013. The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 2013 between the two parties initiated talks on issues of mutual concerns such as tariffs, non-tariff barriers (European Commission, 2013). However, the EU suspended talks with Thailand after the military coup of 2014, stalling any development in the implementation of the FTA (Reuters, 2019b). Citing the violation of democratic rights, 2014 momentarily derailed any moves toward further economic linkages. The EU heavily criticized the military-backed government for trying citizens in military courts and holding citizens without charges (The Associated Press, 2015). However, beginning in 2017, the EU initiated attempts at normalizing relations with the military-backed government in Bangkok. Based on the Council of the EU’s conclusions in 2017, it invited the European Commission to explore possibilities on resuming FTA talks with Thailand but it also reiterates the importance of phasing out military courts and gradual reinstatement of democracy (Council of the EU, 2017). The prospects of FTA talks did not resume until 2019, when Thailand agreed to return to the negotiating table (Arunmas, 2019). Despite normalization efforts, no further rounds of formal negotiations have taken place since 2014. Overall, the EU’s official position toward Thailand iterates its normative stance on democracy and as such, FTA rounds have not progressed. As for the strategic importance of Thailand vis-à-vis the EU and vice versa, Thailand finds itself in a unique disposition. Unlike Vietnam and Indonesia, Thailand does not have any territorial disputes with China. In 2018, China was Thailand’s number one export partner (WITS, 2019) and Chinese tourists make up the largest portion of tourists visiting the country where tourism is a major service sector making up 14% of GDP in 2019 (Fitch Solutions, 2020). Thus, China is an important economic partner for Thailand. Nevertheless, its membership in ASEAN puts it in a very precarious position as numerous ASEAN members such as Vietnam, Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia have some form of territorial disputes with China. Thailand has had to balance its

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economic interests tied to China and its relations with fellow ASEAN member states. Thailand’s extensive integration in the world economy further led to concerns in the country about the impact of the trade war between China and the U.S. Thailand continued to emphasize the importance of multilateralism, which it reiterated at the ASEM meeting in 2019 (Raksaseri, 2019). Others speculated that Thailand would be the destination for companies shifting production from China to Southeast Asia. Overall, Thailand has steered clear of involving itself in the maritime disputes of its neighbors and China. Unlike the other Southeast Asian states discussed in this chapter, Thailand has remained mum about China’s claims in the South China Sea but still remains an integral part of ASEAN. As for its FTA with the EU, the negotiations remained stalled largely due to political instability in the country. Interestingly, in the EU’s interactions with Vietnam, democracy remains absent. In fact, the EU–Vietnam trade agreement went to force on 1 August 2020 (European Commission, 2020g). Thus, democracy has been used as a normative framework for Thailand but not necessarily for Vietnam, which remains a one-party state. Overall, EU’s engagement with Thailand has not been as successful as with its other neighbors. Perhaps, Thailand’s lack of territorial disputes with China does not offer the strategic space that the other Southeast Asian states offer for EU engagement in the region.

Conclusion The assessment of the four ASEAN states showcase that the successes and failures of their FTA agreements with the EU are certainly driven by strategic concerns. For Singapore, the failure of the realization of TPP was a major blow. Given its own concerns regarding China’s rise, the presence of a multilateral order with the U.S. offered it the opportunity to engage economically with strategically important partners. Naturally, an FTA with the EU made sense as it was the best alternative for Singapore in the place of TPP. The successful negotiation of an EU–Vietnam trade agreement showcases how the EU may not always stick to its normative approach in economic relations. As for Vietnam, the rise of China is a major concern as it has significant territorial disputes with Beijing; adding to that the increasing withdrawal of the U.S. is a strategic concern for Hanoi. As such, an FTA with the EU is in line with Vietnam’s hedging strategy—maintain ties with China given its economic importance but

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at the same time, diversify them with extra-regional players such as the EU. In comparison, normative approaches have been more influential in attempts at an EU–Thailand FTA, which have effectively stalled any fruitful negotiations for its realization. The EU–Indonesia FTA negotiations, however, are proceeding with periodic discussions but are marred with disagreements. Within the larger context of a disengaging U.S. and a rising China, the states in ASEAN showcase how as smaller powers, they are utilizing a range of different tools. Singapore and Vietnam have sought to placate the strategic dangers of too much economic dependence on China by diversifying their economic partners and in this case, with the EU. For Thailand, its unstable political system remains an impediment for further strengthening of ties with the EU but there is also a general lack of willingness to fully break with China. Finally, Indonesia’s stature as the region’s largest economy and state by population, it has also sought to balance its economic interests which are tied to China and its strategic concerns regarding the same by seeking to diversify its economic ties.

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Delegation of the European Union to Vietnam. (2019). Joint statement by EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh on the occasion of the signing of the Free Trade Agreement and the investment protection agreement between Viet Nam and the European Union. https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/vietnam/64805/joint-statem ent-eu-trade-commissioner-cecilia-malmström-and-minister-industry-andtrade-tran_en. Accessed 6 August 2020. Department of Statistics of Singapore. (2020). Singapore’s international trade. Department of Statistics of Singapore. https://www.singstat.gov.sg/modules/ infographics/singapore-international-trade. Accessed 2 August 2020. European Commission. (2009, December 22). EU to launch FTA negotiations with individual ASEAN countries, beginning with Singapore. European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ IP_09_1991. Accessed 2 August 2020. European Commission. (2013, March 6). EU and Thailand launch negotiations for Free Trade Agreement. European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/com mission/presscorner/detail/en/MEMO_13_179. Accessed 4 August 2020. European Commission. (2014, September 20–21). Report from the 1st round of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and Indonesia. http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2016/september/tradoc_ 154982.pdf. Accessed 28 July 2020. European Commission. (2015, August 4). EU and Vietnam reach agreement on free trade deal. European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pre sscorner/detail/en/IP_15_5467. Accessed 12 August 2020. European Commission. (2016, July 18). EU and Indonesia launch bilateral trade talks. European Commission. https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index. cfm?id=1528. Accessed 2 August 2020. European Commission. (2020a). Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countr ies-and-regions/regions/asean. Accessed 11 August 2020. European Commission. (2020b). Singapore. European Commission. https:// ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/singapore. Accessed 11 August 2020. European Commission. (2020c). Vietnam. European Commission. https://ec.eur opa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/vietnam. Accessed 11 August 2020. European Commission. (2020d, July 31). EU-Vietnam trade agreement enters into force. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_ 1412. Accessed 5 August 2020. European Commission. (2020e). Indonesia. European Commission. https:// ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/indonesia/#:~: text=Bilateral%20trade%20in%20goods%20between,imports%20worth%20%

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E2%82%AC14.4%20bn.&text=Bilateral%20trade%20in%20services%20betw een,amounting%20to%20%E2%82%AC2.4%20bn. Accessed 1 August 2020. European Commission. (2020f). Thailand. European Commission. https://ec.eur opa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/thailand/. Accessed 1 August 2020. European Commission. (2020g). EU-Vietnam trade agreement enters into force. European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/ detail/en/ip_20_1412. Accessed 5 August 2020. European Court of Justice. (2017, May 16). Opinion 2/15 of the court (full court). http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid= 190727. Accessed 5 August 2020. European External Action Service. (2014). Framework agreement on comprehensive partnership and cooperation between the European Community and its member states. European Union External Action. https://ec.europa.eu/ world/agreements/prepareCreateTreatiesWorkspace/treatiesGeneralData.do? step=0&redirect=true&treatyId=9227#:~:text=In%20November%202004% 2C%20the%20Council,were%20concluded%20in%20June%202007.&text=It% 20also%20provides%20the%20framework%20for%20FTA%20negotiations% 20with%20ASEAN%20countries. Accessed 3 August 2020. European Parliament. (2019, February 13). Parliament gives green light to EU-Singapore trade and investment protection deals. European Parliament. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190207IPR2 5207/ep-gives-green-light-to-eu-singapore-trade-and-investment-protectiondeals. Accessed 5 August 2020. European Parliament. (2020, February 12). Parliament approves EU-Vietnam free trade and investment protection deals. https://www.europarl.europa. eu/news/en/press-room/20200206IPR72012/parliament-approves-eu-vie tnam-free-trade-and-investment-protection-deals. Accessed 10 August 2020. Eurostat. (2020). Client and supplier countries of the EU27 in merchandise trade (value %) (2019, excluding intra-EU trade). https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doc lib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_122530.pdf. Accessed 5 August 2020. Fitch Solutions. (2020, February 5). Virus imperils Thai economy. Bangkok Post. https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1850904/virus-imperils-thaieconomy. Accessed 20 July 2020. Framework Agreement. (2014, April 26). Official Journal of the European Union. https://ec.europa.eu/world/agreements/downloadFile.do?fullText= yes&treatyTransId=14927. Accessed 24 July 2020. International Institute for Sustainable Development. (2017, June 12). ECJ rules that European Union-Singapore FTA requires ratification by EU member states. https://cf.iisd.net/itn/2017/06/12/ecj-rules-that-european-unionsingapore-fta-requires-ratification-by-eu-member-states. Accessed 6 August 2020.

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Kawashima, S. (2020, August 3). Japan’s painful choice on RCEP. https://the diplomat.com/2020/08/japans-painful-choice-on-rcep. Accessed 7 August 2020. Maruti, R. (2019, July 18). How Indonesia finds itself in the middle of a USChina Trade War. The Interpreter. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interp reter/indonesia-middle-us-china-trade-war. Accessed 1 August 2020. Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore & European Union Delegation to Singapore. (2019, November 20). The EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement enters into force. Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore & European Union Delegation to Singapore. https://www.enterprisesg.gov.sg/-/media/ esg/files/non-financial-assistance/for-companies/free-trade-agreements/eus fta/EUSFTA_Press_Release.pdf. Accessed 5 August 2020. Mulyanto, R. (2020, April 12). After 70 years of ties, China and Indonesia have a fruitful, complicated relationship. The South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3079446/after-70years-ties-china-and-indonesia-have-fruitful. Accessed 3 August 2020. Onishi, T., & Sharma, K. (2020, August 26). Talks on Asian trade megadeal RCEP resume in COVID shadow. Nikkei Asian Review. https://asia.nik kei.com/Economy/Trade/Talks-on-Asian-trade-megadeal-RCEP-resume-inCOVID-shadow. Accessed 27 August 2020. Pearson, J. (2020, November 16). Explainer: What happens now the RCEP trade deal has been signed? Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/usasean-summit-rcep-explainer-idUKKBN27W0WC. Accessed 8 March 2021. Raksaseri, K. (2019, December 18). FM Don backs push for multilateralism. Bangkok Post. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1818364/ fm-don-backs-push-for-multilateralism. Accessed 27 August 2020. Reuters. (2019a, December 17). Indonesia warns on EU trade deal, dairy imports amid palm oil spat. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-indone sia-dairy/indonesia-warns-on-eu-trade-deal-dairy-imports-amid-palm-oil-spatidUSKBN1YL16S. Accessed 18 July 2020. Reuters. (2019b, October 15). European Union aims to resume free trade talks with Thailand. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-eu/europeanunion-aims-to-resume-free-trade-talks-with-thailand-idUSKBN1WU0FZ. Accessed 5 August 2020. Reuters. (2020, January 1). Indonesia rejects China’s claims over South China Sea. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-china-southchinasea/indone sia-rejects-chinas-claims-over-south-china-sea-idUSKBN1Z01RE. Accessed 1 August 2020. Serrano, A. S. (2016). From external policy to free trade: The EU- Singapore Free Trade Agreement. In P. Eeckhout, & M. Lopez-Escudero (Eds.), The European Union’s external action in times of crisis (pp. 483–507). Hart Publishing.

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Smith, D. (2017, January 23). Trump withdraws from Trans-Pacific partnership amid flurry of orders. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2017/jan/23/donald-trump-first-orders-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp. Accessed 10 August 2020. The Associated Press. (2015, February 13). EU criticizes detention policy, military courts in Thailand. https://apnews.com/23e35ed671d3493583dfb0e9 3c1fcae0. Accessed 5 August 2020. WITS. (2019). Trade summary for Thailand 2018. World Integrated Trade Solution. https://wits.worldbank.org/countrysnapshot/en/THA. Accessed 27 July 2020. World Bank. (2020a). Singapore exports, imports and trade balance by country and region. World Integrated Trade Solution. https://wits.worldbank.org/ CountryProfile/en/Country/SGP/Year/LTST/Summary. Accessed 25 June 2020. World Bank. (2020b). Vietnam exports, imports and trade balance by country and region. World Integrated Trade Solution. https://wits.worldbank.org/ CountryProfile/en/Country/VNM/Year/LTST/Summary. Accessed 25 June 2020. World Bank. (2020c). Indonesia exports, imports and trade balance by country and region. World Integrated Trade Solution. https://wits.worldbank.org/ CountryProfile/en/Country/IDN/Year/LTST/Summary. Accessed 20 June 2020. World Bank. (2020d). Thailand exports, imports and trade balance by country and region. World Integrated Trade Solution. https://wits.worldbank.org/ CountryProfile/en/Country/THA/Year/LTST/Summary. Accessed 20 June 2020.

CHAPTER 7

EU–Southeast Asian Relations: What Lies Ahead? Katja Weber

Introduction This chapter examines EU relations vis-à-vis Southeast Asia (SEA) in light of recent changes in the international environment, such as the greater assertiveness of China in SEA and growing uncertainty regarding the U.S.’ future role in the Asia-Pacific region. These changes not only threaten several Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members’ foreign policy autonomy and undermine ASEAN unity and centrality but, in doing so, provide a real opportunity for the EU to play a greater role in the region. At a time when many Southeast Asian countries seek to avoid putting all their eggs in one basket and increasingly try to tackle excessive dependencies on China, the EU, which already has made substantial investments in the region, may be able to build onto existing relationships in the economic, political, and security realms and solidify them.

K. Weber (B) Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Atlanta, GA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_7

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In the following, I first discuss recent changes in the international environment and their consequences for SEA. I then provide concrete examples of several ASEAN members’ responses to the changed international order. Whereas Laos and Cambodia seem to see no real alternatives to strong ties with China, Malaysia, at times, has been much more protective of its autonomy. The Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia, while maintaining ties with the U.S. and China, more recently have sought to cooperate with other regional powers, like Japan, but also European partners, in an effort to avoid getting caught up in the power struggle between the U.S. and China. In a final section I explain how increased uncertainty regarding future developments in Asia-Pacific has created a real opportunity for the EU to strengthen its ties with the region and upgrade existing partnerships, and thereby protect its sizable investments in the region and benefit countries which, not too long ago, Europe has exploited.

Recent Changes in the International Order To what extent the present rivalry between the U.S. and China in the Asia–Pacific region is the result of an increasingly assertive China, or a consequence of policies pursued by the Obama administration, is difficult to pinpoint and scholars have divergent views on this. While some think Chinese President Xi Jinping’s launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a direct reaction to Obama’s “pivot to Asia” in 2011, others interpret it as “an overt expression of China’s power ambitions,” or, less confrontational, as a strategy to revitalize China’s economy and aid its neighbors (Chatzky & McBride, 2019, pp. 5f.). Either way, it seems fair to suggest that both parties appear to have contributed to the current state of affairs with moves that are not always easily discernible by either side. And yet, a few facts concerning recent changes in the international environment are commonly accepted. After former President Trump assumed office in January 2017, there has been concern about the decline of U.S. leadership in Asia-Pacific. ASEAN members have been wary of the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) under former President Trump, and its trade war with China which had raised doubts about the reliability of the U.S. as a partner in the years to come (Jeffrey, 2018, p. 1). “If the U.S. retreats from its leadership role,” many of its allies in Asia-Pacific fear, “the peace and prosperity underwritten by the U.S.-backed rules-based order since World War II

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would be severely undermined” (Kehoe, 2017, p. 1). At this point, there is uncertainty regarding the U.S.’ willingness and ability “to sustain the costs associated with … [a] US security presence in the region and [an] open U.S. market to Asian imports” (Sutter, 2007, p. 10). What is clear is that former President Trump has damaged U.S. leadership by pulling out of the TPP, UNESCO, the Paris climate agreement, the Iran nuclear deal and the INF Treaty (Legarda & Fuchs, 2017, p. 2). Increasingly viewing allies as economic competitors, challenging international institutions and democratic principles, the Trump administration had moved the U.S. away from the Liberal International Order (LIO), endorsing protectionism, nationalism, and unilateralism instead, policies that do not bode well for vulnerable populations in Asia–Pacific. There also seems to be agreement that China has seized this opportunity to play a more assertive role in the region, as trade statistics, among other factors, bear out. According to Nye (2018, p. 1) “[e]very Asian country now trades more with China than with the United States, often by a margin of two to one.” Moreover, bilateral trade between China and ASEAN has reached “500 billion US dollars in 2017… and [is] projected to reach 1 trillion US dollars in 2020” (Khin & Goh, 2018, p. 12). Consequently, several Southeast Asian countries “worry that the[ir] growing trade deficit and the[ir] excessive dependence on Chin[ese] … infrastructure financing will affect their domestic economy and foreign policy autonomy” (Das, 2018, p. 1). There is also concern that China will attempt to spread its political influence in the region and seek to pursue strategic goals. To alley Southeast Asians’ fears, China’s leader Xi emphasizes “common destiny,” “geography,” and “common identities” (Khin & Goh, 2018, p. 13), suggesting that people from the same region with shared identities should have an interest in cooperating. As a result of rising nationalist attitudes and Trump’s 2017–2021 challenges to a long-established LIO, many countries in SEA fear that they might get caught between the U.S. and China (Valencia, 2018, p. 2). Reluctant to choose sides, Fisher and Carlsen (2018, p. 7) explain, several Southeast Asian countries seek to “minimize [their] risks of angering either [great power]” and are protective of their autonomy. Due to the great heterogeneity of the ASEAN countries, one would not expect a one-size-fits-all strategy, but carefully assessed multifaceted responses. Before taking a closer look at various Southeast Asian countries’ responses to the increased power struggle in the Asia–Pacific region it is important to stress that, while this development threatens several ASEAN

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members’ foreign policy autonomy and undermines the organization’s unity and centrality, it also provides a real opportunity for the EU to play a greater role in the region and thereby protect its assets. Operating within a significantly altered global order, European countries can be expected to have a strong incentive to defend their liberal principles and norms, especially the protection of individual human rights and free trade, as will become apparent in their interactions with Southeast Asian partners.

ASEAN Members’ Responses to a Changed International Environment When it comes to China, the country’s policy vis-à-vis SEA for many decades can be characterized as a “good neighbourhood policy” (Busbarat, 2018, p. 4). Following the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, the region saw an increase in bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the form of free trade and investment agreements. In 2018, China and ASEAN celebrated 15 years of their “Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity” and, in November 2018, announced the ASEAN–China Strategic Partnership Vision 2030. To shore up its trade relationships in the region China, furthermore, has engaged in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), backed the East Asian Summit (EAS), and became the first external signatory to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in 2003. Today, China is ASEAN’s largest trade partner and its third largest provider of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), while ASEAN is China’s third largest trade partner (Das, 2018, p. 2). These statistics lend support to Kurlantzick’s claim that China has made Southeast Asia one of its “top priorities” (2018, p. 1). The level of support any ASEAN country can expect from China hinges upon the country’s “economic dependence” on the regional hegemon, but the country’s “traditional long-term relations” and “territorial disputes” with China can also play a role (Qingzhen, 2016, p. 3). Not surprisingly, since Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, comparatively speaking, are significantly behind other ASEAN countries when it comes to economic development, “Chinese companies are the largest investors in hydropower plants, dams, roads, bridges, seaports and railway networks” in these countries (Das, 2018, p. 7). As one takes a closer look at Chinese investments in SEA, a pattern becomes readily apparent: China has a strong preference for bilateral agreements where it holds the upper hand, due to the great power asymmetry between it

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and individual ASEAN countries. Case in point, the first cross-border economic cooperation zone that China established in Laos, the MohanBoten Economic Cooperation Zone. As Ku (2016, p. 2) explains, the “primary aim of the [project] is not to ‘promote the proposal of the One Belt One Road jointly’, not to ‘enhance the level of bilateral reciprocal cooperation’, but to facilitate further Chinese expansion into Laos and other parts of SEA. Begun in December 2015, this railway project appears to enrich top Laotian politicians who, according to experts, receive “millions in bribes” (Kurlantzick, 2018, p. 4), while the country, due to its small population size and absence of significant industrial activity to date, has no real need for a high-speed rail. Another example of Chinese involvement in SEA is the LancangMekong Cooperation (LMC), proposed by China in 2015. Part of China’s BRI, LMC seeks to connect China with mainland SEA. Via this infrastructure project China aims to “play [a] preponderant economic role in [the] Mekong region” (Chheang, 2018, p. 4) and to “consolidate its leadership in its own backyard” (Busbarat, 2018, p. 4). There are, however, many downsides to Chinese investment in Laos and Cambodia. Many new jobs go to Chinese immigrants, little concern is given to environmental considerations, and there are serious concerns over debt repayment. According to Das (2018, p. 9), “China holds approximately 50 [percent] of … [the] total debt” of Cambodia and Laos at present. Consequently, these countries fear jeopardizing their policy autonomy and China already pressured Cambodia at an ASEAN meeting to block a foreign ministers’ statement that was seen to oppose China’s interests in the South China Sea (SCS) (Das, 2018, p. 10). Also, should Laos and/or Cambodia fail to repay their massive loans from China, they may eventually be forced to surrender critical infrastructures like roads, rails, or ports, leaving them worse off than before (Kurlantzick, 2018, p. 6). Whereas Cambodia and Laos seem to see few alternatives to closer engagement with China, other ASEAN countries have sought to diversify their dependencies (Goh, 2006, p. 3). Myanmar, for instance, is rethinking a China-backed deep-water port in the town of Kyaukpyu, concerned about the high cost and a potential debt trap. Under the National League for Democracy-led government it was contemplating a version 2.0 of said mega-project (Zhu, 2019), but the current status is unknown. Thailand has chosen to hold off on a railway agreement, contemplating whether it should cooperate with Japanese, South Korean,

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or European firms instead which are also interested in building high-speed railways in SEA (ASG Strategies, 2017, p. 6). Although Malaysia was the first Southeast Asian country to reach out to China in 1985, Prime Minister Mahathir, in 2018, halted “some of the highest-profile Belt and Road projects in Malaysia, suspending US$23 billion worth of Chinese investments” (Kurlantzick, 2018, p. 8).1 As Mahathir stressed during his first visit to China in August 2018, he wants to avoid “a new version of colonialism” where the poor are unable to compete with the rich (Fook, 2018, p. 5). Relations between China and Malaysia, however, appear to have improved significantly following Mahathir’s second visit to Beijing in April 2019. Now, key projects like the East Coast Railway Line appear to be back on track at a reduced cost of RM44 billion (Fook, 2019, p. 3) and the Malaysian Prime Minister signed several agreements, for instance, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Malaysian Palm Oil Council Board and the China Chamber of Commerce of Import and Export of Foodstuff, Native Products and Animal By-products (Fook, 2019, p. 4). When it comes to the Philippines, China already appears to be using its investments “as a means of leverage” (Kurlantzick, 2018, p. 4). President Duterte has distanced himself from the hardline approach to the SCS of his predecessor Benigno Aquino III. Duterte made a conscious decision not to enforce a ruling issued by an international tribunal—the Permanent Court of Arbitration—in 2016 that upheld the Philippines’ territorial claims in the SCS (Kurlantzick, 2018, p. 5), intending to “make nice” to China, since his country still needs significant foreign investment (Nagara, 2018, p. 3). Weighing the pros and cons of different foreign policies, the President of the Philippines elected to let territorial disputes rest in exchange for economic gains. Like the Philippines, Vietnam objects to China’s greater assertiveness in the SCS where, since 2014, China has engaged in land reclamation and constructed artificial islands. Vietnam has no interest in joining “a rigid anti-China bloc,”, preferring to be part of a flexible security network that includes China but also other countries which can “manage China’s rise” (Hiep, 2018, p. 1). The Vietnamese, at present, appear to be most comfortable with a mixed strategy that includes “diplomatic protest,” “appeals to [the] international community and media portraying China as aggressor,” “threat of legal action”, and “defense cooperation” with the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India (Legarda & Fuchs, 2017, p. 6). But, when Vietnam felt that the U.S. would be unlikely to support it in its

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struggle against the Chinese in the SCS, Vietnam seized its oil drilling endeavors there (Fook & Hop, 2018). What this suggests is that Vietnam is prepared to adapt its foreign policy when changes in the international environment call for it. In sum, geography and power asymmetry make it difficult for ASEAN countries to “disengag[e] with a country such as China” (Nagara, 2018, p. 4) and may limit their foreign policy choices. According to estimates by the Asian Development Bank, SEA will need US$2.76 trillion in infrastructure investment through 2030 to sustain economic growth (ASG Strategies, 2017, p. 4). As long as the region’s serious trade dependence on China continues, China can be expected to further its political agenda in SEA, possibly pursuing its maritime claims more vigorously (Das, 2017, p. 3), and thereby contributing to further regional instability. Also apparent is that the Southeast Asian countries do not speak with one voice when it comes to China. Should this trend continue and further divisions surface, this will undermine ASEAN unity and centrality. By purposely pursuing bilateral relations with Southeast Asian countries, China, not surprisingly, has been accused of “divide and rule tactics” (Chheang, 2018, p. 4) to advance its own goals. And yet, it is not a foregone conclusion that ASEAN countries have to become overly dependent on China. As will be discussed next, the U.S. has not completely turned its back on the region but continues to make serious economic, political, and military investments in several Southeast Asian countries. Despite doubts about its future involvement in the region, at present, the U.S. continues its military relations with its Asian allies. As several participants at a Council on Foreign Relations workshop on US–SEA relations in May 2018 have pointed out, however, the Philippines and Thailand who have been trusted U.S. allies for some time are increasingly becoming unreliable (Council on Foreign Relations, 2018, p. 4). Consequently, it may make better sense for the U.S. to forge closer cooperation with Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia, who are trying “to minimize China’s coercive abilities” (Council on Foreign Relations, 2018, p. 4), and who have already reached out to Japan, Europe, and India to strengthen their military capabilities. In fact, reassuring Southeast Asian countries who have not yet been bought off by China that the U.S. continues its interest in a rules-based international order and will help them protect it, might go a long way to strengthen their resolve. But the US needs to be cautious in suggesting

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additional cooperation with the region. While Indonesia and Vietnam clearly would welcome closer military ties with the U.S., Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar would be much more hesitant, fearing China may view this as aiding “in a U.S.-led containment strategy” (Storey, 2018, p. 7). And although Obama’s efforts to reassure his allies and convey interest in greater economic cooperation via the TPP are gone, former President Trump was determined to provide a “full-spectrum competition” to China’s BRI with his Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) concept (Storey & Cook, 2018, p. 1). As then-Vice President Mike Pence, taking “a swipe at China,” explained, the FOIP consists of three pillars: “prosperity, with investment led by business and not government bureaucrats; security, including freedom of navigation and overflight; and transparent and responsive government, the rule of law and protection of individual rights, because ‘nations that oppress their people often violate their neighbors’ sovereignty’” (cited in Storey & Cook, 2018, p. 3). In other words, the U.S. seeks to signal its interest in fair, reciprocal trade, and that it has no intention to enslave SEA. But, unless the new US administration under President Biden provides much more detail regarding the workings of the FOIP, i.e., “put[s] meat on the bones” (Council on Foreign Relations, 2018, p. 9), or replaces FOIP with a new multilateral trade agreement, the U.S.’ economic strategy vis-à-vis SEA is unlikely to be reassuring. And, although former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia in August 2018, during which he “announced that [the US] would invest US$113 million in sectors like technology, energy, and infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific,” was a step in the right direction (Chen & Wang, 2018, p. 1), the financial support offered by the U.S. presently is dwarfed by the massive loans China provides to SEA. Given then-President Trump’s “America first” policy, the U.S.’ allies were often confused and disappointed but still sought to maintain cooperation. Case in point—Vietnam. Even though Trump, in June 2019, accused Vietnam of being “the worst [trade] abuser” and a few days later imposed extreme import duties on steel products from Vietnam (Doan, 2019, p. 4), the two countries share common goals when it comes to security relations, particularly with regard to the SCS. To support Vietnam, the U.S. in April 2018, for instance, sent a Navy aircraft carrier for a port call to Da Nang and delivered several patrol boats (Doan, 2019, p. 6). The two countries also see eye-to-eye with respect to a rules-based international order and endorse peaceful solutions to maritime disputes.

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In an effort to diminish risks stemming from uncertainty regarding U.S. future behavior, several Southeast Asian countries also appear to have consciously decided not to dwell on unfortunate historical legacies any longer to reap the benefits from closer economic and security relations with Japan. At a time when the U.S. has sent mixed signals about its interests in the Asia-Pacific region and, under Trump, appeared to be preoccupied with instability in the Middle East, and the construction of a border wall with Mexico, Japan may be well situated to compensate for the diminished attention the U.S. recently has paid to the region. Knowing that it would have to tread lightly after it forced many indigenous peoples to support its war effort during World War II, Japan, since the early 1970s, began to cultivate friendly relations with the region, cooperating bilaterally and multilaterally and, as Singh (2017, p. 96) explains, by being “an ardent defender of ... the ASEAN Way, ASEAN’s centrality, and ASEAN unity.” Although it would be fascinating to take a closer look at the ties built between Japan and SEA over nearly five decades, space constraints make this impossible. Instead, I fast-forward to the present where, to keep up with China, Japan is “leveraging its economy … to build an independently powerful military” (Fisher & Carlsen, 2018, p. 8), and beefing up its diplomatic relations and foreign aid, to counterbalance China. And, while it is true that Japan has closer ties with the “ASEAN6 countries” (Japan presently has strategic partnerships with Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and provides less foreign direct investment to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, Japan’s economic influence in the Mekong region is nevertheless increasing. As Gallagher (2018, p. 2) points out, given that, as of yet, “Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have not explicitly prioritized their relationships with China over those with Japan,” the latter “still wields broad influence in the region.” Recent defense reports corroborate this finding. Indonesia’s White Paper, for instance, labels China a “strategic partner” and Japan a “partner in intelligence cooperation, technical training, education … and [the] economy” (see Gallagher, 2018, p. 5). And although Duterte, more recently, has pursued closer ties with China, due to his country’s continuing territorial disputes with the regional hegemon over the Spratly Islands, the Philippines also seek further cooperation with Japan and, to the extent possible, with the U.S. The same goes for Vietnam which engages in defense dialogues with both China and Japan (Gallagher, 2018, p. 5).

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A More Assertive Europe in Southeast Asia2 Relations between Europe and SEA—in some respects similar to those of Japan with the region—have been and continue to be complex. In the twentieth century alone, Southeast Asians experienced colonialism, then saw decolonization and, toward the latter part of the century, significant economic aid from the European Community as well as enhanced commercial ties with Europe (Nuttall, 1990; Petersson, 2006). Cognizant of the history of the region, the EU, for many years, has settled for supporting economic development and aiding in capacity building. If one zeroes in on EU–ASEAN relations in the post-Cold War environment, starting in July 1994, the EU codified its Asia policy in a series of Commission documents (see Weber, 2013) which it periodically modified until it came up with a master plan for 2007–2012. In a nutshell, these documents recommended that the EU play a proactive role in regional cooperation via the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and inter-regional dialogues via the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) (European Commission, 2001, p. 3). A Plan of Action, moreover, proposes to “deepen security cooperation,” especially when it comes to “crisis management, conflict prevention, and capacity building” (European Commission, 2007, pp. 1f.). Given that ASEAN is the EU’s second-largest trading partner outside Europe, and that the EU is the largest foreign investor in the ASEAN countries (European Union External Action, 2019), the two regions clearly have a strong incentive to sustain a high level of engagement with each other. To that purpose in 2012, the EU acceded to TAC. And, since it aims gradually to move toward a more Comprehensive Partnership with SEA, the EU now has a real window of opportunity at a time when several ASEAN members seek a counterweight to China and hope to avoid getting caught up in the current regional power struggle. As a major trading partner and aspiring security actor with multiple stakes in the region, the EU can help balance against an increasingly powerful China. Drawing on its experience of trust and confidence building, as well as its conviction that regional reconciliation is best accomplished through integration and institution-building, the EU is well situated to aid in the promotion of peace. As a firm proponent of confidence-building measures, development assistance, and the tackling of non-traditional security (NTS) challenges via “soft” power, the EU should be able to

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play an important role in conflict prevention/resolution. And, in fact, it already has proven its usefulness in this regard. Following the signing of a peace agreement by the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement on 15 August 2005 in Helsinki, the EU, along with five ASEAN countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Singapore), plus Norway and Switzerland, beginning on 15 September 2005, provided monitors for the peace process in Aceh (Aceh Monitoring Mission). Since 2007, it has also supported the conclusion of a political settlement of a conflict in Southern Mindanao. In this case, after the signing of a Framework Agreement in October 2012 by the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the EU has aided the parties in implementing and monitoring the Agreement. Another example of the EU’s upgraded involvement in the region can be found in Burma/Myanmar which, for decades, has been known for having one of the most horrendous human rights records in the world (Petersson, 2006, p. 568). At times, when atrocities committed by the Burmese military were particularly grave, the EU responded with sanctions, a visa ban on Burmese government officials and arms embargoes, whereas, when progress toward reforms was made, the EU pledged support to develop a responsible police force in Myanmar, aid in the rebuilding of institutions, lift sanctions and provide financial assistance programs (see Weber, 2014). Unfortunately, renewed violence in Rakhine state which led to the displacement of over half a million Rohingya Muslims in 2017 necessitated the reintroduction of EU sanctions against members of the Burmese military in the form of asset freezes, travel bans, and a tightening of the arms embargo. The EU responded similarly to the military coup on February 1, 2021. In response to the growing death toll associated with the coup, the EU was planning to impose sanctions on the military government at the time of writing this chapter. The sanctions would target companies that were “generating revenue for, or providing financial support to, the Myanmar Armed Forces” (Baczynska & Emmott, 2021). As a firm believer in the sanctity of international law, when it comes to territorial disputes in the SCS, the EU insists on upholding the rule of law and abiding by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). To that end, it is willing to aid in enhancing the law enforcement capacities in the region and thereby address many of the underlying causes of SEA’s current security challenges. But, as Raine (2016, p. 5) makes clear, as a “non-claimant but interested party” the

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EU could do more, for instance, call out and shame states that violate the declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the SCS. As Dosch and Sidhu (2015, p. 106) rightly stress, the EU will need to set clear benchmarks for its policies in SEA to reduce the likelihood of several countries reverting to their old ways. Even though the EU’s efforts to introduce confidence-building measures in the South of the Philippines, aid community building in Aceh, and promote peace in Burma/Myanmar are highly commendable, none of these processes is irreversible. This raises the question of what else might be done to enhance EU/Southeast Asian relations. As Raine (2016, pp. 20–22) makes clear, while waiting to see whether it will be allowed to join the EAS and the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus), the EU can seek to strengthen ARF which it is a member of, particularly the organization’s Secretariat which is woefully understaffed. Moreover, similar to NATO since the end of the Cold War, the EU can expand existing partnerships, conduct joint military exercises, military exchange programs, and provide military equipment to ASEAN members who would benefit from doing so. But follow-through in this regard will not be easy since not all EU members are interested in cooperating with SEA in the military realm. As long as the EU fails to speak with one voice when it comes to foreign policy, as could be seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc., and some members prefer to focus on regions closer to home, it will be impossible to obtain unanimity on policies vis-à-vis SEA. Thus, a subset of EU members are likely to continue bilateral efforts with various ASEAN countries, hoping that these will lead to multilateral cooperation in the long run (Raine, 2016, p. 23). If the EU wants to have a voice in shaping security decisions in Asia, it has to step up its efforts—both in important security fora, and in creative partnerships with Asian states (Wong & Tay, 2014). For starters, the EU must ensure that the High Representative participates in annual ARF meetings, and that high-level defense representatives take part in “Track I” security fora like the Shangri-la Dialogues and “Track II” fora like CSCAP. Although the EU has played an important role in conflict resolution and crisis management by co-mediating the Paris Peace Agreements that ended Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia (1991), and providing police training in Myanmar’s (2013–2014) democratic transition, to give but

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a couple of examples, it was absent in high-profile international efforts such as the search for MH370, the search and location of QZ8501 in 2014, and the regime-building ARF DiREx exercises. Since Search and Rescue (SAR) and Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HADR) efforts are important opportunities for countries and organizations to showcase their civil-military coordination prowess, and to boost their image abroad (Pejsova, 2015), the EU should increase its contribution to such activities in ARF. A more cohesive EU response, moreover, might be desirable if the EU wants to be seen as an important actor in its own right, rather than a conglomerate of nations struggling to speak with one voice. In response to the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Germany, for instance, gave US$647 million in aid, Britain dispatched military transport planes to deliver aid supplies, and the EU gave US$628 million in aid. Although the combined EU effort in disaster relief in the 2004 case exceeded US$2 billion (Acharya, 2009), the psychological impact of the EU’s contribution would have been much larger if the EU were capable of a more consolidated disaster relief response. The idea of greater EU integration in the security realm, of course, is not new. Although the failure of the French National Assembly to ratify the European Defense Community Treaty in 1954 halted greater security cooperation for several years, the idea of promoting greater integration in this realm resurfaced periodically. It certainly featured prominently in the Maastricht Treaty and numerous EU declarations since then. Articles 42 (6) and 46 of the Lisbon Treaty, for instance, allowed for the potential of greater military cooperation through Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO). This would make it possible for “a smaller group of eligible, willing, Member States…to adopt decisions regarding greater military cooperation…without the full approval of all EU Member States” (Mills, 2017, p. 2). Recent developments discussed above, such as China’s greater assertiveness in SEA, increased uncertainty regarding the U.S.’ future role in the region, as well as a number of NTS challenges have given rise to greater urgency within the EU now to enhance security cooperation. As Special Advisor on European Defense and Security Policy, Michael Barnier (2015, p. 15) warned in June 2015: “If Europe is to live up to tomorrow’s security challenges, the EU’s soft power must be matched by collective hard power and a more efficient use of our e210 billion yearly defense spending.” He went on to stress that “it is in Europe’s interest

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to take action now and not wait until conflict or further security threats force our hand” (Barnier, 2015, p. 15). A year later, a new EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy emphasized the need for the EU to “develop a political culture of acting sooner in response to the risk of violent conflict” (cited in Banim & Pejsova, 2017, footnote 10, p. 11). The 2016 Global Strategy and subsequent Security and Defense Implementation Plan envisioned investigating possible areas for CSDP cooperation by utilizing PESCO (Mills, 2017, p. 2). When European leaders, in June 2017, agreed that PESCO had become a necessity, by the end of the year, all 25 EU Member States— except for Denmark and Malta—had joined PESCO and adopted 17 initial projects to be undertaken within PESCO such as the creation of a Medical Command, military mobility, and upgrade of maritime surveillance, to name but a few (European Council, 2017). It is hoped that PESCO will lead to “capability harmonisation, the pooling of assets, cooperation in training and logistics, (…) interoperability and deployability among forces” (Mills, 2017, p. 2) and, in so doing, will “enhance the EU’s capacity as an international security partner” (Mogherini, 2017, p. 2). As Pejsova (2017, p. 3) reminds us, however, “contributing to regional security and stability does not necessarily have to involve hard power.” … “some types of crises, driven by ethnic, religious or other communitarian tensions, simply cannot be effectively settled through the use of traditional security instruments.” This suggests that preventive diplomacy, which Pejsova (2017, p. 4) describes as “rooted in the EU’s very own DNA,” and which has played an important role in the EU’s foreign and security policy in Asia for some time, is likely to have staying power for the foreseeable future. Certainly, when it comes to the SCS, the EU’s economic and political interests in the region give the EU a strong incentive to contribute to a peaceful settlement of disputes in the region. Since the EU has settled maritime disputes among its members for decades, according to Burnay and Hermez (2017, p. 43), the EU is well situated to “share its best practices in terms of shedding clarity on competences, rights and responsibilities for certain activities, creating conditions for equal and efficient access to ports and ensuring cooperation.” Similarly, the EU has gained expertise in “joint resources management track” (Burnay & Hermez, 2017, p. 43), for instance, in the area of fisheries, and here could aid with training and capacity building.

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The relationship between the EU and ASEAN, most recently, has been further solidified in two key documents, the ASEAN-EU Plan of Action (2018–2022) and a Joint Statement of the 22nd EU-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting which was held on January 21, 2019, in Brussels. Some highlights of the former include the stipulation that, with respect to political and security cooperation, the partners are to “convene biennial ASEANEU Ministerial Meetings”… [and] “strengthen cooperation in regional and multilateral fora” such as “the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the G20” (European Union External Action, 2018, p. 1). Additionally, the plan reiterates “support for ASEAN centrality,” … “sovereignty and territorial integrity” (Ibidem, p. 1), but also makes clear that it does not come with any legal obligations. The ministerial meeting reiterated many of the points made in the Action Plan and the partners agreed in principle to upgrade EU–ASEAN relations to a Strategic Partnership (Council of the EU, 2019). The meeting, moreover, emphasized the importance of cooperation in cybersecurity, maritime security, connectivity and climate change, counterterrorism, and transnational crime and both parties reaffirmed their commitment to a future EU–ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) (Council of the EU, 2019, p. 2). Although recent developments between the EU and ASEAN seem promising, the different levels of economic development of the ASEAN countries complicate cooperation and suggest that not every Southeast Asian country will be able to move at the same speed and make the same commitment. Realistically, one might expect the more advanced Southeast Asian economies to enter closer ties with the EU until their underdeveloped regional partners can catch up. Humphrey (2018, p. 39), at least, appears to be fairly optimistic about the prospects of further cooperation between ASEAN and the EU in the economic realm predicting that, if both sides are willing to invest “political capital,” an FTA between the two regions may be possible by 2030. In the meantime, the EU could reach out to countries like Cambodia or Laos which are overly dependent on China and provide alternative sources of investment/aid, but it is unlikely to do so since it does not want to support corrupt governments. In fact, in October 2018, it revoked its preferential trade status with Cambodia to send a message that it is concerned about the country’s crackdown on political opposition and its human rights record. In short, the relationship between the EU and SEA suggests that, during a time when the rules-based international order is increasingly under attack, the EU has a strong incentive to become more assertive

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in SEA and defend the values, norms, rules, principles, and institutions that it has grown so fond of since the end of World War II. As a firm believer in the protection of human rights, democratic values, economic interdependence, and the rule of law, the EU is well placed to reach out to potential allies in SEA which have shown their willingness to engage to offset increasingly illiberal (protectionist-nationalist) U.S. and encroaching Chinese agendas.

Conclusion Given the above-discussed changes in the international environment— China’s greater assertiveness and doubts regarding the reliability of the U.S. as an ally in the future—the EU has a real opportunity to play an enhanced role in SEA to protect its substantial investments there. More specifically, it has a great incentive to build onto existing relationships and deepen cooperation with the ASEAN countries in the economic, political, security, and people-to-people realms (education, mobility, culture). In providing opportunities for free and fair trade and greater assistance in security matters, the EU can present an alternative to many Southeast Asian countries to become overly dependent on China or the U.S. This counterweight is of increasing importance because, should ASEAN become seriously divided, it will be unable to reach consensus and thus become immobilized. But, as with anything, there are skeptics who suggest that, while the EU has its hands full with crises at home (the aftermath of Brexit, mass influx of migrants/refugees), why should it bother with Asia? To that one might respond that its investments in the Asia-Pacific region are substantial enough that the EU cannot afford to neglect them, and that a focus on Europe does not preclude the simultaneous focus on another region of the world.

Notes 1. Among these were the East Coast Railway Line, the Multi-Product Pipeline, and the Trans-Sabah Gas Pipeline (see Fook, 2018, p. 2). 2. This section draws significantly on Katja Weber and Reuben Wong’s, “The EU’s Increasing Importance as a Security Actor in Southeast Asia (SEA),” presented at the 59th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Francisco, April 4–7, 2018.

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PART IV

Europe & South and Central Asia

CHAPTER 8

EU–India Relations and New Political Realities: Normative Convergence and Its Implications for Shared Strategic Concerns Bibek Chand

Introduction Historically, both the European Union and India have maintained strong democratic credentials. The EU was founded on the commitments to its core common values such as human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, and human rights (The European Union, 2020). Democracy is one of the EU’s founding principles and all of the organization’s “activity is based on democracy which must be respected at all times,” as defined by the Treaty of Lisbon signed in 2007 (European Parliament Information Office Finland, 2020). While these values form the normative basis for the functioning of the EU, it also infuses democracy promotion as a foreign policy tool. In 2009, the European Council adopted the conclusions on Democracy Support in the EU’s External

B. Chand (B) University of North Georgia, Oakwood, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_8

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Relations. These conclusions included country-specific engagements for democracy promotion, highlighting its normative importance in the EU’s foreign policy (Promoting Democracy and Observing Elections, 2019). On the other hand, India emerged as the world’s largest democracy when it gained independence from the United Kingdom (U.K.) in 1947. The country’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, defined the importance of anchoring India in democratic ideals. He defined democracy as “tolerance not merely of those who agree with us but those who do not agree with us.” (Nehru, 1946, p. 254). Apart from the 21-month emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi between 1975 and 1977, India long maintained peaceful transfer of powers between coalition governments. As such, both India and the EU maintain strong foundational credentials rooted in democracy. This convergence was a factor of strength for the EU’s democracy promotion in South Asia, particularly in the region’s smaller states. Also, the shared democratic ideals remained a shared normative framework from which EU–India relations developed. Recent political developments in South Asia and its neighborhood, however, are signaling a strategic congruence, which is subsuming the normative congruence in EU–India relations. In effect, convergent political norms could be a springboard for broader strategic linkages between the EU and India. This chapter emphasizes three such political developments. First such development is the rise of China and its impact on the EU and South Asia. India’s security concerns with relations to the growing presence of China in its neighborhood certainly requires reworking of foreign policy, which emphasizes geo-strategic importance on countering China’s influence in the region. Second, the rise of the BJP as the dominant political party and the trend toward majoritarianism raises questions regarding the country’s adherence to liberal-democratic ideals. The rise of China and India’s turn toward majoritarianism both have implications for EU–India normative congruence, particularly given the dynamic geopolitical interactions between India and China in South Asia. Furthermore, India’s long-standing public posturing as a democracy may take a backseat in preference for countering China’s overtures in South Asia. Third, the U.S.’ increasing withdrawal from international commitments is raising concerns for both the EU and India, as they seek to adapt to the new trajectories in international politics. Thus, this chapter discusses the democratic congruence in EU–India relations and argues that such congruence is a logical base from which both parties foster

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greater linkages in their increasingly congruent strategic concerns within the context of the three political developments. First, the chapter briefly surveys the relations between the EU and India within the EU’s larger overtures toward Asia. Then, the chapter discusses the framework of norms convergence between India and the EU rooted in democracy and how it has evolved over the years. In the next section, China’s rise and its implications for the EU and South Asia vis-a-vis India is discussed, along with what this rise means for the EU’s approach toward India. Next, the chapter discusses the implications of the rise of the BJP in India and its implications for EU–India relations. Then, EU–India relations are discussed vis-à-vis increasing American withdrawal from international engagements. The chapter ends with a conclusion which ties in the three political developments with the EU’s democracy promotion endeavors in South Asia.

Historical Background of EU–India Relations The EU’s overtures toward Asia began recently in the 1990 s with the emergence of official documents such as the “Towards a New Asia Strategy” (Lai et al., 2019, p. 342). The document highlighted EU’s official overtures toward Asia, particularly in strengthening its economic presence in the region. One of the other objectives of the Strategy was to encourage Asian states to partake in multilateral actions in the international community. Another important objective of the strategy was “to contribute to the development and consolidation of democracy and the rule of law, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in Asia” (Commission of the European Communities, 1994). From the initiation of its recent overtures, the EU maintained a strong normative commitment to democracy promotion toward the entire Asian region. The EU and India shared democratic credentials which was a strong normative commonality for both parties. Nevertheless, the dynamics of the Cold War complicated efforts to strengthen ties. The EU maintained very strong ties with the U.S. while India had close ties with the Soviet Union, which required delicate maneuvering in EU–India ties. While the EU and India had some levels of interactions since the 1960s, the formal establishment of the EU Delegation in India occurred in 1983. Relations were further entrenched with the signing of the 1994 Cooperation Agreement that solidified broad political dialogue between the two

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sides (Delegation of the EU to India and Bhutan, 2016). This Agreement is in line with the “Towards a New Asia Strategy” adopted by the EU in 1994, which called for greater engagement with the region. The 1994 Cooperation Agreement established annual ministerial meetings and broader political dialogue between the two sides. It culminated in the first India–EU Summit in 2000, which was a watershed moment for relations between the two sides. It established regular ministerial-level meetings between the two sides, signaling the entrenchment of relations. Relations were further strengthened when India was designated as one of the EU’s strategic partners in 2004 (Ibidem). The concept of strategic partnerships was first circulated in the 2003 European Security Strategy, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. and the American-led military interventions in Iraq (Ferreira-Pereira & Vieira, 2016). Largely rooted in strategic and security concerns, these strategic partnerships were to assert the EU’s presence in the dynamic networks of international organizations and important international actors (Council of the European Union, 2003). The 2004 designation of India as a strategic partner of the EU culminated in the signing of the India–EU Strategic Partnership Joint Action Plan in 2005. This Joint Action Plan included commitments in fields as diverse as strengthening dialogue and consultations, cooperation in political dialogue, promoting cultural and people-to-people connections, enhancing economic policy and cooperation, and developing trade and investment (Council of the European Union, 2005). This plan largely centered around economic engagements and developing trade and investments between India and the EU. The extensive emphasis on the economic relationship between the EU and India is rooted in the fact that the EU is India’s largest trading partner, accounting for e80 billion worth of trade in 2019; India is the EU’s 10th largest trading partner (Mazumdaru, 2020a). The 2020 EU–India Summit highlighted joint efforts in numerous international issues. Both sides signed the EU–India Strategic Partnership: A Roadmap to 2025, highlighting the convergence of interests between the two parties. Both sides affirmed their commitment to an open rules-based multilateral world order, emphasizing the important roles played by the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. The Summit highlighted the importance of working multilaterally through the World Health Organization and shared capacities in healthcare to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic (European Council/Council of the European Union, 2020c). In the EU–India Strategic Partnership: A

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Roadmap to 2025, both sides affirm to maintain open maritime lanes rooted in the United National Convention on the Law of the Sea and also to reaffirm support for the Paris Agreement on climate change (European Council/Council of the European Union, 2020b). Overall, the evolution of EU–India relations has gone from limited engagement to the raising of India’s status to one of the EU’s strategic partners. While economically driven, both sides showcase the importance of a strategic relationship affirming multilateralism and a rules-based international order.

Norms Convergence: Democratic Ideals and New Political Realities The EU’s status as a normative power and India’s as the world’s largest democracy naturally entailed some level of convergence in norms. Both the EU and India have time and again asserted their commitment to the international multilateral order rooted in democratic principles (Peral, 2012, p. 10). In particular, both have in the past jointly voiced their commitment to the protection of human rights. Since 2000, both parties initiated the India-EU Summit; in the years 2000–2016, both have highlighted, in one way or another, human rights as a central component of their joint agenda (Jain, 2017, pp. 413–414). The 1994 Cooperation Agreement signed between the European Community and India emphasized that “respect for human rights and democratic principles is the basis for the cooperation”; the Agreement reaffirms “the importance they (India and the European Community) attach to the principles of the United Nations Charter and the respect of democratic principles and human rights” (EUR-Lex, 1993). The 2005 India–EU Strategic Partnership Joint Action Plan also highlights the two parties as the “largest democracies in the world” that share “common values and beliefs” that make them mutual partners (Council of the European Union, 2005). This Plan further highlights the commitments of both sides to uphold and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, emphasizing the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Plan explicitly highlights both sides’ commitment to the promotion of liberal political ideals. However, in the EU–India Strategic Partnership: A Roadmap to 2025, democracy is only mentioned as a shared value between both sides (European Council/Council of the European Union, 2020b, p. 1). While the concept of human rights is

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still mentioned as a means to promote shared human values, democracy promotion or the promotion of fundamental political freedoms is not mentioned. The Roadmap emphasizes the shared norms of both sides’ commitment to an open rules-based multilateral order, rooted in intergovernmental organizations like the UN and WTO. The same is highlighted in the Joint Statement following the 15th EU–India Summit that was included in the Roadmap. As with the Roadmap, the Joint Statement highlights both sides’ credentials as democracies and shared commitment to open rules-based multilateral order but once again, does not mention democracy promotion or fundamental political freedoms anywhere. Overall, it emphasizes a joint strategic posturing internationally. The toning down of the language related to promotion of political freedoms or democracy signals a general shift in EU–India relations. While economic engagement remained at the core of the relations between the two states, strategic importance is also strongly featuring in their relationship. For example, the 2015 adoption of the national constitution in Nepal prompted a joint stance between the EU and India. Both parties called for a “lasting and inclusive constitutional settlement” which the government in Nepal interpreted as a point raised to question its new constitution, which had prompted protests in the south which is home to Madhesis—Nepalis who share commonalities with the populace in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states of India (The Kathmandu Post, 2016). This congruence in position on Nepal indicated the importance of India in the region and the EU’s careful rhetoric concerning the smaller neighboring states in South Asia. The overtly strategic orientation of the EU–India relations can also be witnessed in the European Parliament’s reluctance to vote on the issue of Kashmir and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). A resolution which condemned the crackdown in Kashmir following its revocation as an autonomous state within India as well as the CAA, which the EU described as “fundamentally discriminatory in nature,” was put on hold for voting in the European Parliament (G. Sharma, 2020). Overall, the emerging picture in EU–India relations is that of strategic convenience, with the EU’s democracy promotion largely done through bilateral missions in South Asia, including those in Nepal and Bangladesh. The norms convergence that was anchored in upholding and promoting human rights is not as pronounced, given changing dynamics in international politics due to China’s rise and increasing U.S. isolation. Coupled

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with these changes is the fact that the BJP in India has also emphasized norms that are different from the previous Congress-led governments.

Rise of China and Its Implications for EU–India Relations While India and the EU have long emphasized shared democratic ideals as the basis of their relationship, EU’s relations with China remain contentious. The two sides established relations in 1975; the signing of the 1985 Trade and Cooperation Agreement provided the framework for fostering between the two sides (Muenchow-Pohl, 2012). Yet, the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 led to an EU arms embargo, souring relations between the two. Despite these contentions, both China and the EU are aware of the economic importance of each other given China’s dramatic rise since the 1990s and Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. In 2019, China was the third-largest destination of EU exports, amounting to 9% of all exports amounting to 198 billion euros. On the other hand, China was the largest source of imports to the EU, accounting for 19% of all of its imports, valued at 362 billion euros (Eurostat, 2019). As such, both sides are important trade partners for each other. Despite extensive trade, the EU’s relationship with China continues to be contentious. In a 2019 report prepared by the European Commission titled “EU-China – A Strategic Outlook,” China was described as a “systemic rival” which promoted alternative models of government (European Commission, 2019). The Report highlights the fact that the two sides have fundamentally different political values; yet, it also accounts for the nuances in relations. The Report recognizes China as a cooperation partner in some global arenas such as the agreement to uphold multilateralism and an open rules-based international order (Ibidem, p. 2). The EU is strategic about maintaining close ties with China over economic issues such as FDI, state-aid, and technology transfer; yet, during the June 2020 EU–China annual summit, the EU’s concerns over the new national security law in Hong Kong remained a glaring issue (Le Corre, 2020). The EU continues to emphasize the human rights concerns in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong, despite making headway in trade (Gewirtz, 2020). Overall, EU maintains a precarious balance in its criticism of China for its human rights while recognizing the country’s economic importance.

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As for Sino–Indian relations, they continue to remain contentious. Since the border war in 1962, border disputes between the two states continued. Flare-ups occur occasionally, with the most recent in May 2020. The deadliest since the 1962 conflict, the clash led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese casualties, with estimated figures running as high as 40 (Ayres, 2020). With unresolved border disputes in Aksai Chin (claimed by India, administered by China) and Arunachal Pradesh (claimed by China, administered by India), the two states have a contentious bilateral relationship. Despite diplomatic challenges, Sino–Indian trade in the fiscal year 2018–2019 stood at US$88 billion with a US$53.5 billion trade deficit incurred by India (Mazumdaru, 2020a). China is also India’s third-largest trading partner. The rise of China is certainly visible in South Asia, as it increasingly strengthens ties with India’s smaller neighbors. Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Nepal, and Bangladesh have witnessed increased interactions with China since the 2000s (Zheng, 2020). These states have traditionally remained within India’s security orbit. With China’s increasing influence in the region, these smaller states have witnessed increased Chinese investments. All of these states have also joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative. As such, the strategic concerns of India remain grave as China increasingly makes its political presence more extensive in South Asia. The rise of China poses a unique challenge for EU–India relations. Both parties have concerns pertaining to China’s rise as a global power and yet, both share the reality of a close economic relationship with Beijing. The decoupling of economics and politics remains an arduous undertaking. Nevertheless, EU’s interactions with China and India showcase strategic prudence rather than overarching normative claims. While normative concerns such as human rights and civil liberties do figure into EU diplomacy, the approach toward India and China differ. The EU– China Summit of June 2020 and the EU–India Summit of July 2020 showcase different trajectories in the EU’s public posturing. The Joint Statement of the EU–India Summit highlights international commitment for upholding multilateralism and rules-based order along with a commitment to human rights (Joint statement—15th EU–India summit 2020). In fact, a resolution in the European Parliament that criticized human rights violations in Kashmir was halted in January 2020 (G. Sharma, 2020). On the contrary, the result of the EU–India Summit strongly highlighted concerns expressed by the EU regarding the deteriorating

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human rights situation in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Tibet (Mazumdaru, 2020b; European Council/Council of the European Union, 2020a). In essence, the EU still upholds norms related to human rights yet its public stance on India and China differ. Perhaps, the inherent normative structure of shared democratic ideals trumps the necessity to publicly raise concerns regarding Kashmir. Nevertheless, the results of the two Summits showcase that the EU has major normative concerns regarding human rights in China while the concerns in India are not publicly highlighted. The EU and India share concerns regarding China’s rise albeit the EU emphasizes a difference in modality of governance and India emphasizes the strategic concerns that China’s rise poses for its position in South Asia. As such, the emphasis on shared democratic ideals forms the foundational framework which allows for both parties to converge in terms of their strategic interests. The rise of China is a concern for both and the normative convergence around democratic ideals is a convenient starting point for a strategically prudent partnership in a dynamic international political environment.

The Rise of the BJP in India: Withering of Norms Convergence? India’s democratic landscape has witnessed extensive changes since the electoral victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014. The BJP fielded Narendra Modi as its forerunner, who ran against Rahul Gandhi from the Indian National Congress. Mr. Modi had long been a controversial figure, who was the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat during the 2002 communal riots between Hindus and Muslims that resulted in over one thousand deaths (Harris, 2016, p. 712). The results of the elections in 2014 were unprecedented as it was the first time in over a quarter of a century that a single party was able to secure an absolute majority in the Indian parliament. Major concern for those who followed Indian politics closely was the BJP’s close ties with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has a strong affinity for the establishment of a Hindu state in India rooted in the notion of Hindutva or Hindu nationalism (Harris, 2016, p. 714). The fears of Hindu majoritarianism became more pronounced when the Indian parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The CAA amended India’s citizenship law and opened the path for legal citizenship for illegal immigrants in the country but it only applied

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to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh (BBC News, 2019b). The notable exception of Muslims in the Act incurred criticism of blatant disregard of India’s secular constitution. In 2019, the Indian parliament revoked the autonomous status of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Article 370, which allowed the state significant autonomy, was revoked and instead, it was split into two territories directly governed by the central government in New Delhi (BBC News, 2019a). The Muslim majority state had long witnessed a separatist insurgency and is a disputed territory with Pakistan and China. For India, Jammu and Kashmir was a state that was a security concern given infiltration of non-state actors, some enjoying ties with Pakistan. However, the revocation of Article 370 came as a surprise for many due to its extensive implications for security and stability in the region. The revocation was swiftly accompanied with the house arrest of prominent Kashmiri politicians and a media and communications blackout in the region (Neuman, 2019). The CAA and the revocation of Article 370 both induced the interest of human rights groups. The UN Commissioner for Human Rights filed an application with India’s Supreme Court to challenge the CAA (Kuchay, 2020). Notably, the EU did not officially take a stance on either issue. Instead, the issue was taken up by the European Parliament as a draft resolution that called the CAA as “fundamentally discriminatory” against Muslims and had criticized the severe political limitations in Kashmir (G. Sharma, 2020). Nevertheless, even that was put on hold, largely because of the then-scheduled EU–India Summit in March 2020, which moved to July 2020. The EU Foreign and Security Policy even went to the extent of stating that “the European Parliament and its members do not represent the official position of the European Union” (Press Trust of India, 2020). Even during the Summit, the topics were left off the agenda. Despite the change in political leadership in New Delhi, the EU continued to assert the “shared democratic norms” of the two sides, which was also included in the Joint Statement of the EU–India Summit in 2020. The EU strategically did not address the CAA and Kashmir issues, which the UN and its agencies have raised alarms over. In essence, the strategic importance of India remains a central issue for the EU; so much so that the vote on the resolution on the CAA and Kashmir in the European Parliament were halted. The shared democratic norms remain a symbolic lynchpin that allows the EU to build its strategic partnership

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with India without being critical of New Delhi’s actions that many rights groups have called as being detrimental to democratic rights.

The U.S. Under the Trump Administration: Changing Directions in EU–India Relations? The Trump administration’s foreign policy has led to extensive changes in international political rhetoric and commitments of the U.S. Since the end of the World War II, the US actively participated in the construction and upholding of the international rules-based order that was anchored in multilateralism. However, with Trump’s victory in 2016, foreign policy of the U.S. is largely characterized by increasing isolationism and protectionism, including withdrawal from key international commitments (Bilal & Imran, 2019). This new turn in U.S. foreign policy became pronounced when ex-President Trump criticized NATO members for not contributing to the transatlantic organization adequately (Mukherjee, 2018, p. 292). The Trump administration had also ramped up a trade war with China, announcing 25% additional import duties on US$50 billion worth of imports (Herrero, 2019). Other actions that include shedding of international commitments of the U.S. include its notable withdrawals from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (Sperling & Webber, 2019, p. 512). The increased withdrawal from multilateral engagements and a move towards an isolationist orientation in foreign policy is evident. The Trump administration’s approach to the EU showcased a changed context as well. Then-President Trump stated that the EU was “formed, partially, to beat the United States on trade,” undermining the extensive linkages in EU–U.S. relations (Kirchick, 2018). The U.S. also ramped up its trade disputes with the EU by announcing in June 2020 that it would rotate its current tariffs between 10–25% on various EU products (Alden, 2020). It followed Trumps’ threats to levy import tariffs on EU cars. The Trump administration also threatened India with retaliation on the country’s export bans on hydroxychloroquine, which was touted by Trump as a possible drug to treat COVID-19 but was not backed by medical research (A. Sharma, 2020). The overall foreign policy of the Trump administration remains disruptive of existing multilateralism that the U.S. helped create.

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From the EU’s perspective, multilateralism remains at the core of the post- World War II international order and it continues to espouse its commitment to that order. The EU–U.S. relations were based on the commitments to upholding it and all of its constituent norms and institutions such as a rules-based order based on sovereign legal equality of states. The EU long relied on the U.S. as a strategic partner and the two maintained close relations. With the increased isolationism of the U.S. under the Trump administration, the EU finds itself in a unique strategic environment; one where it is forced to deliberate new partnerships. Its relationship with India under Trump’s from 2017 to 2021 showcased this commitment to uphold the multilateralism of international politics. All joint statements that were published following the EU-Summits since 2017 emphasized the commitment of both states to maintaining the status quo of a rules-based international order and norms. From India’s perspective, the U.S. under the Trump administration appeared largely unreliable, in both economic and strategic realms. Despite the recent overtures in U.S. policy premising the Indo-Pacific as an important strategic region for the U.S., India is keen on diversifying its strategic partners in the region. Particularly since China’s rise in the region remains tumultuous for Indian interests, India has also sought to explore possible long-term strategies including forging strong ties with Southeast Asia through the Act East policy under the Modi administration. The increased isolationism and changing international political commitments of the U.S. poses new challenges. For the EU and India, areas of common strategic interests have emerged. First, the decreasing commitment of the U.S. to multilateral initiatives leaves room for the two states to fill that void albeit China also figures prominently. A notable example is the Paris Agreement, wherein both the EU and India have emphasized the importance of upholding multilateral commitments and have been working closely to enhance the Agreement’s implementation (European Commission, 2017). Both parties have reiterated the importance of the rules-based order. While the two may not be able to replace the U.S. or see the current dynamics as a zero-sum game, it is in the interest of both parties to ensure the continuation of the incumbent international normative structure, largely because of the uncertainties pertaining to China’s rise. The second common strategic interest is tied to the rise of China. For India, it is a glaring security issue as China increases its strategic

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engagement with smaller South Asian states. Furthermore, both states see each other as rivals with divergent political systems. As for the EU, a threat to the current international regime undermines the very basis of the organization. Its roots in functionalism and neofunctionalism, along with the importance of an open and inclusive international order, is central to its viability. While there is disagreement on whether China seeks to change this incumbent system, there are uncertainties pertaining to the void left by increasing U.S. disengagement from multilateralism. Engagement with China is tricky for both the EU and India; China is a significant economic partner for both parties and yet, both the EU and India have had public political disagreements with Beijing. As signaled in the 2020 EU–China Summit, EU leaders were openly critical of human rights issues within China; furthermore, prominent EU members including France and Germany also stated concerns of security for Chinese acquisitions of key companies and its investments within the EU (Johnson, 2020). In this context, the EU and India have found common ground as they share similar strategic concerns. Overall, the common normative values of democracy remain a rhetorical lynchpin for both the EU and India. The common strategic concerns strengthen the necessity to forge closer ties. The EU has even forgone any criticism of human rights concerns in India pertaining to the CAA and Kashmir, showcasing the importance of India as a strategic partner in an increasingly uncertain international order.

Conclusion The relations between the EU and India have been historically premised around their shared democratic credentials. The strengthening of bilateral ties is a recent phenomenon since the designation of India as one of the EU’s international strategic partners in 2004. Since then, EU– India have grown closer with shared democratic norms as the lynchpin of the relationship. The three political developments discussed in this chapter including the rise of China, the rise of the BJP in India, and increasing U.S. isolationism have all presented new challenges and opportunities for EU–India relations. The rise of China, which is an important economic partner for both India and the EU, raises strategic concerns for both. For India, its relations with China have remained strained since the border war of 1962. The EU raises concerns regarding China’s increased ventures into companies in the region, which have been viewed as a

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security concern. Furthermore, the strategic void left by the U.S. invites uncertainty as there are concerns for China filling in the game. Furthermore, the disruption of the multilateral rules-based order also invites uncertainty. Additionally, the rise of the BJP within India has not dampened the relations with the EU as the two face the question of what the international order will look like without significant investments from the U.S. The EU’s reluctance to raise any issues pertaining to India and the continued reiteration of shared values showcases the importance of India as a strategic partner for the EU. While democratic norms are consistently reiterated in all Joint Statements, it serves as a means to foster public support and has increasingly become a lynchpin for developing common strategic norms such as a commitment to an international rules-based order and upholding of multilateralism, which are facing uncertainty given increasing U.S. withdrawal from international commitments and the increased international activity of China. As such, both the EU and India have common strategic concerns which have been developed on the premise of their democratic ideals. While public posturing supports democratic norms, the strategic importance of EU–India ties is increasingly developed. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the EU’s posturing vis-à-vis India may be impacted by India’s bilateral ties with individual EU member states.

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Ferreira-Pereira, L. C., & Viera, A. V. G. (2016). Introduction: The European Union’s strategic partnerships: Conceptual approaches, debates and experiences. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 29(1), 3–17. Gewirtz, P. (2020). The future of trans-Atlantic collaboration on China: What the EU-China Summit showed. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/ blog/order-from-chaos/2020/06/26/the-future-of-trans-atlantic-collabora tion-on-china-what-the-eu-china-summit-showed/. Accessed 29 June 2020. Harris, J. (2016). Hindu nationalism in action: The Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian politics. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 38(4), 712–718. Herrero, A. G. (2019). Europe in the midst of China-US strategic economic competition: What are the European Union’s options? Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, 17 (4), 403–423. Jain, R. L. (2017). India, the European Union and human rights. India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, 73(4), 411–429. Johnson, K. (2020, June 25). How Europe fell out of love with China. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/25/china-europe-rival-strategiccompetitor-huawei/. Accessed 30 June 2020. The Kathmandu Post. (2016, April 6). EU stands by its position on Nepal’s new constitution. https://kathmandupost.com/national/2016/04/06/eustands-by-its-position-on-nepals-new-constitution. Accessed 3 May 2020. Kirchick, J. (2018, May 25). Europeans want to break up with America. They’d do so at their peril. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/orderfrom-chaos/2018/05/25/europeans-want-to-break-up-with-america-theyddo-so-at-their-peril/. Accessed 22 March 2020. Kuchay, B. (2020, March 5). India defends CAA after UN rights chief approaches Supreme Court. Al-Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/ 2020/03/india-defends-caa-rights-chief-approaches-supreme-court-200303 114701274.html. Accessed 12 May 2020. Lai, S., et al. (2019). The Emperor’s new clothes? Perceptions of the EU’s strategic partnerships in Asia. Asia Europe Journal, 17 (3), 341–360. Le Corre, P. (2020). The EU’s new defensive approach to a rising China. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment. org/2020/07/01/eu-s-new-defensive-approach-to-rising-china-pub-82231. Accessed 6 July 2020. Mazumdaru, S. (2020a, June 7). Can India wean off its economic reliance on China? Deustche Welle. https://p.dw.com/p/3ekFe. Accessed 11 June 2020. Mazumdaru, S. (2020b, June 14). India-EU summit focuses on coronavirus, thorny trade issues. Deutsch Welle. https://p.dw.com/p/3fJcm. Accessed 20 June 2020. Muenchow-Pohl, B. (2012, August 23). EU relations with China and India: Courting the dragon, wooing the elephant. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/08/23/eu-relationswith-china-and-india-courting-dragon-wooing-elephant-pub-49173. Accessed 12 May 2020.

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Mukherjee, B. (2018). A strategic essay: Dynamics between a super president, a military alliance and an intrastate entity. India Quarterly, 74(3), 290–304. Nehru, J. (1946). The discovery of India. Calcutta, India: The Signet Press. Neuman, S. (2019, August 5). In unprecedented move, India revokes Kashmir’s special status, sparks fears of unrest. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/ 05/748170695/in-unprecedented-move-india-revokes-kashmirs-special-sta tus-sparks-fears-of-unre. Accessed 15 April 2020. Peral, L. (2012). Introduction: Setting the EU-India partnership in motion. In L. Peral & V. Sakhuja (Eds.), The EU-India partnership: Time to go strategic (pp. 9–22). Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies/Indian Council of World Affairs. Press Trust of India. (2020, January 30). European Parliament debates anti-CAA motion; vote delayed till march. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/ news/international/european-parliament-debates-anti-caa-motion-vote-del ayed-till-march/article30689423.ece. Accessed 22 March 2020. Promoting Democracy and Observing Elections. (2019). European Parliament official website. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/166/ promoting-democracy-and-observing-elections. Accessed 4 April 2020. Sharma, A. (2020, July 4). Coronavirus: Trump warns India of retaliation over ‘game-changer’ drug. Deutsche Welle. https://p.dw.com/p/3aZ78. Accessed 10 July 2020. Sharma, G. (2020, January 31). Why did European Parliament delay a vote on India’s CAA, Kashmir? Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/ 01/european-parliament-delay-vote-india-caa-kashmir-200131060153083. html. Accessed 20 March 2020. Sperling, J., & Webber, M. (2019). Trump’s foreign policy and NATO: Exit and voice. Review of International Studies, 45(3), 511–526. Zheng, S. (2020, 9 July). China-India border dispute may force South Asian neighbours to pick a side. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp. com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3092510/china-india-border-disputemay-force-south-asian-neighbours. Accessed 15 July 2020.

CHAPTER 9

The European Union’s Impact in South Asia: Norms or Geopolitics? Tamanna Ashraf

Introduction As the political penetration of the European Union (EU) in the national politics of its member states has increased over the decades, its influence on global affairs has increased as well. European integration has become a model for economic and political cooperation for the developing states of South Asia. Like the United Nations, the EU has become an active promoter of sustainable economic development and human security in this region. Some scholars go as far as to identify the EU as a normative power. Amitav Acharya asserts that the EU is gradually becoming one of the pillars of the post-American, multipolar world order (Kuo, 2016). Some scholars like Knud E. Jørgensen (2009) argue that the EU’s lack of firepower is one of the contributing factors that hinder the exercise of its power. The EU has expanded in its responsibilities in recent years, however. The same Eurozone crisis and Brexit that led some to

T. Ashraf (B) Department of Politics and International Relations, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_9

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question the EU’s sustainability can improve and strengthen it. As John McCormick (2012) argues, the EU has faced such challenges before, and it emerged stronger than ever afterward. However, the question here is not about whether or not the EU is a success or a failure; it is about assessing the EU’s power, specifically, its normative force, and how that is exercised outside of the EU. The first section of this chapter discusses scholars’ discussion on the EU’s normative power and power in general. The second section focuses on the Union’s activities and policies undertaken in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in three areas: i) security and strategic relations, ii) economics and trade, and iii) non-military issues and human rights. Analyzing the Union’s security and strategic relations tests its influence in the security realm as the U.S. policy in the region shifts toward India under former President Trump. The EU’s commercial engagement in these countries (with different economic conditions) examines its economic power. Lastly, discussing the EU’s engagement over non-military issues helps to scrutinize its normative power in these countries. The conclusion elaborates on the EU’s future in these states and the challenges and opportunities that it faces.

The EU’s Normative Power To be a normative power, there must be some common ground on the factors or characteristics that constitute a particular norm. The basis of these factors and characteristics usually stems from a collective cultural identity. However, the EU is a heterogeneous entity, and its member states have diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Therefore, the idea of “European identity” is an obscure one. Aside from the debate on “European identity,” the EU has been preoccupied with internal cohesion, namely, Great Britain’s presumed exit. Therefore, questions arise about the EU’s status and its normative power. Ian Manners (2012) asserts that, at the global stage, the EU is a normative power more than anything else. According to him, to understand the EU’s normative power, we need to examine the EU’s principles, actions to promote those principles, and the impact of the EU’s actions and principles. Manners (2006) argues that since 9/11, the EU has moved away from its normative approach to world politics and has become more militarized. The 9/11 attack also led to a shift within the member states’ policies and interests. Multiple EU member states became

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staunch allies of the U.S. during the start of the campaign in Afghanistan. The shift, as Manners argues, led to the militarization of the EU happened not only externally but also internally. Furthermore, in order to uphold its principles, the EU has to resort to the material aspect of its powers. Manners gives the example of the EU’s promotion of labor standards through trade, which is a combination of its labor standards and material incentives (Manners, 2012). Mark A. Pollack (2012) argues that the EU succeeds in promoting human rights when it provides material benefit: access to the EU market. Besides, the EU’s promotion of environmental standards benefits those who can already meet these standards the most, according to Pollack (2012). Access to the EU’s market is not only beneficial to those who are offered this incentive, but it is also advantageous to the Union. Therefore, even providing material incentives can sometimes be beneficial to the EU. If the EU is not as idealistic and there is interest in its actions, then it would make coordination among its member states nearly impossible, since everyone would be self-interested. Eiko R. Thielemann argues that despite interests, norm-based approaches can nonetheless explain the EU’s burden-sharing. He looks at European states accepting refugees as an example to posit that the EU has few provisions where if a country is overburdened with refugees, other states will share the burden without creating compulsory rules (Thielemann, 2003). There are different soft, non-binding rules. The creation of the European Refugee Fund (ERF) indicates that states are sharing the burden. However, Thielemann (2003) argues that hard bargaining characterized by the establishment of the ERF indicates that the cost–benefit approach is also at play. In other words, both politics and norms are contributing factors to the Union’s policies and actions. Some of the authors mentioned here analyze the EU’s normative power internally and among its members. All of these members have had direct or indirect involvement in the making of these rules and norms. The members’ adherence to the norms vary and there may be disagreements or different interpretations of these norms. However, power is essentially about making someone do something that the person otherwise would not do, according to Kenneth Waltz. Therefore, normative power should not only have some effect within the group that created the norms but also on those that did not. How effective is the EU’s normative power outside of the member states? This paper will look at the EU’s influence on South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

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These states are far from Europe, therefore, there is a higher chance for any influence of the EU to be on its own accord. This might not be the case for a non-EU European state which may share a similar socioeconomic and cultural heritage as the EU member states, which is not the case for these South Asian countries. Plus, these non-EU European states are in proximity to the EU. Therefore, if the EU has any normative influence in these South Asian countries, it might indicate that such EU norms have a broader appeal. However, in the light of European colonial experiences in Asia, the EU may face challenges with its credibility and image, especially promoting democratic ideals and human rights (Fitriani, 2011). Therefore, it is essential to analyze the nature of the EU’s engagement in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the values promoted by the Union, and the reception of the Union. Furthermore, the EU represents a symbol of multilateralism. The EU’s capability for multilateralism came to be through a combination of matured state-building and pooling of state sovereignty. What is the value of multilateralism in a region where the process of state-building is in its early stages (Afghanistan, for example), the democratic process and consensus-based decision-making is questionable, and where regional multilateralism is weak at best? While the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was created to promote multilateral cooperation, it has not been insulated from regional politics and rivalry. Therefore, the South Asian countries and the regional political dynamics pose a challenging testing ground for the EU’s normative power and its multilateralism. Admittedly, as an observing member of the SAARC, the EU can engage with the South Asian countries at a multilateral stage. However, the role of the EU and the U.S. (another observer) has been limited to sharing proposals for greater cooperation (Ahmed, 2018), which does limit the Union’s influence. Additionally, if we want to consider the EU as a global power, we have to look at its reach and influence in different types of states. Aside from being developing states, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh test the EU in different ways. Both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and old rivals, therefore, they test the Union’s influence in the security arena and its potential role as a mediator. India is a regional power that allows one to examine the Union’s performance in dealing with emerging power. Pakistan is a weak democracy, yet it plays a crucial role in the fight against international terrorist organizations, thus, testing the Union’s role as both a normative and security actor. Bangladesh lacks the military capabilities of

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India and Pakistan. However, the EU’s role in Bangladesh allows one to examine how the Union deals with (or can deal with) a relatively weaker country. The three case study countries of this paper have unique qualities and factors that allow a more in-depth analysis of the EU’s power and its status as a global power. Moreover, as the U.S. under former President Donald Trump embraces a more populist national agenda and retreats from its global political and security roles, it presents a unique challenge as well as an opening for the EU and it’s status as a global power. Ex-President Trump’s support for Brexit and antipathy of the EU have contributed to their divergence on multiple sensitive issues such as the Iran nuclear deal and sanctions on Russia over Ukraine. Federica Mogherini’s comments over the Iran nuclear deal indicated that the EU–U.S. relations will become more pragmatic, implying that the Union will not hesitate to pursue its own course when the parties’ interests diverge (Gearan, 2017). The potential for the Union’s unilateralism can create both opportunities and obstacles. In Asia, a retracting U.S. under then-President Trump had created spaces for China to expand its influence. South Asian countries more specifically, will see a more China-centric military, economic, and political policy. After the 2017 border clash at Doklam, India has shifted its military focus from Pakistan to China (Westcott, 2018). The 2020 border clashes between India and China further demonstrate the necessity for such a shift. On the other hand, mirroring the U.S. during the Trump administration, both Europe and South Asia have seen a rise in populist and right-wing agenda. India has moved toward a more populist, antiMuslim, and anti-immigrant agenda under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term. After the Pulwama attack, right-wing leaning delegates from European Parliament (EP) visited Kashmir during its lockdown in 2019. Modi’s courting of the EP’s right-wing delegates hints that India was trying to legitimize its militarization of Kashmir. Similarly, the rightwing EP delegates in question used the high-profile case of Kashmir to elevate their global profile.

The EU and India India’s status as a nuclear power adds a security implication to the EU’s relations with it. The Union’s consistent support for non-proliferation and disarmament has the potential to pose a conflict of interest with India,

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who is not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India and the EU’s foreign policy strategy has diverged, especially after the end of the Cold War. India’s nuclear tests in 1998, coupled with the 1999 Kargil War, indicated the country’s turn to power politics (Kavalski, 2016). On the other hand, after the Kosovo War, the EU understood that complex political and economic interdependence (and not military capabilities) would ensure peace (Kavalski, 2016). Therefore, India’s diverging world views and foreign policy stances create a challenge for the EU. To begin, India did not always have the best perception of European integration. Due to its experience as a British colony, India looked at the European integration with reservation. The Indian government perceived the European project and its free market as a threat to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and another way for the colonial powers to have an advantage in the global economy (Winand et al., 2015). During this time, India saw the genesis of a European Union as a union of colonial powers and its free market as a way for them to further exploit the former colonies in the developing world. In a more contemporary context, the general Indian public does not have a clear understanding of the Union and its activities. Among India’s political elites, the EU remains a marginal actor (Jain & Sachdeva, 2019; Kavalski, 2016). While both India and the EU understand the other’s instrumental role in a multipolar world (Jain & Sachdeva, 2019), India’s record of embracing multilateralism is mixed at best. India’s skepticism regarding the SAARC is based on the fear of smaller countries bandwagoning against it (Moorthy, 2018). The fear of bandwagon, coupled with the Indo-Pakistan rivalry, has crippled the SAARC mission. Therefore, India’s engagements with the EU should not be interpreted as the former’s promotion of the multilateralism that the latter embodies. Despite India’s apprehension with multilateralism, the EU can emerge from the margins (in the eyes of the Indian elites) by engaging with India more strategically. However, there are existing obstacles in their strategic relationship. EU–Indian Security and Strategic Relations Even though India and the EU established a strategic relationship in 2004, the relationship can hardly be described as strategic. One of the reasons for this underdeveloped strategic partnership lies within the institutional inclinations of the Union itself. The EU’s “foreign policy” has

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mainly been about the expansion of the Union and the ‘Europeanization’ of prospective members (Kavalski, 2016). In 2010, Herman van Rompuy, the former President of the European Council, acknowledged that the EU has strategic partners, but it needs more strategy (Rompuy, 2010). Rompuy (2010), however, stated that the Union has clear ideas on how to engage with China. The Union’s engagement with China has been defined by pragmatism and greater economic investment in comparison to India (Muenchow-Pohl, 2012). Therefore, it is safe to posit that the EU’s foreign policy regarding India has been lagging. Furthermore, India’s Asia-orientated foreign policy is another obstacle in developing a more comprehensive strategic relationship with the EU. Between 1997 and 2017, nearly half of India’s 31 strategic partnerships have been with Asian states (Jain & Sachdeva, 2019). PM Modi recognized the EU’s significance in advancing India’s economic and technological growth (Jain & Sachdeva, 2019). However, he has taken an Asia-oriented foreign policy instead. Nonetheless, PM Modi has endeavored to revitalize the EU–India relationship by visiting three EU member states in 2017. The EU’s stance on India’s nuclear weapons is not consistent. While the EU condemned the 1998 nuclear tests in both India and Pakistan, the response, however, was merely declaratory in nature (Winand et al., 2015). A decade later, such condemnation was reversed during the 2008 U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement. Germany and other EU member states expressed their enthusiasm for the Agreement (Winand et al., 2015). This reversal not only shows a contradiction but also a lack of coherent policy by the EU regarding one of South Asia’s nuclear power. Also, the EU showed a lack of leadership by complying with the U.S. policy in this matter rather than upholding its non-proliferation values. Granted, the nuclear agreement is about the civilian use of nuclear power. However, India has a nuclear rival across the border, and in the past, which it has not shied away from flexing its nuclear muscles. On the other hand, then Indian PM Manmohan Singh actively sought Germany and France’s approval on the U.S.–India nuclear agreement (Winand et al., 2015), implying that India did perceive that the EU’s support can impact the legitimacy of the agreement. Interestingly, as PM Singh lobbied for Germany’s approval, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister was there to persuade Germany to not support the nuclear agreement (Winand et al., 2015). Western support for India’s nuclear power,

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however, tilted the regional power balance in India’s favor, to the dismay of Pakistan and China (Winand et al., 2015). In spite of Western powers’ pivot to India, the EU’s general stance and engagements with Pakistan and China have created dissatisfaction in New Delhi. Shashi Tharoor, former Minister of State for External Affairs, posited that despite China’s record with upholding human rights, the EU had favored China over India (Kavalski, 2016). Additionally, it has upset India that the EU does not discriminate between Pakistan and India’s nuclear programs and has instead insisted on “balancing between the two competing neighbors” (Kavalski, 2016). Regardless, for India, the EU’s presence in the region can be a balancing factor (Jain & Sachdeva, 2019). Therefore, despite India’s discontent with the EU’s engagements with Pakistan and China, it understands the latter’s importance in balancing against its regional rivals. Implying that, while the EU endeavors to stay neutral in the India–Pakistan–China rivalry, India views the EU’s presence in South Asia from a realpolitik angle. Furthermore, Kashmir has been a security concern for decades. The EU’s engagement with India on the Kashmir dispute demonstrates the divergence between the former’s norm-based understanding of international relations and the latter’s more realist conceptualizations (Khorana & Garcia, 2013). There is also the possibility that the unresolved Kashmir dispute and the Indian government’s recent human rights violations in the region can hinder the protracted Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations between the EU and India (Marshall, 2019). The FTA negotiation is an opportunity for the EU to formulate a diplomatic solution to a persistent regional problem. The militarization of Kashmir, the withdrawal of Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional autonomous status and communication blackout of Kashmiris have promoted the EU to decline a “guided tour” of the region in January 2020 (Sanyal, 2020), further evidencing the two actors’ diverging views on the issue. While withdrawing from the tour demonstrates the EU’s promotion of human rights, however, the EP delegates’ 2019 Kashmir visit indicates that there are diverging perspectives within the EU. EU–Indian Economics and Trade The EU–India trade relationship has generated controversy and debate in Indian domestic politics and society. The overdrawn impasse over the FTA is the result of a mismatch of interests between the EU and

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India, highlighting different priorities. India is resistant to open up its service industry and reduce tariffs as desired by the EU. Currently, India’s service industry, namely, the telecommunication industry, is riddled with bureaucracy and lacks any national treatment (Khorana & Garcia, 2013). Furthermore, if India opens its retail industry, the small street vendors would perish against big corporate supermarkets (Khorana & Garcia, 2013). Therefore, an agreement on an FTA can potentially be life-changing for many small Indian entrepreneurs. Aside from the policy-based impact that the EU has on India, politics within the EU has an impact in the region. The EU’s recent shake-up with Brexit created a mix of doubt and possibilities for India. India is the thirdlargest investor in the UK, and Indian companies employ around 100,000 in that country (Francombe, 2016). Therefore, the decision to leave the EU creates uncertainties for Indian companies there. While visiting India in November 2016, British PM Theresa May and PM Modi discussed such concerns. While there are uncertainties generated by Brexit, some in India sees this as an opportunity. Sunil Mittal, the Chairman of Bharti, perceives Brexit as an opportunity for India to have increased business openings in the U.K. Mittal posited that since the UK will soon leave the EU and its market, India can be a great market (Daily News & Analysis, 2016). This can potentially impact not only trade relations between the UK and India but also between the EU and India by reducing the EU’s access to India’s market. The risk of such reduction can create spaces for negotiation between the Union and India. EU–Indian Non-military Security Issues and Human Rights In 2018, EU–India strategic relations gained more clarity. In the 2018 EU Strategy on India, both parties expressed overlapping interests in areas like sustainable development and climate change. Similar to Kashmir, climate change is another area where the EU’s norm-led approach diverges with India’s pragmatism. Despite common interests expressed in 2018, the EU and India differ on their climate change priorities. India believes that the Union wants more significant emission reduction from India, which can interfere with poverty reduction and economic growth. The Indian government has continued to frame climate change as a clash between North and South. On the other hand, the EU has attained greater success in engaging with China on climate. The EU’s sustained

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attempt to engage China on climate has contributed to a greater diffusion of climate-norms into China’s domestic agenda (Torney, 2012). The discrepancies in the Union’s engagement with China and India further demonstrate the underdeveloped strategy on India. However, the divergences over the FTA and climate change offer the EU a unique challenge and opportunity. It is conceivable to find overlapping objectives in these two issue areas and overcome the lingering disagreements.

The EU and Pakistan Pakistan and the EU (then the European Community or EC) began their diplomatic relationship in 1962. Since then, Pakistan has received aid in the areas of food and development from the EU. Between the years 2002 and 2006, Pakistan received e93.6 million in assistance from the EU (Korski, 2007). By 2009, the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) had given e443 million, especially to areas in Pakistan with food insecurity and malnutrition, like Sindh Province, for example (Delegation to Pakistan, 2016). There is a discrepancy between the EU’s engagement in Pakistan and that of its member states individually. Gradually over the past decade in the backdrop of the War on Terror (WoT), the EU recognized the necessity to escalate its engagement with Pakistan. Daniel Korski, a former advisor to British PM David Cameron, stated that the EU wants to be more than a technocratic and apolitical actor who is marginalized by the U.S. (Cassar, 2009). However, European states, like the UK (which has a historical link with Pakistan) have contributed more in aid and development than the European Commission (Cassar, 2009). Therefore, the EU engagement in Pakistan has been limited to mainly aid and development. EU–Pakistani Security and Strategic Relations In recent years, especially in the light of WoT and the campaign in Afghanistan, the Union’s aid to Pakistan increased due to security concerns. Increased terrorist activities and deterioration of the quality of life for many Pakistanis in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Hence, the EU has raised concerns over Pakistan’s lack of social development. The EU sees the lack of social development in Pakistan, having detrimental effects on the efforts to end the insurgency

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in Afghanistan (Cassar, 2009). The EU has thus taken on various humanitarian efforts in Pakistan following its logic to tackle terrorism by tackling the socioeconomic root causes of terrorism. The EU has recognized Pakistan as a strategic partner in the region, as evident in the regularly held strategic dialogues. These dialogues cover issues that range from security to trade, human rights, and democratic development. There is an opportunity for the Union to expand its presence in Pakistan. The former Trump administration’s shift in its Afghanistan policy was characterized by greater troop deployment, lesser autonomy to the Afghan government, a greater role of India as a strategic partner in relation to Afghan security, and marginalizing Pakistan’s contribution and role in the WoT and Afghanistan’s security (Munir & Shafiq, 2017). The U.S. pivot to India as a bulwark against radical Islamic terrorism and China has significant implications for the subcontinent’s political and security dynamics. As the U.S. retreats, the Union can utilize its technical expertise to aid Pakistan fight the sociopolitical root causes of terrorism and tackle the continued inflow of Afghan refugees. EU–Pakistani Economics and Trade Aside from being a security partner, Pakistan is also a trade partner to the Union. One of the most significant trade developments between the EU and Pakistan has been the Generalized Scheme of Preference (GSP) plus status. After the 2010 flood in Pakistan, it received such a reduction on export duties, after which Pakistan was officially given the GSP plus status in 2014. After acquiring the GSP plus status, Pakistan’s export to the EU increased by 62% (Dawn, 2019). Pakistan’s market is valuable to regional and global powers. However, each power has a different appeal to Pakistan. For example, Chinese investors are interested in Pakistan’s textile industry in Punjab. Currently, Punjab’s textile industry exports to Europe and the U.S. China has heavily invested in Pakistan’s infrastructure under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Chinese investment in Punjab’s textile industry would compete with that of the EU. China’s interest in Pakistan’s textile comes concurrently with the EU’s commitment to making the country’s textile industry more sustainable (Dawn, 2019). China’s role in Pakistan’s textile is investment and growth-centric, whereas the EU can bring economic growth and environmental sustainability. Investment and growth are likely

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to be priorities for Pakistan’s weak economy. The EU has to ensure that its plans are competitive with that of China in terms of economic growth. EU–Pakistani Non-military Security Issues and Human Rights In the promotion of democracy, the EU has played a supporting role in Pakistan’s election. The EU has deployed many election observer missions around the world. In Pakistan, the Union has observed elections held in 2002, 2008, and 2013. The EU’s elections observation has two implications. First, for Pakistan, the EU recognized it as an unbiased actor, and an active promoter of democracy to oversee its election process. The approval of such an impartial promoter of Pakistan’s elections can provide the newly elected government with both recognition, legitimacy, and political stability. On the other side, by needing such observance missions, it also means that Pakistan still has some ways to go in terms of becoming an established democracy. Second, such observance missions show concrete actions taken by the EU to promote democracy in Pakistan. In the promotion of human rights, the EU has a mixed record in Pakistan. In the light of recent violence in Balochistan, and human rights violations, the EU was considering imposing sanctions on Pakistan. European Parliament’s Vice President Ryszard Czarnecki expressed sharper criticism of the Pakistani military, comparing it to Hitler’s goons as it commits genocide in Balochistan (ANI, 2016). Interestingly, while criticizing Pakistan, Czarnecki praised PM Modi for raising the Baloch human rights issue to the EU. This situation can have two possible implications. First, India views the EU as a credible advocate of human rights to bring in such concerns. Second, PM Modi brought in external actors like the EU to get involved in regional politics (due to the recent tension, and military skirmishes between India and Pakistan over Kashmir). He wanted to isolate Pakistan from the international community and increase diplomatic pressures on Pakistan. Despite recognizing Pakistan’s democracy’s limitations and persecution of activists and journalists under PM Imran Khan, the EU is trying to nudge Pakistan toward peace and democracy. The EU has funded community-based programs like the Balochistan Rural Development and Community Empowerment (BRACE) to increase financial literacy and encourage village-based solutions to socioeconomic problems (Hunzai & Rao, 2020). Even though the EU critiqued Pakistan on human

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rights violations, they signed the EU-Pakistan Strategic Engagement Plan in 2019. From Pakistan’s perspective, the strategic plan indicates the Western power’s satisfaction with its democratic efforts. Given Pakistan’s strategic position, engaging with Pakistan is a better route than isolating it.

The EU and Bangladesh Bangladesh is different from India and Pakistan since it does not have the strategic or security importance relative to Pakistan and India. The European Commission and Bangladesh established diplomatic relations in 1973. The first agreement signed between them was a commercial cooperation agreement in 1976. However, the EU has come to occupy an essential status in Bangladesh’s external relations, aid, and development. Some recent events point to the emergence of terrorist activity. The government’s treatment of opposition political parties and civil society raises questions on the condition of human rights, civil rights, and security within the country. EU–Bangladeshi Security and Strategic Relations Based on the political, economic, and security conditions, there are many grounds on which the EU can get involved in Bangladesh. For example, South Asian links to international terrorist organizations are growing. As the Western campaign against terrorism continues in the Middle East and Afghanistan, South Asia has become a convenient location for terrorists. Local sympathizers of Al-Qaida and ISIS executed the 2016 attack on Dhaka’s Holey Artisan Bakery. The government’s heavy-handed response afterward targeted legitimate suspects and political opponents alike. However, targeting political opposition can increase resentment against the law forces and the state and lead to further instability. There is a potential for the EU to offer guidance in counterterrorism measures and ensure that Bangladesh does not become the next terrorist refuge in South Asia. EU–Bangladeshi Economics and Trade The EU is one of Bangladesh’s main trading partners. Around 12% of Bangladesh’s total trade is with the EU, and from 2011 to 2015,

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Bangladesh’s export to the Union increased from e10.8 billion to e17.6 billion (Delegation of the EU to Bangladesh, 2016). From the EU’s perspective, Bangladesh was its 35th largest trading partner in 2015 (European Commission, 2019). Over 90% of Bangladesh’s export to the EU are textile products. Bangladesh is the second-biggest recipient of EU’s development assistance in Asia. The 2007–2013 EC Country Strategy Paper identified poverty reduction as one of the EU’s medium-term agenda for the country (European Community, 2013). The economic and social development goals influence the Union’s activities in Bangladesh, including trade. As a Least Developed Country (LDC), Bangladesh has duty-free access to the EU market. However, after becoming a developing country, Bangladesh is lobbying to acquire GSP status from the EU. Granting the GSP status would benefit the country’s economy. Despite the benefits of the GSP status, the biggest obstacles for the EU’s activities in Bangladesh are inefficient governance and corruption (European Community, 2013). In some cases, Bangladesh’s institutions cannot absorb and adequately utilize the EU’s aid and funds. Due to this, the EU also works with other international donors like the World Bank and UNDP. While the EU can do little in terms of corruption and institutional reform, it can continue to focus on education and skill-building through various NGOs. EU–Bangladeshi Non-military Security Issues and Human Rights When it comes to trade relations and the EU’s push for its principals like labor rights, the 2013 Rana Plaza tragedy was a critical event. The event has prompted the Union to push for workplace safety and labor rights in Bangladesh’s. A little over a month after the incident, the EU, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Bangladesh government issued a joint statement where both the Bangladesh government, ILO and the EU (represented by the European Commission) committed themselves to a Sustainability Compact, calling for labor rights reform, the right to form unions, and occupational safety (European Commission, ILO, and Government of Bangladesh 2013). The EU, for its part, pledged to assist in rehabilitating those disabled and aiding the government to improve working conditions. Aside from remembering Rana Plaza, the EU can set a clear agenda and timetable creates to create urgency. The EU may even consider trade

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sanctions if certain improvements are not satisfied in a specific time frame. These sanctions can also target individual Bangladeshi garment companies to induce principal violators to comply with the labor and safety standards as set forth by the Sustainability Compact and the ILO. The European Parliament has adopted a non-binding resolution to reduce textile workers’ exploitation in April of 2017 (Plenary Session, 2017). This move, however, has been met with criticism in Bangladesh. Some Bangladeshi politicians posit that foreign buyers always single out Bangladesh’s labor safety issues, over other textile exporting countries (Banglanews24.com, 2017). His comments imply that the government sees the Union’s norm-led move to promote fair labor policy is seen as the dictation of a bigger power in a smaller country’s affairs. The EU’s and European brand’s push for labor rights in Bangladesh comes into conflict with national sovereignty. Recently, European brands decided to end the inspection of Bangladesh’s garment factories. This decision comes at the end of a five-year Accord. Issues related to labor rights and factory conditions under that Accord would now be conducted under national capacity. Aside from labor-related human rights challenges, Bangladesh faces the challenge of immigration. The inflow of Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution from Myanmar has been a chronic problem. The Rohingya crisis creates a conflicting situation where the EU’s democracy promotion in Myanmar conflicts with its responsibility to address the flagrant human rights violation in the country by establishing accountability. The EU has been aiding in various relief for the Rohingya situation since 1994 (ECHO Factsheet, 2016). In the recent Rohingya influx, Bangladesh has persistently requested help from actors like the U.S., China, India, and the EU. Aside from providing aid, the EU has pressured the Bangladeshi government not to deport Rohingya refugees (Bruxelles, 2016). While the EU requests Bangladesh not to deport the Rohingyas, it also needs to put pressure on Myanmar. Instead, the EU postponed a UN Human Rights Council resolution in 2016 and established a fact-finding mission (Cappaert & Qu, 2018). The postponement demonstrated that the EU wanted to encourage the democratic reforms in Myanmar, without taking a more stringent step against it. Admittedly, in December 2019, the EU extended the arms embargo and sanctions on dual-use goods. Although this is a step in the right direction, as the Rohingya population continues to face persecution by the Myanmar military, the solution is not pouring more aid into the problem but moving toward a political

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solution. This gap in political leadership over the Rohingya issues presents an opportunity for the EU. Statements from Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen made in June 2020 indicates that the Bangladeshi government is seeking the Union’s diplomatic pressure on the issue of Rohingya refugee repatriation. In 2020, Ireland, seeking to garner international support for its UN Security Council non-permanent membership reached out to Bangladesh. This created a chance for Minister Momen to urge his Irish counterpart for increased pressure from the EU on the Rohingya issue (Star Online Report, 2020). The incident gives an interesting insight into the EU–Bangladesh relationship vis-à-vis the U.S. on multiple fronts. First, in 2019, a Rohingya representative at the White House asked then-President Trump for the U.S. plan on the Rohingya conflict. Trump responded by asking where is Rohingya (The Telegraph, 2019). It is safe to assert that solving the Rohingya conflict and the refugee issue in Bangladesh was not Trump’s priority. Thus, a gap in the U.S. leadership in this front presented an opportunity for the Union to assert its political and normative powers. Second, the Bangladeshi government (seeing American reluctance) tried to further its interests on the Rohingya repatriation issue as Ireland (an EU member state) campaigned for its Security Council membership. From the Bangladeshi perspective, the EU has the potential to leverage its political and normative power to change the status quo on the Rohingya repatriation issue. Only time will tell whether the EU is willing to do so. If the Rohingya problem persists without a long-term solution, then this humanitarian crisis could become a security issue. The Rohingya population, as they face violence in Myanmar and marginalization in Bangladesh, may resort to radical paths, which will threaten national security in both Myanmar and Bangladesh and the region in general. If some sect of the Rohingya population becomes radicalized, it will no longer be solely a refugee issue. Therefore, this is an area where the EU can play a more significant role (aside from aid) than it has been so far.

Conclusion For India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the EU is one of their biggest trading partners, and its market is a good source for these countries to earn foreign currency. The EU is one of the big aid donors and partners for development. Although the Union is gradually reducing its direct aid to India, however, it has other forms of development programs active

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in the countries, the EU-India Skill Development Project, for example. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the EU has more direct forms of aid for individual well-being and social and political development. In the political and security arena, the EU has mixed results. On the one hand, the Union’s image as a promoter to democracy and human rights is credible enough for the three states to request its attention and assistance in regional and domestic problems. In some of its short-term endeavors, like election observation missions in Pakistan, the EU has been successful. However, when it comes to the region’s thornier problems, like the Kashmir conflict and the Rohingya crisis, the EU has not achieved much success or even has been hesitant to get involved more deeply. On the region’s security issues like Kashmir and the nuclear rivalry, the EU’s actions in these cases have been partial and showed weakness as a global leader to take initiative. While promoting its normative values like upholding human rights, the Union has gotten entangled in regional power politics. Modi attracting the EU’s attention to Balochistan is an attempt to isolate Pakistan from the international community, and the EU played a role in this. While sanctions can be an effective tool to induce human rights compliance, the Union has to be careful, imposing them on a strategic partner like Pakistan. More importantly, the EU has to do this on its own accord and not because India brought it to attention. As for Bangladesh, it is an area where the EU can demonstrate its unilateral power, especially in the light of a lackluster response from the U.S. The Union has been aiding Bangladesh in various social development projects and environmental issues. However, as the recent terrorist attack at Holey Artisan Bakery has shown, there are local affiliates of international terrorist organizations. Additionally, if the Rohingya refugee issue continues to remain unresolved, Bangladesh will play a more significant role in the region’s security environment in the future. Finally, the European Union is a global power. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh all see the EU as a valuable market for their export products. In addition, the Union is among the partners for social development and promotion of human rights in these states. While encouraging human rights and diplomacy, the EU showed partiality in some cases. While in other instances of human rights abuse (like the Rohingya refugee crisis), it has shown hesitancy, limiting itself to declaratory support. The EU should not be indecisive in the promotion of human rights in these three states. Its reservoir of normative, economic, and political power as a global actor should be used to the fullest.

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CHAPTER 10

The COVID-19 Pandemic: Crisis and Opportunity for a Different Approach to EU–Afghanistan Migration Management Sylvia Maier

Introduction At the time of this writing—May 2021—the novel Coronavirus has infected about one hundred fifty-four million people worldwide and claimed more than three million two hundred and twenty-three thousand lives, precipitating a humanitarian and economic catastrophe and upending all aspects of life as we know it (Johns Hopkins University, 2021). The virus also effectively brought international migration to a halt as countries around the world closed their borders in early March 2020 to minimize the spread of the disease. These border closures went hand in hand with large-scale expulsions of refugees and migrant workers, especially from the wealthy Gulf States and Iran, as well as the quasi-detention in refugee camps in Europe of those seeking international protection. At the same time, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, and Greece, homes to

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millions of immigrants and asylum seekers fleeing civil conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, slowed or halted the asylum application processes entirely to deter additional submissions as their governments dealt with the unprecedented public health crisis. For humanitarian reasons, all European countries also stopped the deportation, forced repatriation, and voluntary return of those whose asylum applications were pending or had been denied (Feroz, 2020). Afghanistan, a country of thirty-seven million was particularly hard hit by the pandemic. In July 2020, more than thirty-seven thousand confirmed cases and approximately one thousand three hundred deaths were reported, the exact number being almost certainly higher (WHO, 2020), with estimates of up to ten million Afghans being infected with the virus at the time (Saifullah, 2020). This has increased to sixty thousand cases and two thousand six hundred deaths as of May 2021 (Johns Hopkins University, 2021). Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is thus putting enormous pressure on an already overwhelmed and underfunded public health sector. An “active conflict” country (UNHCR, 2020; UNAMA, 2018) that was designated the world’s “least peaceful country” (Institute for Peace and Economics, 2019), Afghanistan suffers from fragile institutions, poor infrastructure, a resurgent Taliban, nascent ISIS, a devastated economy, two million internally displaced people (IDPs), and the forced repatriation of two million Afghans from Iran and Pakistan over the last four years (USIP, 2016), more than one million in just the last twelve months. It is now also forced to contend with more than fifteen thousand returnees from Europe whose asylum applications have been denied, and who require proactive assistance for reintegrating into a society after years abroad. In this chapter, in which I take an explicitly normative approach, I will offer a critical sketch of the migration policy between Afghanistan and the EU and its repatriation of Afghan nationals, argue that the COVID-19 moratorium of the forced repatriation of Afghans or their “voluntary” return migration from Europe should be made permanent, and that the pandemic crisis should be taken as an opportunity for the European Union and its member states to rethink their migration policy approach to Afghanistan, focusing on the establishment of a formal— and realistic—work visa regime, increasing local capacity building efforts via the existing EU Migration Partnerships, and, when borders reopen, looking for a regional approach, with a particular focus on the wealthy Gulf States and, possibly, its Central Asian neighbors to counterbalance

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Russia, which already has a large investment presence in the countries and seeks to solidify its political presence there (Jones, 2020; Maizland, 2020; Seligman, 2019; Ramani, 2017). Getting ahead of the curve will be particularly important as the highly fragile—and flawed—Afghan peace process paired with an overwhelmed public health infrastructure will inexorably lead to another exodus of Afghans in the very near future. (Simpson, 2020).

The European Union’s Approach to Migration Management Articles 79 and 80 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) form the legal basis for EU competence relating to immigration and asylum. While the European Union does not yet have its own immigration or asylum regime, it possesses the competence to determine the conditions that regulate admission to and legal residence in a member state of the EU, including work, study, and family reunification, for third-country nationals (TCNs). It shares with member states control over admission numbers for TCNs who seek work (Article 79(5) TFEU). As governance in the EU evolved toward supranationalism, in matters of immigration and asylum management, governments only very gradually decided to yield their sovereign power over access to their country, its resources and citizenship rights, and participated in migration policy cooperation at the EU level principally in the context of security-focused initiatives (Luedtke, 2018; European Commission, 2011). However, faced with the realities of increasing global human mobility and thus a need for a more coherent approach to migration management, the European Commission, in 2005 and again, revised in 2011, adopted the Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM) which establishes a general framework for the bloc’s relations with third countries in the field of migration management. The GAMM’s four pillars include an integrated approach to managing regular immigration, irregular immigration and trafficking in human beings, international protection and asylum policy, and the impact of migration and mobility on development (European Commission, 2011). The June 2014 Strategic Guidelines, developed subsequently, laid out the operational guidelines for the transposition of the proper legal instruments negotiated in the meantime, and stress again the need to adopt a holistic approach to migration, maximizing the benefits of regular migration for all affected, give protection to refugees who

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are entitled to asylum, combating irregular migration and trafficking, and ramp up effective border management (European Council, 2014). Necessitated by the turbulent influx of migrants through the Mediterranean and Southeast Balkan route in 2014 and 2015, when EU member states were incapable to decide on a coordinated approach to coping collectively and fairly with the more than 1,5 million refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the Commission adopted the European Agenda on Migration, acknowledging that, “while most Europeans have responded to the plight of the migrants, the reality is that across Europe, there are serious doubts about whether our migration policy is equal to the pressure of thousands of migrants, to the need to integrate migrants in our societies, or to the economic demands of a Europe in demographic decline” (European Commission, 2015). This Agenda, therefore, was a serious attempt to deal with the crisis that threatened the foundations of the European Project: solidarity and shared responsibility. Emphasizing deterrence and securing borders, the Agenda set out guidelines for how to reduce irregular migration, improve border management, develop a stronger common asylum policy on the basis of solidarity and shared responsibility, and update policies on regular migration, especially labor migration, with a view to “maximize the benefits of migration for the European economy and the migrants themselves” (European Commission, 2015). While it is evident that steps are taken toward a harmonization, to this day, the actual implementation of the large body of EU agendas, guidelines, directives, and regulations relating to immigration and integration as well as of the rules of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which sets common minimum standards for asylum, as well as of the multitudes of bilateral agreements, is left almost exclusively to the individual member states (European Parliament and Council of the European Union, 2013). Not surprisingly, this has led to incoherence, unfairness, and inconsistency in their enforcement on the one hand as well as “forum shopping” by migrants and refugees which the 2013 Dublin Regulation was intended to prevent, on the other. Compounding these challenges is the continued worldwide securitization of migration (d’Appollonia, 2015), the increasing externalization of border controls (Frelick et al., 2016; Koslowski, 2020; Laube, 2019), and the pandemic-catalyzed renationalization of migration management (Schain, 2009) relating to standards for admission to asylum, work and study, participate in governance in the EU member states.

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Fundamentally, I suggest, however, the so-called “migrant crisis” in relation to Afghanistan that underlies the present discussion is not so much a “crisis of migration” but rather the inevitable result of a flawed global—and European—migration regime that was predicated on the technocratic assumption of “manageable” annual migration numbers, the externalization of border control and deterrence (via a policy of nonassistance in the Mediterranean, detention camps in Libya, Turkey, and Greece; or in the U.S., via the infamous Remain-in-Mexico policy), bilateral partnerships with third countries, such as Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova—in part via the Eastern Partnership—as well as transcontinental Migration Partnerships with countries in West Africa and Central Asia. In these approaches, migrants could be held “at bay,” their admission “managed” at numbers deemed politically defensible or incentivized to stay in their countries of origin through investment in local economic development. Not surprisingly, such a technocratic and, frankly, opportunistic approach to migration management proved utterly unable to cope—politically and socially—with a sudden influx of millions of migrants coming directly to the EU’s borders. Further, the “crisis” is also the result of the same technocratic approach—and active denial—that neglected to address proactively the actual root causes of migration in many migrants’ countries of origin, such as protracted conflict—as in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Venezuela—migration necessitated by climate change and food insecurity in West African countries, such as Chad, Mali, and Niger (Mbaye, 2019), endemic corruption, sky-high youth unemployment rates, deep poverty, a miniscule private sector, and governments unwilling or unable to forgo the lucrative remittances. The structural causes and gaping global economic inequalities that necessitated people’s migration for survival went insufficiently addressed. The consequences of this flawed approach are now most harshly felt by the most vulnerable and whose citizenship virtually guarantees that their mistreatment will result in no negative consequences for European governments.

The Relationship Between the European Union and Afghanistan: Migration as a Core Concern Afghanistan has a long and proud history as the crossroads of transcontinental trade routes—the Silk Roads. As a sad consequence of its important geo-strategic location in South Central Asia, control of its lands, peoples,

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and resources have been desired over the centuries by all great powers— the Mongol Empire, the British Empire, Russia (later the Soviet Union and then Russia again), the U.S., Pakistan, and, now also, China. While fierce local resistance to being pawns in this “Great Game” and the country’s naturally defensive topography made Afghanistan the “graveyard of empires,” the ceaseless and increasingly brutal battles over direct and indirect control of the country left untold devastation and millions of dead in their wake (Barfield, 2010; Ewans, 2002; Gall, 2014; Jones, 2010; Rashid, 2008). Not surprisingly, then, Afghanistan also has a long history as a country of emigration. In its recent history, almost forty years of continuous conflict—the Soviet Occupation from 1979 to 1989, the extraordinarily brutal Civil War from 1992 to 1996, the fundamentalist Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, and the increasing instability since 2014 have forced more than six million Afghans to flee to neighboring Iran and Pakistan as well as farther afield to Europe, Russia, Australia, and the U.S. (IOM, 2016). Over the decades, Pakistan and Iran alone have been hosting more than five million refugees from Afghanistan, ninety percent of the total, mostly in refugee camps along the border in Peshawar and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (Amnesty International, 2019) as well as in Tehran and Mashhad and Khorasan e-Razavi province. Currently, more than 2.5 million Afghans live as registered refugees in the world—second only to Syria—with another two million living as IDPs in the country (UNHCR, 2020). This makes the Afghans the largest protracted refugee population in the world. Almost twenty years after the U.S.-led invasion and the toppling of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan remains a low-income country contending with weak institutions, ethnic and personal power struggles, poor infrastructure, endemic corruption, minimal domestic industry, sky-high unemployment, record-setting opium production run by transnational criminal networks, and a population highly dependent on remittances. The country’s annual GDP is only US$19 billion, with an annual per capita GDP of less than US$600, equaling roughly US$2,200 at purchasing power parity (World Bank, 2020a). In 2019, Afghans in the diaspora sent home approximately US$867 million, equivalent to about 4.5% of the country’s GDP that year (World Bank, 2020b). Foreign monies thus fill gaps in household incomes to pay for food, school fees, healthcare, and transportation. Having family members send money from abroad, for many

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Afghans, thus is literally a matter of life and death. In light of these realities, both the Karzai and Ghani governments, understandably, actively have resisted reducing emigration and the repatriation—forced or voluntary—of emigrants working in wealthy countries of Europe, the Gulf, and the Americas. Over the decades, the EU and its member states have developed deep and multilayered relationships with Afghanistan, its leaders, various stakeholders, and civil society, driven by shared humanitarian, security as well as economic interests in recognition of the country’s geo-strategic location in South Central Asia and as a constituent of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative. Since 2002, the EU has been a steadfast ally of the elected governments of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and provided more than e3.66 billion in development and humanitarian aid, making the bloc the country’s fourth-largest international donor (EU Commission, 2016). Together with the member states, the EU provides, and will continue to provide, at least until the end of 2020, more than one billion euros per year in assistance to Afghanistan, with a principal focus on women’s empowerment, rural development, agriculture, good governance, infrastructure development, health and education (EU Commission, 2016). In November 2018, the EU announced a further cooperation assistance package of e474 million to “support state building and public sector reforms, health, justice, and elections, as well as to address migration and displacement challenges in Afghanistan” (European Commission, 2018). Though the EU has invested approximately e122 million in projects facilitating the reintegration of Afghan returnees, refugees, and IDPs since 2004, managing—read: reducing—irregular migration alongside addressing the root causes of migration did not move to the forefront of the relationship until the middle of the decade, precipitated by the migration crisis and in the midst of a worsening security situation in the country and devastating bomb attacks on civilians in Kabul in 2016 and 2017. These dialogues, unsurprisingly, in light of Afghanistan’s internal challenges, have been found by the EU to be “difficult and uneven” (ECRE, 2017a, p. 9). Simultaneously faced with a national government in Kabul resisting the repatriation of migrants and uninterested in stopping outward migration flows and domestic pressures to reduce the number of asylum seekers, the EU shifted gears from a humanitarian “welcome culture” to a much more restrictive approach to migration from Afghanistan, quietly but unequivocally making continued aid conditional upon the cooperation

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of the government in Kabul. The 2016 Cooperation Agreement on Partnership and Development (CAPD), the 2016 Migration Partnership Framework, the 2016 Joint Way Forward, and the 2017 EU Strategy for Afghanistan became the basis for ongoing political and development dialogues and cooperation, including migration, between the bloc and Afghanistan (Council of the European Union, 2016). The 2016 Joint Way Forward (JWF), signed at the October Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, is a legally non-binding agreement between the EU and the Government of Afghanistan that commits both sides to continue their cooperation in managing irregular migration and return migration with the ultimate objective being, on the basis of both sides’ international obligations, the establishment of “a rapid, effective, and manageable process for a smooth, dignified, and orderly return of Afghan nationals who do not fulfill the conditions in force for entry to, presence in, or residence on the territory of the EU, and to facilitate their reintegration in Afghanistan in a spirit of cooperation” (JWF, 2020). The JWF was based, in part, on the assumption that some parts of Afghanistan, especially the capital Kabul, and two major cities, Mazare-Sharif in the north and Herat in the west, were safe enough for people to return (ECRE, 2019). The designation of Kabul, Mazar, and Herat as essentially “safe cities” was to allow for the application of the Internal Protection Alternative (IPA, also known as the International Relocation Alternative) and thus to avoid a violation of the principle of non-refoulement as under international refugee law the forced repatriation of refugees and asylum seekers to countries where they are in danger of persecution is illegal. The IPA holds that “an applicant is not in need of international protection if he or she has no well-founded fear of being persecuted or is not at real risk of suffering serious harm in a part of their country of origin, [they] can safely and legally travel to and gain admittance to that part of the country, and can reasonably be expected to settle there” (ECRE, 2019). The EU’s European Asylum Support Office (EASO), in a comprehensive 2018 report, concluded that while the security situation in the country was indeed significantly worsening, “in general” Kabul, Mazar, and Herat could be considered a reasonable location for “single, able-bodied adult men” and for “married couples of working age with no children,” regardless of whether they have a “support network” (EASO, 2018, p. 30). Explicitly excluded from the green lighting of forced returns are single women, unaccompanied children, families with children, applicants with severe illnesses or disabilities, applicants who were born or have lived outside the county for a

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very long time, and the elderly (EASO, 2018, p. 30). Also, according to the EASO, “considerations, such as the background of the applicant, including their educational and professional experience and connections, as well as whether they were able to live on their own outside Afghanistan, could also be relevant” (EASO, 2018, p. 30). The JWF has come under intense criticism from international human rights and advocacy organizations for having bypassed all democratic or judicial scrutiny in its negotiation process (Diez, 2019). More importantly, the European Policy Forum expressed concern that despite a surge in Taliban attacks on civilians, and alarming reports by Amnesty International (2017b), the UNHCR as well as the ECRE on increasing violence, especially against women, “soft targets,” and government buildings, this “has not led to suspension of the JWF with Afghanistan or returns to Kabul.” The United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA, 2017) likewise reported that 2016, the year the JWF was adopted, had been the deadliest year for civilians with 11, 418 casualties (UNAMA). The year 2017 saw a further 10,453 civilians killed, with each subsequent quarterly UNAMA report detailing increasing violence against civilians and a worsening security situation (UNAMA, 2018). The first half of 2020 has already seen a death toll of 1,282 and more than 2,000 injured Afghan civilians, including in the “safe city” of Kabul (UNAMA, 2021). Tadaichi Yamamoto, the UN Special representative for Afghanistan, called the statistics “chilling” (UNAMA, 2018). Faced with these casualty numbers, already in 2016, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) called the JWF “a new low for the EU.” To sweeten the deal of accepting thousands returned into a collapsing economy and the evidently worsening security situation e200 million were “intended to be made migration sensitive” (Peterson, 2018). Afghan’s Minister of Finance, Eklil Hakimi was reported to have told the Afghan Parliament that continued EU aid was dependent on the government consenting to the agreement (Shea, 2017). In addition to the clear humanitarian worries, analysts further expressed concern that this “trend related to informalization” (Diez, 2019, p. 11; Molinari, 2018) was leading to a “strategic non-use of EU institutions in readmission cooperation” (Diez, 2019). Clearly this was done to maximize, in my view, individual member states’ flexibility in dealing with forced and voluntary returns, indications of which we shall see below. The JWF shows that managing—and reducing—the steady flow of Afghan nationals to European countries, often guided by unscrupulous

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traffickers in dangerous month-long treks on foot and via boat, was to be the top priority (Mixed Migration Centre, 2018). However, faced with increasing economic and physical precarity, tens of thousands of Afghans each year continue—and will continue—to take their chances. According to a 2017 survey by the Asia Foundation, 38.8% of Afghans would leave the country, if they could (Asia Foundation, 2017, p. 24). 2014, 2015, and 2016 have been particularly difficult years for irregular migrants as well as, clearly, the countries of destination in Europe. Between 2014 and 2020, approximately half a million Afghans arrived in Europe by boat or on foot via the Eastern Balkan route. After people from Syria, for the past five years, Afghans have been in the top three nationalities of asylum seekers in Europe. According to Eurostat, Afghans account for 8.6% of the total number of first-time asylum applicants, followed by Venezuelans at 7.3%, and Iraqis at 4.4% (Eurostat, 2020) (Table 10.1). The main point of criticism of human rights advocacy groups is the large variance in recognition rates of asylum applications for all nationalities across EU countries. The recognition rate for Afghan nationals, for example, ranges from 2.5 to 97%, with an average of 46% (ECRE, 2017a, p. 19). Since 2016, applications have also seen an overall decline in approvals, from nine percent (Sweden) to fifty percent in Norway, despite the worsening security situation in the country (EASO, 2018) (Table 10.1). ECRE, an alliance of 106 NGOs across 40 European countries, expressed disappointment that “overall statistics on return at EU level are sketchy” (ECRE 2017a, 2018) as member countries do not systematically collect these data, the boundary between forced and voluntary returns is often blurred, and asylum seekers under deportation orders at times leave the country without notifying the authorities only to return Table 10.1 Asylum applications in the EU-28 by Afghan nationals (2015–2020)

Year 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (Q1)

Total asylum applicants

Afghan nationals

1,282,000 1,221,000 677,470 608,335 676,250 150,250

178,200 182,000 43,625 40,990 44,150 14,875

Source Eurostat (2017, 2020a, 2020b)

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without documents to another member state (ECRE, 2017b). Likewise, the Website of the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation does not report accurate data—or, in fact, any data—on the number of returnees. Consequently, despite best efforts, reliable total numbers of forced returnees have been impossible to come by for this chapter (Table 10.2). A combination of available official EU numbers, advocacy as well as newspaper reports, point to a number upward of 15,000 returnees from Europe (Amnesty International, 2017a, 2017b, 2019; ECRE, 2018). In Afghanistan, the situation of returnees is dire (Majidi, 2017; Peterson, 2018). Amnesty International (2019), Human Rights Watch, the International Organization for Migration (IOM, 2020) as well as ECRE have been ringing the alarm bells at the mental health dangers of culture shock and ubiquitous gender-based violence faced by returned women and girl children, many of whom are used to freedoms unheard of in strictly conservative Afghanistan (Save the Children, 2018). In interviews, children and youth who often were born abroad and received schooling there report a lack of connection to the country, lack of ability to speak the language, lack of schools, lack of friendship networks, and the pain of divided families (Asia Foundation, 2018; Majidi, 2017; Van Houte et al. 2016). Young men are faced with a future without jobs, insufficient food and housing, stigma and shaming for “having failed,” limited marriage options, and extortion as “traitors” for having left the country in the first place (Asia Foundation, 2018; Constable, 2018; ECRE, 2017a; Majidi, 2017). Many returned refugees, even those who have returned voluntarily with reintegration payments of between e500 and e3,000 Table 10.2 Forced returns of afghan nations by EU-27 (2015–2019) Year

Afghan citizens ordered to return in EU-27

Afghan citizens returned by EU-27

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

38,890 30,325 ~18,000 ~18,000 ** No reliable numbers available

3,290 9,460 ** No reliable numbers available ** No reliable numbers available ** No reliable numbers available

Source Diez (2019) for estimates for 2017 and 2018

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(some up to e4,500), express deep concern about crime, the lack of physical safety, the emotional toll of persistent threats to life by terrorists, and fear of an uncertain future (Smith & Mengli, 2019). Despite the considerable weakness of their management of Afghan return migration, the European Union and some member states, such as Germany, Sweden, and Austria, make efforts to support the reintegration of Afghan returnees. For example, the EU and member states provide one-time cash financial assistance to the returnees ranging from e500 (Belgium) to e3,000 (Sweden) depending on family size and individual circumstances, and work with the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Returns as well as organizations on the ground such as the Afghanistan Migrants Advice and Support Organization (AMASO), whose director, Abdul Ghafoor, has been scathing in his condemnation of both the EU and the Afghan government for their inhumane treatment of refugees, and the IOM to help with the returnees’ social and economic integration (ECRE, 2017b). For example, the IOM, with financial assistance from the bloc, developed the comprehensive Reintegration and Development Assistance in Afghanistan (RADA) project to support the sustainable economic and social reintegration of returnees within their communities with a focus on “integrated community development projects, support to businesses, start-ups and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)” (IOM, 2019). These and similar small-scale efforts are taking place against the government’s need to simultaneously integrate the more than two million forcibly returned Afghans from Pakistan and Iran, a fragile peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban (Jones, 2020), as well as the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Sketching a Possible Way Forward for Afghan–EU Migration The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March and the subsequent border closures stopped all forced repatriations from the EU with no date set for their resumption. While the coronavirus has upended life as we know it, in a cruel twist of fate, it may also have opened unprecedented opportunity space for politicians and policymakers to rethink and redesign policies and approaches to bilateral issues that had been opportunistic, proved clearly unworkable, or are deeply inhumane. As we have seen above, the current approach to managing migration flows between Afghanistan and the EU member states is one of them. Providing safe,

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fair, realistic approaches to manage migration, and, most importantly, facilitating the civic and economic integration of migrants in a highly fragile country devastated by war and a global pandemic will be needed. Such a new approach also requires creativity, pragmatism and courage, recognizing the reality that Afghans will seek—and find—ways to move to countries that provide physical safety and opportunities for economic stability. This will become even more urgent after the Taliban formally become part of the national Afghan government, most American forces have withdrawn, and the international community will focus on their own post-COVID-19 economic recovery. In what follows, I will sketch some possible elements of what such an approach might entail. 1. Make permanent the pandemic-based moratorium on involuntary repatriations of Afghans whose asylum applications have been rejected, extend an amnesty to all Afghans currently in EU countries who are eligible for forced returns, and focus instead on their civic and economic integration. As shown above, reports by UNAMA, EASO, and Amnesty International have demonstrated the callousness of the reliance on the Internal Protection Alternative as the basis for returns, in light of the radically worsening security situation in the country. An amnesty for all Afghans seeking international protection in the EU-27 would be the humane—and moral—thing to do, in particular for a bloc whose core identity is centered on the protection of democracy and human rights. The extensive, wellestablished, and well-networked Afghan diaspora communities in Europe can be easily tapped to facilitate the social and economic integration of those newly arrived. 2. For those who wish to return voluntarily, provide significantly increased comprehensive reintegration packages to facilitate their sustainable reintegration. Such packages might include raising the cash assistance to no less than e5,000 per person, independent of the size of the family, guaranteed assistance in finding safe housing, safe schools for children, and targeted skills training for a job, or training and mentoring to open a small business. This also includes formalizing and deepening the relationships with in-country civil society organizations, such as AMASO, to facilitate the reintegration of returnees.

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3. The desperate poverty in which Afghanistan finds itself will continue to force Afghans to look for work abroad. With ongoing expulsions from Iran and Pakistan, Afghans will continue to Europe as their preferred destination. Quota-based, three- to five-year renewable work permits, maybe an extension of the “blue cards,” with the possibility to apply for permanent residence, in the EU-27— maybe five thousand p.a.—specifically for Afghans, could be a first step toward the regularization of labor migration from Central Asia. While the MPI (Collett, 2017) has doubted the effectiveness of such an approach due to the perceived mismatch in worker’s needed skill levels, I suggest that it remains a worthwhile option to explore. Indeed, the German government, over the last five years, has successfully integrated more than two hundred thousand Syrian and Afghan immigrants into the job market, focusing single-mindedly on vocational training and German language skills, through strong public–private partnerships in a model that can serve as a template for other European countries (Hindy, 2018). Initially, students or professionals, or those with technical skills could be given priority, as it is envisioned in the new EU Strategy on Central Asia (Sahajpal & Blockmans, 2019). Such a formalized approach to access to the European labor market will reduce, though not eliminate, the reliance by desperate Afghans on exploitative human traffickers to reach Europe and work without authorization. Quite pragmatically, it would also validate the European Union’s humanitarian approach to partnerships with Central Asian countries, in contrast to Russia’s and China’s more transactional approaches to economic development assistance. 4. Any successful, long-term migration management strategy must include a regional approach. Iran and Pakistan have been the home of millions of Afghan refugees for decades yet have resorted to the mass expulsion of more than two million Afghan nationals over the last two years. This means neither country is likely to reopen its borders to Afghan migrant workers. Consequently, negotiated wider regional agreements for Afghan labor migration, with the possibility of family reunification, must be developed. The six GCC countries— the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait, are an obvious choice because of their close political relationships with Afghanistan, cultural similarities, large diaspora communities, and extensive dependence on foreign labor (Garrotte-Sanchez 2017).

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Though all GCC countries are aggressively pursuing the nationalization of their labor markets, likely even more so in the aftermath of the pandemic and collapsing oil revenues, the need for international workers in the construction, hospitality, and domestic service industries are likely to remain for the foreseeable future. The UAE has consistently been one of the top donors of development assistance to Afghanistan and expressed keen interest in the continued stability and security of the country, especially when the Taliban become part of the national government. Future development assistance thus might be formalized into a quota-based labor migration from Afghanistan to the UAE (and beyond) that provides for renewable work permits with ancillary skills training for Afghans with the proviso that they must return to the country after a certain number of years, if the security situation allows. 5. Last but not least, the EU must continue to support Afghanistan’s internal capacity building, with a focus on social development, economic growth, good governance, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights, as envisioned in the EU Migration Partnership Agreements with Central Asia and West Africa. This will become even more urgent after the Taliban formally become part of the national Afghan government and the international community focuses on their own post-COVID-19 economic recovery.

Conclusion The COVID-19 virus has caused an unprecedented humanitarian and economic catastrophe, essentially stopping the world in its tracks. This forced pause and the devastating costs of the shutdown of the world’s economies have also precipitated long overdue reflections on economic and social relations as well as a reckoning with the moral sustainability of yawning inequalities, domestic and global. It is a cliché to say that “the world will never be the same again.” This is true without a doubt; the world will not—and cannot—be the same again. Crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, frequently force open spaces for pragmatic solutions to seemingly intractable challenges. The “migrant crisis” is one such challenge. As long as global wealth gaps are such that people will starve if they stay put, people will migrate. As long as other countries are little more than pawns in great geopolitical games, people will leave in search of security and dignity. The sudden need by European countries to deal

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with millions of desperate refugees, is not the “fault” of those who see no other choice than to walk for months across two continents to have a realistic hope of survival. Afghanistan is a desperately poor country, devastated by forty years of continuous conflict fanned by global powers, and left to its own devices when it was no longer “sexy” to “save brown people,” especially women, from radical fundamentalists. Going forward, any kind of sustainable policy solutions must reflect the lived realities of Afghans as well as the political realities in Europe, Afghanistan, and the wider Central Asia. Realistically, a permanent solution, satisfactory to all, will prove elusive but an initial step must be to replace technocratic approaches to migration “management” with cooperation between the EU and Afghanistan that is sensible, pragmatic, and above all, humane.

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Laube, L. (2019). The relational dimension of externalizing border control: Selective visa policies in migration and border diplomacy. Comparative Migration Studies, 7 (29). https://comparativemigrationstudies.springeropen.com/ articles/10.1186/s40878-019-0130-x. Accessed 2 August 2020. Luedtke, A. (2018). Migration governance in Europe: A historical perspective. In A. Weinar, S. Bonjour, & L. Zhyznomirska (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of the politics of migration in Europe (pp. 15–25). Routledge. Maizland, L. (2020, March 2). U.S.-Taliban peace deal: What to know. Council on Foreign Relations. Backgrounder. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/ustaliban-peace-deal-agreement-afghanistan-war. Accessed 1 August 2020. Majidi, N. (2017). From forced migration to forced returns in Afghanistan: Policy and program implications. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migration policy.org/research/forced-migration-forced-returns-afghanistan. Accessed 12 July 2019. Mbaye, A. A. (2019, September 20). Africa’s climate crisis, conflict, and migration challenges. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/ blog/africa-in-focus/2019/09/20/africas-climate-crisis-conflict-and-migrat ion-challenges/. Accessed 8 August 2020. Mixed Migration Center. (2018). A comparative study of women on the move from Afghanistan, East and West Africa. https://www.mixedmigration. org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/050_experiences-of-female-refugees.pdf. Accessed 15 September 2019. Molinari, C. (2018). The EU and its Perilous journey through the migration crisis: Informalisation of the EU return policy and rule of law concerns. European Law Review, 44(6). https://limo.libis.be/primo-explore/fulldi splay?docid=LIRIAS2361941&context=L&vid=Lirias&search_scope=Lirias& tab=default_tab&lang=en_US&fromSitemap=1. Accessed 13 February 2020. Peterson, S. (2018, December 31). Is it safe for Europe to force Afghan migrants to return home? Christian Science Monitor. https://www.csmoni tor.com/World/Middle-East/2018/1231/Is-it-safe-for-Europe-to-force-Afg han-migrants-to-return-home. Accessed 6 July 2020. Ramani, S. (2017, November 29). Russia’s soft power push in Afghanistan. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2017/11/russias-soft-power-pushin-afghanistan/. Accessed 26 July 2020. Rashid, A. (2008). Descent into Chaos. The United States and the failure of nation-building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Viking. Sahajpal, M., & Blockmans, S. (2019). The new EU strategy on central Asia. Collateral Benefit? https://www.ceps.eu/the-new-eu-strategy-on-cen tral-asia/. Accessed 20 July 2020. Saifullah, M. (2020, August 7). Coronavirus in Afghanistan: Do confirmed cases depict the real picture? Deustch Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/corona

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virus-in-afghanistan-do-confirmed-cases-depict-the-real-picture/a-54489465 Accessed 14 August 2020. Save the Children. (2018, October 16). From Europe to Afghanistan: Experiences of child returnees. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/europeafghanistan-experiences-child-returnees. Accessed 3 August 2020. Schain, M. (2009). The state strikes back: Immigration policy in the European Union. European Journal of International Law, 20(1), 93–109. Seligman, L. (2019, January 31). US mulls withdrawal from Afghanistan. Russia wants back in. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/31/usmulls-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-russia-wants-back-in-taliban-peace-talks/. Accessed 15 August 2020. Shea, A. (2017, October 5). Europe is betraying Afghanistan by sending its refugees home. Time. https://time.com/4968868/eu-betraying-afghanistandangerous-aid-policy/. Accessed 15 August 2020. Simpson, S. (2020, July 21). COVID-19 creates new challenges for migrants in Afghanistan and Abroad. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/covid-19creates-new-challenges-migrants-afghanistan-and-abroad. Accessed 15 August 2020. Smith, S., & Mengli, A. (2019, January 28). Afghans paid to return home from Europe have second thoughts. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/ news/world/afghans-paid-return-home-europe-have-second-thoughts-n95 3781. Accessed 23 May 2020. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. (2018, February 15). Afghanistan: 10,000 civilian casualties in 2017—UN report suicide attacks and IEDs caused high number of deaths and injuries. https://unama.unmiss ions.org/sites/default/files/15_february_2018_-_afghanistan_civilian_casual ties_in_2017_-_un_report_english.pdf. Accessed 14 August 2020. UNAMA. (2017). Afghanistan annual report on protection of civilians in armed conflict: 2016. https://unama.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/pro tection_of_civilians_in_armed_conflict_annual_report_2016_final280317.pdf. Accessed 10 August 2020. UNAMA. (2018). Afghanistan annual report on protection of civilians in armed conflict: 2017 . https://unama.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/ afghanistan_protection_of_civilians_annual_report_2017_final_6_march.pdf. Accessed 30 August 2020. UNAMA. (2021). Afghanistan annual report on protection of civilians in armed conflict: 2020. https://unama.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/afg hanistan_protection_of_civilians_report_2020_revs3.pdf. Accessed 10 March 2021. UNHCR. (2020). Evaluation of UNHCR’s country operation, Afghanistan. https://www.unhcr.org/5fa151b67.pdf. Accessed 30 August 2020.

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Van Houte, M., Siegel, M., & Davids, T. (2016). Deconstructing the meanings of and motivations for return: An Afghan case study. Comparative Migration Studies, 4(21), 1–17. World Bank. (2020a). GDP per Capita PPP—Afghanistan. https://data.worldb ank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=AF. 10 August 2020. World Bank. (2020b). Remittances to Afghanistan. https://data.worldbank.org/ indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT?locations=AF. Accessed 10 August 2020. World Health Organization. (2020). Coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Situation Report—205. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/ situation-reports/20200812-covid-19-sitrep-205.pdf?sfvrsn=627c9aa8_2. Accessed 12 August 2020.

PART V

The Future of European-Asian Relations

CHAPTER 11

Conclusion Bibek Chand and Lukas K. Danner

The idea for this edited volume emerged from the discussions during the two-day conference organized by the Miami-Florida Jean Monnet Center of Excellence at Florida International University. Its theme was “The Rising Importance of EU-Asia Relations.” During these discussions, two particular dynamics in international politics were emphasized: the rise of China’s power and the growing American withdrawal from international commitments. These two international political trends have led to new challenges and opportunities for the other states of the international system. The chapters included in this volume highlight the emerging trends in the relations between European and Asian states and institutions within these dynamic international political changes. The central theme of these chapters is premised on the emerging opportunities and

B. Chand University of North Georgia, Oakwood, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. K. Danner (B) University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1_11

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challenges for European and Asian states and regional institutions within the backdrop of a rising China and diminishing American commitments to multilateralism. Reflecting on this theme, this chapter briefly reviews each individual chapter. In his chapter on the role played by the EU in the growing tensions between the U.S. and China, Yves Tiberghien argues that the EU is seeking a middle road to navigate through these tensions. This middle road includes multilateral reinforcement with the EU’s G20 partners, avoidance of another Cold War by avoiding taking sides, and finally, pursuing complex balancing by cooperating with China on global institutional priorities like climate change but also seeking U.S. support to contain the more threatening aspects of China’s power. Tiberghien assesses that this three-pronged strategy is a vulnerable one, particularly given the mismatch between the fast-paced world of international politics and the slow international evolution process of the EU. Tiberghien’s chapter highlights the new challenges for the EU in regard to its relations with the U.S. and China. On the one hand, it does not fully want to be entrapped within one camp or the other, and yet, it seeks to engage with both sides in matters that make strategic sense. Overall, the chapter presents opportunities for the EU to emerge as a global player by its commitment to the multilateral rules-based order which may inadvertently require international cooperation with China over important issues such as climate change. On the other hand, the challenges are also extensive; the EU is simply slow to evolve to come to effectively tackle the dynamics of international politics, and it also requires a prudent collaboration with the U.S. given strategically threatening aspects of China. Wei Liang, in her analysis of EU–China relations, highlights the strong economic rationale behind the development of their interactions. China has been discussed as both a strategic partner and a systemic rival by the EU, which showcases a complex relationship between the two parties. Her chapter rests on this research question: what are the factors that have accounted for the EU’s policy towards China in the past decade? Liang further analyzes this relationship based on their interactions in three distinct arenas: global climate change talks and the engagement of European states in the BRI and AIIB. Liang’s analysis showcases the opportunities for both the EU and China to find a common ground given the erosion of traditional transatlantic coalitions and the necessity to maintain the international rules-based order. This search for common

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ground has culminated in EU member states’ relative openness to partake in China-led global institutional initiatives such as the BRI and AIIB. However, Liang addresses the challenges in EU–China relations, as the EU has raised security concerns about China’s penetration into the European high-tech sector and the distrust of state capitalism. While new opportunities emerge in global multilateralism and economic exchange, there are challenges in overcoming distrust. As the EU ramps up its criticism of human rights violations in China yet continues to cooperate in areas such as climate change and a commitment to an open rules-based international system, the picture of EU–China relations remain complex and characterized by new opportunities and challenges simultaneously. Lukas K. Danner discusses free trade agreements (FTAs) between the EU, European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states, and the Northeast Asian countries Japan, China, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) within the backdrop of increasing American protectionism. His analysis revealed that missing engagement on the part of the U.S. has certainly incentivized close American partners (ROK and Japan) as well as its competitor (China) to seek FTAs or investment treaties with EFTA countries and the EU. The chapter identified a pattern for the ROK, China and Japan to seek trade deals with EFTA states (one or all) as a first step of engaging with Europe on that dimension with the goal of an agreement regarding either investment or free trade (or both) with the EU: entering the European market through the back door. The American allies in Northeast Asia have also used sincere trade negotiations with the EU to also serve a secondary purpose, i.e., to either re-energize stuck trade deals with the U.S. (in the case of the ROK about a decade ago), or to be part of the largest free trade zone by volume of world trade instead of being part of a U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP; in the case of Japan more recently). Also for Europeans, especially the EU, for which the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations with the U.S. have not materialized and which has since sought other partners, including Japan, the trade relationship with Northeast Asia is becoming increasingly important. Regarding the rise of China, Danner assesses that this not just had an impact on its neighbors, Japan and the ROK, which may well have felt under pressure to quickly reach deals with the EU as a way to diversify, but also impacted Europe as China has concluded FTAs with Iceland and Switzerland, a deal with Norway in close reach, and negotiations for a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) with the EU successfully concluded, signatures pending.

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Siremorn Asvapromtada traces the historical relations between ASEAN and the EU including the breadth and depth of their cooperation initiatives. Her analysis indicates a generally positive relationship between the two intergovernmental organizations. She argues that the EU has been active in supporting ASEAN’s integration efforts through the ASEAN– EU Program for Regional Integration Support (APRIS) I and APRIS II while also highlighting that China has also promoted regional integration through initiatives such as the ASEAN–China Strategic Partnership Vision 2030 and greater infrastructure connectivity through the BRI. As such, the EU’s opportunities in ASEAN stem from the eagerness of the latter to advance regional integration. Nevertheless, Asvapromtada states that fundamental challenges remain; the fundamental rationale for the EU was gradual integration spurred by growing economic ties. As for ASEAN, it emerged as a regional grouping to counter the growth of communism in Southeast Asia during the Cold War. While Vietnam, an officially communist state has since then joined ASEAN, the integration efforts stem from politics into economics and not the other way around. Furthermore, the decision-making process in the EU is generally based on qualified majorities while ASEAN emphasizes consensus-building. While the opportunities for both the EU and ASEAN rests on their shared status as intergovernmental organizations, challenges remain as ASEAN’s institutional features differ extensively from the EU’s. In their chapter, Bibek Chand and Lukas K. Danner discuss the status of FTAs between the EU and two sets of Southeast Asian states: Vietnam and Singapore where FTAs have been concluded with the EU and Indonesia and Thailand—countries with whom FTA negotiations are ongoing. Chand and Danner assess the conditions which have contributed to the successes and possible impediments related to the FTAs. For Vietnam and Singapore, the decreased role of the U.S. in multilateralism is concerning given the rise of China. Both states have successfully concluded their FTAs with the EU; while the economic rationale remains, the strategic impetus for closer ties is also immense. Overall, the authors argue that FTA between the EU and Southeast states also showcase a mixture of strategic interests with some commitment to normative values. For Singapore and Indonesia, the FTAs with the EU are new opportunities to continue the positive aspects of multilateralism while also decreasing independence on China, which is a major economic player in the region. Closer economic ties may also foster closer strategic relations. However, impediments remain; Indonesia is still in negotiations with the

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EU as the two have differences in economic agreements. As for Thailand, it does not necessarily have the strategic concerns shared by Singapore And Vietnam. Its domestic political context further poses a challenge for the FTA with the EU. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the EU still finalized the FTA with Vietnam despite its lack of democratic credentials but its strategic interests in countering China’s rise. The implications are that perhaps the EU is willing to work closely in the economic realm despite normative divergences as long as strategic commonality exists. Katja Weber’s chapter assesses the implications of decreasing American multilateral commitments and the rise of China for Southeast Asian states. Through her analysis of six states in the region, namely, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, she argues that these states have sought cooperation with other extra-regional powers such as the EU and Japan. Weber’s argument extends to the role of the EU in SEA, wherein she states that it has the opportunity to strengthen existing partnerships. The EU member states maintain extensive economic engagements with SEA; as such the U.S.–China tensions present the EU the opportunity to upgrade these relationships. The EU can emerge as an alternative to SEA states and reduce their dependence on China or the U.S. The challenges for ASEAN remain extensive as SEA member states remain divided on the roles of the U.S. and China in the region. In such a context of challenges for SEA, Weber’s assessment is that the EU would have opportunities to foster greater ties with individual SEA states. Bibek Chand explores the normative congruence based on democratic values between the EU and India. He argues that growing strategic convergence between the two parties is driving closer relations, wherein their democratic norms become a framework from which to build closer strategic ties. He analyzes three recent political developments in his chapter in regard to EU–India relations: rising interest of China in South Asia, the rise of the BJP in India’s political landscape, and finally, the increasing withdrawal of the U.S. from multilateral commitments. Chand demonstrates that the EU and India share strategic concerns regarding China’s rise and the implications of U.S. withdrawal for multilateralism. He argues that the humanitarian concerns of the EU regarding Kashmir’s status under the BJP-led government and other normative concerns are subsumed by their shared strategic concerns. Their shared normative congruence as democracies are rhetorically affirmed and act as a prudent

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basis from which to forge closer strategic relations. Thus, the recent international developments discussed in this chapter offer new opportunities in EU–India relations to forge closer strategic relations. As for challenges, the difficulty for the EU would be in regard to the BJP-led government’s policies in Kashmir, which have largely been left out of discussions between the two parties. In Tamanna Ashraf’s chapter, she assesses the EU’s impact in South Asia. Specifically, Ashraf explores three states in South Asia: Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Her findings include the success of the EU, to some degree, in procedural security concerns such as the conduct of free and fair elections. However, it also showcases general weakness in influencing the region’s complex political and security issues, such as the Kashmir dispute and the Indo-Pakistani nuclear competition. She adds that the EU’s actions in the areas of social development and promotion of human rights remain inconsistent particularly in her discussion of how it approached India and Pakistan. There are, however, extensive economic opportunities for the EU and the South Asian states discussed in this chapter. The EU is a valuable economic market for India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. But challenges remain in terms of the EU’s inconsistency in general security posturing toward these states, highlighting the importance of strategic interests of the EU in its foreign policy. Sylvia Maier’s chapter tackles the question of the migration policy between the EU and Afghanistan in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. She argues that the COVID-19 moratorium on forced repatriation of Afghan refugees from the EU should be made permanent and realistically, should be replaced with a more practical work visa regime. She adds that increasing local capacity building and using a regional approach to tackle the migrant crisis by working with the Gulf states and Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors are possible solutions. There are opportunities for the EU to address its current migration policy with Afghanistan. Maier’s chapter articulates numerous opportunities for the EU to be a more formidable player in Afghanistan and its neighboring states to tackle the humanitarian crisis connected to mass exodus from Afghanistan. She does offer a strategic aspect of it in the form of these actions as a means to counterbalance Russian influence in the region.

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Navigating an Assertive China and a Retrenching U.S.: Challenge or Opportunity? In the course of the past year, COVID-19 certainly added one challenge to the list of those challenges to the liberal international order (LIO) that the Bush and Obama administrations have feared China presents through its unprecedented economic, military, and diplomatic rise in the past decades. Counterintuitively, the former Trump administration had disengaged from international institutions and military alliances which were engineered by the U.S. itself in the period after World War II and which the U.S. considered integral to upholding the LIO up until 2017. This included but was not limited to its tense interactions with the WHO or UNESCO and vis-à-vis NATO or the close Northeast Asian military partners, the ROK and Japan. Despite the challenge to the LIO China itself represents, Xi Jinping has also made attempts at stepping into the vacuum left by the Trump administration at the time, e.g., with his 2017 Davos speech promising to uphold free trade. All in all, Asian states as well as European states, confronted with the increasing disengagement of the U.S. as well as the rising assertiveness of China, have found themselves facing increased challenges and have sought new opportunities in European–Asian relations—though these relations are also often not without their challenges and laden with historical baggage, such as colonialism. The question of how Europeans and Asians reacted in their relations to these challenges to the LIO and the related question regarding challenges and opportunities were the main ones considered by contributors of this volume. From the viewpoint of the EU as a third actor between China and the U.S., addressing the current situation includes analyses by contributors who recommended a two-pronged approach: cooperating with China (i) economically via an investment treaty (Danner) or the BRI or AIIB (Liang; Tiberghien) and (ii) in global multilateral organizations (Tiberghien; Liang) as well as issues such as climate change (Liang); however, Europe still needed to engage the retrenching U.S. to safeguard militarily as well (Tiberghien), and even the economic engagement has its limits, especially regarding Chinese foreign investment into the European high-tech sector (Liang).

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Also for Southeast Asian countries, engagement with the EU has been a welcome diversification in their international relations. The neardependence on China economically and for many ASEAN states, disagreement over borders in the South China Sea with the possibility of a military conflict with China are stark political realities. Especially regarding the latter, the disengagement of the U.S. and what it may mean for its military presence in Southeast Asia is worrying to many ASEAN states. What contributors identified as patterns and trends herein were that ASEAN as a bloc would not be able to completely disavow China at this time due to its decision-making processes being based on consensus (Asvapromtada) but nevertheless, the rise of China and retrenchment of the U.S. present an opportunity to upgrade relations between ASEAN and the EU (Asvapromtada; Weber) but even more so between some select Southeast Asian countries and the EU (Weber). One aspect of this can be seen in the direct ASEAN–EU FTA negotiations which have been put on hold about a decade ago (Chand and Danner), resulting in—thus far—two bilateral FTAs between Singapore and the EU and between Vietnam and the EU as well as bilateral negotiations with most other ASEAN states (Chand and Danner). While a multilateral FTA with ASEAN is still the goal for the EU, ASEAN engages the EU in a number of other ways and sees it as a textbook partner with the same aim, i.e., regional integration (Asvapromtada). Though the EU is usually put on a pedestal regarding the pursuit of idealistic norms, it also acts strategically in some cases within relations with Southeast Asia and not always consistently with regard to the former (Chand and Danner). For South Asian–European relations, the contributors assessed that— while a disengaging U.S. and rising China are considerable challenges— the main focus for opportunities and challenges has been set by the EU as revolving around human rights, democracy, and norms (Ashraf; Chand). To a certain extent, strategic concerns regarding Russia and the influx of migrants from South Asia to Europe (Maier) also remain relevant. While economic ties (Ashraf; Chand) as well as strategic partnerships (Maier) are considered opportunities by both parties, the EU sees the challenge in its role as global defender of universal human rights and democracy. As such, it often treats India differently from Pakistan. For example, the EU has been rather heavy-handed in Pakistan (Ashraf) but has largely steered clear from the ongoings in Kashmir (Chand). Still, on a more positive note, the EU does emphasize the normative base in its relations with India as being committed to democracy and has repeatedly used that as a rhetorical to

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deepen the security relationship and economic ties (Chand). Similarly, there are a plethora of opportunities the EU pursues with Pakistan and Bangladesh (Ashraf). While COVID-19 brought on additional concerns, it also presents an opportunity for the EU to work with Afghanistan and its neighbors, and also counterbalance Russia’s influence (Maier). In a nutshell, the range is diverse on the spectrum from challenge to opportunity. While European–Asian relations stand on their own and represent some of the most important interactions globally on many levels, they do not exist in a vacuum. On the one hand, China has been acting more assertively while simultaneously showing increasing will to cooperate—even lead—on many aspects of importance for the LIO; on the other hand, the U.S. under the administration of former President Trump had used increasingly protectionist and isolationist rhetoric and actions from questioning NATO to withdrawing from the TPP, the Paris Agreement, the Iran deal, and announcing to leave the WHO. Naturally, current President Biden is attempting to roll back as much of the damage done his predecessor as humanly possible, however, much soil has been burned and it remains to be seen whether successors of Biden will continue the legacy he is trying to rebuild or whether it would be back to Trump’s protectionism, isolationism, and anti-multilateralism. For European–Asian relations, this still means dealing with instability—or potential future instability recurring every four or eight years emanating from outcomes of U.S. presidential elections—on the global stage and strengthening their relations to diversify and provide stability elsewhere. However, regarding a rising and assertive China, and a retrenching and disengaging (or at least not completely reliable) U.S., the underlying questions in the case of the former are how sustainable China’s economic growth is going to be as well as how sincere it is about upholding aspects of the LIO like free trade. The questions in the case of the latter are whether major dynamics amplified by the Trump administration continue or can the Biden administration again instill trust in its European and Asian long-term partners as a truly reliable ally regardless of domestic presidential election and partisanship. Furthermore, another question is raised about how much more isolationism and unilateralism could be expected in the case of a successor of Biden who represents those policies enacted during the Trump administration, or how many reversions of protectionist and disengaging actions on part of the former Trump

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administration would be implemented by the Biden administration. In any case, it would be safe to assess for the present and predict for the future that—by and large—the world is witnessing the rise of the importance of European–Asian relations.

Index

A Abe, Shinzo, 95 Afghanistan, 160, 182, 193, 194, 200, 201, 203, 214, 216–221, 223, 224, 226–228 Amnesty International, 218, 221, 223, 225 antidumping, 86 Arctic, 88 artificial intelligence (AI), 26 ASEAN–EEC Ministerial Meeting (AEMM), 110, 111 ASEAN–EU Programme for Regional Integration Support (APRIS), 116, 117, 240 ASEAN Regional Integration Support Programme (ARISE), 117, 118, 122 Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM), 9, 27, 143, 158, 163 Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), 4, 11, 23, 34, 35, 49, 56, 60–64, 71–73, 238, 239, 243

Asia-Pacific, 9, 13, 49, 61, 66, 149, 150, 157, 164 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 9, 12, 85, 109–127, 133–136, 138, 140, 142–144, 149–153, 155, 157–160, 163, 164, 240, 244 Australia, 28, 39, 96, 134, 218

B balancing, 11, 21, 22, 38, 198 Balochistan, 202, 207 Bangladesh, 14, 178, 180, 182, 192–194, 203–207 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 4, 9, 11, 15, 36, 49, 56, 64–72, 140, 150, 153, 156, 238–240, 243 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 13, 174, 175, 179, 181, 185, 186 Biden, Joseph R., 3–5, 99, 156, 245, 246 biodiversity, 20, 31, 36

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. Chand and L. K. Danner (eds.), New Challenges and Opportunities in European-Asian Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68632-1

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bipolar international system, 7 Borrell, Josep, 22, 26, 33 Brexit, 21, 24, 33, 51, 84, 164, 191, 195, 199 BRICS, 56 Brunei, 115, 134, 142, 159 Bulgaria, 15, 68 Bush, George W., 98

C Cambodia, 7, 13, 115, 118, 150, 152, 153, 157, 160, 163 Canada, 20, 24, 28, 31, 35, 38, 39, 83, 95 capitalism, 31, 72, 94 Central Asia, 6, 7, 11, 25, 65, 217, 219, 226–228 Chad, 217 Chile, 96 China, People’s Republic of (PRC), 4–14, 20–27, 29–40, 47–73, 84–93, 96, 98–100, 110, 113, 114, 119–121, 127, 133–136, 138–144, 149–158, 161, 163, 164, 174, 175, 178–186, 195, 197–202, 205, 218, 219, 226, 237–241, 243–245 climate change, 4, 8, 11, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29, 31, 35, 39, 49, 56, 58–60, 71, 72, 95, 112, 116, 118, 119, 163, 177, 183, 199, 217 Cold War, 7, 11, 21, 32, 160, 175, 196, 238, 240 Common European Asylum System (CEAS), 216 Communism, 7 Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), 21, 26, 38, 40, 87, 91, 99, 239

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11), 134, 138 Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), 96 Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), 141 Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID19), 21, 23, 29, 30, 34, 38–40, 59, 73, 90, 91, 138, 176, 183, 214, 224, 225, 227 Croatia, 15, 68 Cyprus, 15 Czech Republic, 15, 68

D Davos, 31, 84 Denmark, 4, 61, 162 deterrence, 216, 217 Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM), 54 Doha Round, 85

E European Asylum Support Office (EASO), 220–222, 225 European Commission, 41, 52, 54, 55, 69, 91, 95, 111, 116, 135–143, 158, 179, 184, 200, 203, 204, 215, 216, 219 European Court of Justice (ECJ), 137, 138 European Economic Community (EEC), 110, 111 European Free Trade Association (EFTA), 85, 87, 89–91, 96–99, 239 European Parliament, 36, 136, 138, 173, 178, 180, 182, 195, 202, 205

INDEX

European Union (EU), 4, 5, 9–15, 19–24, 26–41, 47–60, 64–73, 84, 85, 87, 90–99, 109–119, 121–124, 126, 127, 134–144, 149, 150, 152, 158–164, 173–186, 191–207, 214–217, 219–228, 237–245 Eurozone, 20, 51, 64, 67, 191 EU–Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA), 135, 136, 138 EU–Singapore Investment Protection Agreement (EUSIPA), 136, 137 EU–Vietnam FTA (EVFTA), 138, 139

F Finland, 61, 70, 173 France, 6, 15, 34–36, 38, 52, 61, 63, 66, 69, 93, 185, 197, 213 free trade, 6, 10, 12, 14, 83–85, 88, 91, 94, 98, 100, 115, 135, 152, 239, 243, 245 Free Trade Agreement (FTA), 12, 86– 100, 115, 134, 135, 138–144, 163, 198–200

G Georgia, 13, 217 Germany, 4, 7, 15, 25, 29, 36, 52, 61, 63, 64, 66, 69, 93, 111, 161, 185, 197, 213, 224 Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM), 215 Global North, 10 Global South, 10 Greece, 5, 15, 35, 36, 50, 67, 68, 213, 217 Group of (G2), 30 Group of (G7), 24, 25, 29 Group of 20 (G20), 21, 23, 24, 28, 29, 31, 33–36, 67, 163

249

H Hong Kong, 7, 21, 23, 27, 31, 38–40, 73, 89, 96, 100, 179 Huawei, 32 human rights, 9, 11, 14, 23, 28, 30, 35, 40, 48, 50, 111, 114, 115, 119, 152, 159, 163, 164, 173, 175, 177–182, 185, 192–194, 198, 201–203, 205, 207, 221, 222, 225, 227 Human Rights Watch, 223 Hungary, 5, 15, 32, 36, 61, 68 I Iceland, 87–90, 96, 99, 239 India, 6–8, 14, 24, 25, 31, 57, 63, 134, 154, 155, 173–186, 192–199, 201–203, 205–207 Indian Ocean, 6, 65, 133, 161 Indonesia, 6, 13, 110, 115, 134, 135, 140–142, 144, 150, 155, 157, 159 Indo-Pacific, 55, 66, 156, 184 International Labor Organization (ILO), 204, 205 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 25, 35, 40, 41, 62, 67 International Organization for Migration (IOM), 223, 224 Iran, 21, 29, 36, 37, 151, 183, 195, 213, 214, 218, 224, 226 Iraq, 160, 176, 216, 217 Ireland, 91, 206 ISIS, 5, 203, 214 Italy, 5, 15, 30, 38, 61, 63, 66, 67, 69, 93, 213 J Japan, 7, 12, 20, 24, 35, 70, 84, 85, 93–98, 133, 134, 139, 150, 154, 155, 157, 158

250

INDEX

Joint Way Forward (JWF), 220, 221 Juncker, Jean-Claude, 95

K Kashmir, 7, 178, 180–182, 185, 195, 198, 199, 202, 207 Kazakhstan, 66 Korea, 7, 12, 24, 29, 84, 85, 96–98, 100, 133, 239

L Laos, 7, 13, 115, 118, 150, 152, 153, 156, 157, 163 Latvia, 15, 68 Liberal International Order (LIO), 28, 30, 151 Libya, 217 Liechtenstein, 87, 96, 100 Lithuania, 15, 68 Luxembourg, 61

M Macron, Emmanuel, 22, 29, 33, 55, 70 Malaysia, 13, 110, 115, 134, 136, 142, 150, 154, 155, 157, 159 Mali, 217 Malmström, Cecilia, 136, 138 Merkel, Angela, 29 Mexico, 24, 31, 83, 157, 217 migration, 14, 29, 119, 213–217, 219–221, 224, 226, 228 Modi, Narendra, 181, 184, 195, 197, 199, 202, 207 Moldova, 217 multilateralism, 4, 21, 28, 30, 31, 33, 48–50, 56, 58, 60–64, 68, 70–72, 85, 98, 109, 141, 143, 152, 160, 163, 175–178, 183, 184, 186, 194, 238–241, 245

multipolar international system, 25, 191, 196 Myanmar, 115, 118, 152, 153, 156, 157, 159, 160, 205, 206

N Netherlands, The, 6, 61, 66, 93 New Development Bank (NDB), 56 New Zealand, 88, 89, 134 Niger, 217 Nobel Prize, 90 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 24, 83 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 3, 7, 29, 88, 92, 160, 183, 243, 245 Norway, 12, 31, 67, 87, 90, 91, 96, 99, 159, 222, 239

O Obama, Barack, 57, 61, 69, 96–98, 134, 150, 156 Orban, Viktor, 50 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 25, 86, 88, 89

P Pacific Ocean, 133 Pakistan, 6, 14, 182, 192–198, 200–203, 206, 207, 214, 218, 224, 226 pandemic, 14, 29, 30, 38, 60, 73, 90, 138, 157, 176, 214, 216, 224, 225, 227 paradox of strategic positioning, 21, 27, 34 Paris Agreement (2015), 23, 24, 35, 56–60, 84, 177, 183, 184

INDEX

Philippines, The, 7, 13, 110, 115, 142, 150, 154, 155, 157, 159, 160 Poland, 15, 61, 68 Portugal, 6, 15, 35, 61, 67 protectionism, 4, 83, 84, 95, 99, 164 Putin, Vladimir, 95

R Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 181 refugees, 51, 206, 207, 213, 218, 220 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), 40, 134, 139 Rohingya, 159, 205–207 Romania, 15, 68 Rudd, Kevin, 28 Russia, 14, 20, 29–31, 33, 34, 51, 63, 66, 94, 195, 215, 218, 226, 244

S Saudi Arabia, 29, 226 Schengen Agreement, 91 Silk Road, 4, 6, 65, 67 Singapore, 27, 96, 110, 115, 134–139, 143, 144, 155, 159 Slovakia, 15, 68 Slovenia, 15, 68 South Asia, 13, 25, 65, 174, 175, 178, 180, 181, 191, 195, 197, 198, 203 Southeast Asia, 11–13, 25, 48, 111, 112, 114, 119–121, 124, 134, 140, 141, 143, 149, 152, 184 Soviet Union (USSR), 7, 28 Spain, 6, 61, 93 Strait of Malacca, 6 Sudan, 217 Sweden, 36, 38, 39, 61, 70, 222, 224

251

Switzerland, 31, 87, 89, 90, 93–96, 99, 100, 159 Syria, 29, 160, 216–218, 222

T Taiwan, 50 Taliban, 214, 218, 221, 224, 225, 227 Thailand, 110, 115, 135, 142–144, 155, 159 Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), 84, 239 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 24, 83, 96, 98, 99, 134, 138–140, 143, 150, 151, 156, 183, 239 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), 112, 152, 158 Trudeau, Justin, 29 Trump, Donald J., 3–5, 12, 13, 20, 21, 24, 26–29, 35, 39, 41, 50, 57, 59, 72, 83, 84, 92, 95–99, 134, 135, 138, 140, 141, 150, 151, 156, 183, 184, 192, 195, 201, 206, 243, 245 Turkey, 5, 29–31, 94, 217 Tusk, Donald, 95

U Ukraine, 51, 66, 195, 217 United Kingdom (U.K.), 199 United Nations (UN), 23, 28–31, 36, 37, 39, 50, 56–60, 178, 182, 205, 206, 221 United States (U.S.), 5, 6, 83–86, 89, 91, 98, 119, 134, 136, 192, 197, 201, 206 US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), 83

252

INDEX

V Venezuela, 29, 217 Vietnam, 13, 115, 118, 124, 134, 135, 138, 139, 142–144, 150, 152, 154–157, 160 von der Leyen, Ursula, 38, 54 W World Bank, 25, 61, 62, 204, 218 World Health Organization (WHO), 29, 39, 214 World Trade Organization (WTO), 20, 21, 23, 29, 31–33, 35, 36,

38, 39, 48, 52–54, 85, 86, 100, 178 Wuhan, 38, 90

X Xi, Jinping, 20, 27, 31, 53, 56, 58, 61, 84, 150, 151 Xinjiang, 27, 31, 38, 50, 65, 179, 181

Z Zoellick, Robert, 35