March 26, 2012
Alistair Burnett

Media coverage of President Barack Obama’s high-profile visit to Australia and plan to boost US presence in Asia may mask America’s shrinking global footprint. The combination of concern over China and the US debt crisis could set Washington on a course to becoming a mere regional power in the Asia Pacific.

According to a report by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, defence spending is rising in Asia – much of it driven by China, which accounts for 30 per cent of the region’s military budget – and falling in Europe and US. The think tank attributes the trends to economic growth in Asia and what it calls strategic uncertainty. And that uncertainty has provided the US with a tempting opportunity to reassert itself in the region while cutting back elsewhere.

Last November, the Hawaiian-born Obama announced what his administration is calling a pivot towards Asia, representing a significant shift in policy since he took office. The change is driven by changing perceptions of Chinese power, but it’s also partly a result of diminishing US financial clout. Although Washington insists it will retain military superiority, the pivot could well mark the beginning of a geopolitical shift that ends up with the US being predominantly a regional power in the Asia-Pacific.

In the early days of his administration, Obama went out of his way to avoid offending China. On his first visit to the country, he took a lot of flak from political supporters as well as opponents and human rights groups for toning down criticism of China’s human-rights record. Then in July 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton challenged China’s territorial claims to the South China Sea, stating that the US had a national interest in freedom of navigation there and calling for a regional code of conduct, even though Beijing prefers to deal bilaterally with its neighbours in such territorial disputes. Chinese officials interpreted Clinton’s comments as hostile, and the Foreign Ministry in Beijing accused the US of virtually attacking China.

In November last year Clinton formalised the policy shift in an essay for Foreign Policy, stating that the US would pivot towards Asia.

The administration has clearly decided going easy on Beijing was yielding no results and sees China’s growing military power in East Asia as a threat to US influence in the region, which went largely unchallenged since the end of the Korean War. Following Clinton’s article was Obama’s visit to Australia and his announcement that 2,500 US Marines would be deployed to a new base near Darwin.

In terms of concentrating military and diplomatic effort where most needed to preserve US influence, this makes strategic sense for Washington. China is regarded as the only country likely to rival the US for military and economic power in the next few decades. Chinese defence spending is increasing by over 10 per cent a year, and if the US wants to contain Beijing, it calculates that’s best done close to China’s borders and coasts. On top of this, two of the world’s potential flashpoints are on China’s frontiers, the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea. But this new focus on Asia and promise to reinforce US military forces in the region are planned at the same time as growing debt mandates steep reductions in the Pentagon’s spending, equipment and manpower. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has proposed reducing personnel by 100,000, cutting new spy planes and transport aircraft, and slowing spending on the new Joint Strike Fighter.

So, it seems inevitable the pivot will mean reduced military commitment in Europe and other parts of the world. The US is already planning to withdraw two combat brigades from Europe and trying to encourage its NATO allies to pick up the slack. The nascent Africa Command, Africom, could have its budget cut as well.

In explaining the pivot to the Asia-Pacific in a speech to the Australian parliament last November, Obama said the US was winding down its military commitments in Iraq, after US combat troops left in late 2011, and Afghanistan, from which the US plans to have withdrawn all but trainers and advisers within the next two years, to focus further east. But even if Obama ends up sending forces into action again next door in Iran, that would most likely delay, rather than derail, the shift in focus to the Asia-Pacific, given the strategic consensus in Washington that China is its main challenger.

The Obama administration insists the US will maintain its worldwide military reach. However, while no American leader is likely to take the political risk of declaring that the US is no longer a global power, Washington could well be on a course to becoming a de facto regional power in the Asia-Pacific simply because it cannot afford to contain a growing China and maintain a global military presence.
Alistair Burnett is the editor of The World Tonight, a BBC News programme

© Yale Center for the Study of Globalisation

Source: Khaleej Times

March 26, 2012
By Shahid Javed Burki

A number of analysts had predicted that Asia will rise quickly and become an economic powerhouse equal in strength and size to the world’s older economies sometime soon in the 21st century. They did not, however, think that the process of transition will be that messy. Analysts such as America’s Fareed Zakaria and Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani who had labelled the twenty-first to be Asia’s century did not suggest that the West would step aside for reasons that were strictly not economic. They had based their analyses on simple arithmetic. Large Asian economies, they believed, would grow at rates about three times more than the likely rate of expansion of the mature nations of Western Europe, North America and Japan. This will inevitably close the gap between these two parts of the world.

Some of the more populous countries of the Asian continent will be large economies because of the sheer size of their populations. This was again simple arithmetic. When billion plus populations are multiplied by even modest per capita incomes they produce staggering results in terms of GDP sizes. It was this type of accounting that resulted in China overtaking Japan early in 2011, to become the world’s second largest economy after the United States. Some analysts and institutions believe — and among those that are of this view is the staid International Monetary Fund — that China will pass even the United States in terms of the size of its economy sometime in the next couple of decades. Before India’s economy began to stall, similar spectacular results were forecasted for that country. India was expected to become an economic superpower by the middle of the present century.

What was not expected when these projections were made was that the three leading economic powerhouses — America, Europe and Japan — would stumble for reasons other than economics. What we are seeing now are developments that will result in some messy adjustments. This will affect Asia in particular and within Asia the countries that have Muslim majorities. Leaving Japan aside which has been rocked by a series of natural disasters, I will focus today on the changes that are taking place in the United States and Europe.

Democracies work only when they have the ability to find the middle ground where holders of very different points can meet and find ways to reconcile their differences. This is not happening in the United States and Europe. In America, there are irreconcilable differences among those who believe in the right of the federal government to care for the citizenry as against those who are equally adamant that the constitution gave most of this task to the state governments. The fight over the bill enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama to provide health care for all is being waged on the basis of these different interpretations of what the founding fathers meant when they created a political entity called the United States.

Then there is disagreement over what is generally referred to as ‘American exceptionalism’. This is the belief that God created America to bring a system of values — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — to the rest of the world. That could only be done by establishing political and economic systems that were patterned after those operating in the United States. They were described as liberal democracy and market capitalism. That Washington had the right to project its values and create the environment in different parts of the world so that American style institutions could be created was what motivated former president George W Bush, the born-again Christian, to wage war in Iraq. Barack Obama, the present White House occupant, is not a Bush-style missionary. He is much more inclined to let the world evolve in its own way as long as it does not threaten America. That was the crux of his message to the world of Islam at the 2009 address delivered at Cairo’s Al Azhar University and the reason for his desire to eventually pull out of Afghanistan.

Religion and its role in the American state has also become a contentious issue although the matter was settled quite clearly by what is called the constitution’s ‘establishment clause’. That America must proclaim itself to be Christian state with Christian values is now being pushed by the evangelical community in the country. While this segment of the population is not likely to get its way, it’s deeply held views will have consequence for America’s relations with the Muslim world.

The Europeans have their own set of problems, the most important of which is defining the political and economic meaning of the entity called the European Union. It is now clear that the Union’s expansion over the last decade was done in haste and countries that had not reached the stage of development comparable to that of the continent’s core were brought in prematurely as members. This has put the Union under tremendous economic strain which will have many consequences for the continent’s future. Of particular consequence for Europe’s future is the definition of the nation-state. Does the creation of the Union mean surrender of some aspects of national sovereignty to Brussels, the location of the central bureaucracy?

While the European Union may survive, it is unlikely that it will expand further. The Europeans are very unlikely to grant membership to Turkey which would mean that Ankara will refocus its energy towards the Muslim world. The Turks have emerged as major players in the Middle East and are taking active interest in such non-Arab Muslim states as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The main conclusion to be drawn from this brief analysis is that as the West weakens economically, it will begin to rethink some of the issues that seemed to have been settled when there was enough growth in income to share widely its benefits. Since that is no longer the case, some of the old assumptions are no longer in play. This would mean an unsettled world in conflict for several years to come. Unfortunately, Pakistan may find itself at the centre of this messy period of adjustment.

The Express Tribune

May 5, 2012
Brahma Chellaney

A favourite theme in international debate nowadays is whether Asia’s rise signifies the West’s decline. But the current focus on economic malaise in Europe and the United States is distracting attention from the many serious challenges that call into question Asia’s continued success.

To be sure, today’s ongoing global power shifts are primarily linked to Asia’s phenomenal economic rise, the speed and scale of which have no parallel in world history. With the world’s fastest-growing economies, fastest-rising military expenditures, fiercest resource competition, and most serious hot spots, Asia obviously holds the key to the future global order.

But Asia faces major constraints. It must cope with entrenched territorial and maritime disputes, such as in the South China Sea; harmful historical legacies that weigh down its most important interstate relationships; increasingly fervent nationalism; growing religious extremism; and sharpening competition over water and energy.

Moreover, Asia’s political integration badly lags behind its economic integration, and, to compound matters, it has no security framework. Regional consultation mechanisms remain weak. Differences persist over whether a security architecture or community should extend across Asia, or be confined to an ill-defined “East Asia.”

One central concern is that, unlike Europe’s bloody wars of the first half of the 20th century, which made war there unthinkable today, the wars in Asia in the second half of the 21st century only accentuated bitter rivalries. Several interstate wars have been fought in Asia since 1950, when both the Korean War and the annexation of Tibet started, without resolving the underlying Asian disputes.

To take the most significant example, China staged military interventions even when it was poor and internally troubled. A 2010 Pentagon report cites Chinese military preemption in 1950, 1962, 1969, and 1979 in the name of strategic defence. There was also China’s seizure of the Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974, and the 1995 occupation of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, amid protests by the Philippines. This history helps to explain why China’s rapidly growing military power raises important concerns in Asia today.

Indeed, not since Japan rose to world-power status during the reign of the Meiji Emperor (1867-1912) has another non-Western power emerged with such potential to shape the global order. But there is an important difference: Japan’s rise was accompanied by the other Asian civilisations’ decline. After all, by the nineteenth century, Europeans had colonised much of Asia, leaving in place no Asian power that could rein in Japan.

Today, China is rising alongside other important Asian countries, including South Korea, Vietnam, India, and Indonesia. Although China now has displaced Japan as the world’s second largest economy, Japan will remain a strong power for the foreseeable future. On a per capita basis, Japan remains nine times richer than China, and it possesses Asia’s largest naval fleet and its most advanced high-tech industries.

When Japan emerged as a world power, imperial conquest followed, whereas a rising China’s expansionist impulses are, to some extent, checked by other Asian powers. Militarily, China is in no position to grab the territories that it covets. But its defense spending has grown almost twice as fast as its GDP. And, by picking territorial fights with its neighbors and pursuing a muscular foreign policy, China’s leaders are compelling other Asian states to work more closely with the US and each other.

In fact, China seems to be on the same path that made Japan an aggressive, militaristic state, with tragic consequences for the region – and for Japan. The Meiji Restoration created a powerful military under the slogan “Enrich the country and strengthen the military.” The military eventually became so strong that it could dictate terms to the civilian government. The same could unfold in China, where the Communist Party is increasingly beholden to the military for retaining its monopoly on power.

More broadly, Asia’s power dynamics are likely to remain fluid, with new or shifting alliances and strengthened military capabilities continuing to challenge regional stability. For example, as China, India, and Japan maneuver for strategic advantage, they are transforming their mutual relations in a way that portends closer strategic engagement between India and Japan, and sharper competition between them and China.

The future will not belong to Asia merely because it is the world’s largest, most populous, and fastest-developing continent. Size is not necessarily an asset. Historically, small, strategically oriented states have wielded global power.

In fact, with far fewer people, Asia would have a better balance between population size and available natural resources, including water, food, and energy. In China, for example, water scarcity has been officially estimated to cost roughly $28 billion in annual industrial output, even though China, unlike several other Asian economies, including India, South Korea, and Singapore, is not listed by the United Nations as a country facing water stress.

In addition to its growing political and natural-resource challenges, Asia has made the mistake of overemphasising GDP growth to the exclusion of other indices of development. As a result, Asia is becoming more unequal, corruption is spreading, domestic discontent is rising, and environmental degradation is becoming a serious problem. Worse, while many Asian states have embraced the West’s economic values, they reject its political values.

So make no mistake. Asia’s challenges are graver than those facing Europe, which embodies comprehensive development more than any other part of the world. Despite China’s aura of inevitability, it is far from certain that Asia, with its pressing internal challenges, will be able to spearhead global growth and shape a new world order.

Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, is the author of Asian Juggernaut and the Water: Asia’s New Battleground

© Project Syndicate

Ehsan-ur-Rehman


Education, and especially higher education, is an important indicator of any country's development. However, our motherland, Pakistan, is among those unlucky nations who have never given due importance to this vital sector during the past 65 years.

We are even far behind our neighbouring country India, which got independence a day after Pakistan, as far as the literacy rate is concerned. Successive governments in the country have ignored the education sector, especially higher education, during the past six decades. Even democratic setups failed to give education priority. However, during the previous dictatorial rule of General Pervez Musharraf, at least higher education got some boost.

In response to the growing concerns about the nation lagging in higher education achievement, the country launched Higher Education Reform, led by Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, adviser to then President Pervez Musharraf in 2002. The initiative resulted in over fivefold increase in public funding for universities, with a special emphasis on science, technology and engineering.

Various unprecedented plans were made part of the reform, supporting initiatives such as a free national digital library and high-speed Internet access for universities as well as new scholarships enabling more than 2,000 students to study abroad for Ph. Ds - with incentives to return to Pakistan afterward.

The years of reform coincided with increases in the number of Pakistani authors publishing in research journals, especially in mathematics and engineering, as well as boosting the impact of their research outside Pakistan.

The progress made by the higher education sector in the country in the last decade is reflected from the increase in enrolment from 276,000 students in 2003 to 803,000 in 2011; increase in number of universities and degree-awarding institutes from 59 in the year 2000 to 137 by 2011, and an increase in international research publications from only 636 in 2000 to 6,200 in 2011.
The Ph.D output too underwent an explosive growth. During the 55-year period from 1947 to 2002, only 3,281 Ph.Ds had been granted by all our universities (a shocking average of about 3-4 Ph.Ds per university per year)! During the subsequent eight-year period from 2003 to 2010, this number was exceeded and 3,658 Ph.Ds were granted. There was maximum emphasis on quality, as all Ph.D theses were evaluated by at least two top experts in technologically advanced countries before approval.

Talking to Cutting Edge, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman said that the silent revolution that occurred in the higher education sector in Pakistan was lauded by neutral international experts and agencies and numerous reports published on it. In a book published by the Royal Society (London) entitled A New Golden Age, the example of Pakistan was cited as the best model to be followed by other developing countries. Nature, the world's leading science journal, published four editorials and several articles on the transformation that was occurring in Pakistan and advised the new government in 2008 not to go back to the "stone age" that existed prior to the reforms introduced after 2002 in higher education.

The chairperson of the Senate Standing Committee on Education declared it as "Pakistan's golden period in higher education" and called for Dr. Atta's reappointment after he had resigned in protest against the suspension of scholarships of the HEC scholars sent abroad. This scientist was conferred a high civil award by the Austrian government and the TWAS (Italy) Prize for institution-building, for leading these changes.

However, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman regretted that after the remarkable progress achieved in higher education during 2003-2008, we have been systematically trying to destroy the one sector that had raised a gleam of hope among the masses. He said that first the development budget of the higher education sector was slashed by about 50 per cent in 2009. Then, the scholarships of the several thousand Pakistani students studying in foreign universities were withheld, forcing them to go literally begging for funds on the streets of countries where they had gone to brighten their future. This was followed by the status of the executive director of the HEC as a federal secretary being withdrawn, thereby preventing the HEC from holding Departmental Development Working Party (DDWP) meetings and approving projects for Pakistani universities. The projects to establish foreign engineering universities in major cities of Pakistan were closed down.

This would have saved Rs. 50 billion annually and provided Pakistani students with the opportunity of getting quality education with foreign degrees without going abroad, Dr. Atta added.

The former chairman of the HEC said that the Commission was, in fact, victimised by authorities for pointing out frauds committed by the parliamentarians to get their degrees. The HEC had found that 51 of our "honourable" parliamentarians had forged degrees and those of another 250 parliamentarians were doubtful. In any other country, such persons would have had to go to jail for cheating and forgery. However, the Election Commission, instead of declaring their elections null and void, became a party to the game, in clear defiance of the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, regretted Dr. Atta. "Why the Supreme Court has chosen to look the other way in this matter of enormous national importance is beyond understanding."
Dr. Atta said that a group of these "honourable" parliamentarians with forged degrees plotted to destroy the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, and under their pressure a government notification was issued on November 30, 2010, shredding the HEC into pieces.

The former chief of HEC said that on his appeal to the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the government notification was overturned and the apex court declared the move as unconstitutional. But greedy and evil designs continue, he said. Another bill moved in parliament recently was directed to take away the Rs. 44 billion budget of the HEC from the 17-member commission and give the funds to a secretary in the federal government to distribute. This would open the doors to corruption, he believes. At present, the powers to allocate funds are vested with a 17-member commission that included four provincial secretaries, two federal secretaries, vice chancellors and eminent citizens. But after a secretary becomes a custodian of the huge funds, it would be very easy for the corrupt government authorities to manipulate things, he expressed his fears.

Dr. Atta believes that India is far ahead of Pakistan in the higher education sector. Appreciating the neighbouring country's efforts in the sector, Dr. Atta said that over the next five years India would establish 200 new universities and 40 new high-level institutes. Nine additional IITs would also be established, bringing the total number of IITs to 16. A sum of Rs. 800 billion, the biggest-ever allocation, is being set aside in the 12th five-year-plan of India (2012-2017) to propel it into a strong knowledge-based economy, Dr. Atta said referring to a speech made by a minister in the Indian parliament.

He said that India has presently 17 per cent of its youth between the ages of 17 of 23 enrolled in the higher education sector (as opposed to Pakistan's 7.6 per cent). According to a report published in The Hindustan Times on April 25, India plans to increase this enrolment to 30 per cent of the same age group by the year 2030. India has decided to replace its University Grants Commission with a stronger federally funded organisation, National Commission of Higher Education and Research. This was approved by the Indian Cabinet in December 2011. But in Pakistan, it is regretable to see the dissolution of the HEC and devolving it to the provinces, as a weaker entity.

Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman said that the recent steps taken by India are the result of a detailed presentation made to the Indian prime minister in July 2006, by Prof. CNR Rao about the threat posed by the remarkable transformation underway in higher education in Pakistan. In an article entitled "Pak threat to Indian science," Neha Mehta wrote in The Hindustan Times on July 23, 2006: "Pakistan may soon join China in giving India serious competition in science."
This presentation to the Indian prime minister set in motion a whole set of reforms in the higher education sector in India with a sharp increase in the salary structures of academics and a manifold increase in the budget for higher education.

India had been giving the highest priority to higher education, science and
technology for decades.

Dr. Atta said that while India was progressing in leaps and bounds to strengthen its higher education, science and technology sectors, Pakistan was fast sinking deeper into a quagmire, created by incompetent and crooked parliamentarians.

-Cuttingedge

May 16, 2012
By Gordon Robison

When one mentions the Middle East in the United States, the conversation is most likely to focus on either Syria or Iran. Taking the long view, however, Washington’s most compelling Middle Eastern challenge is not whether to intervene in Syria or how to respond to Iran’s nuclear programme. It is the question of how to deal with an Islamist-dominated government in Egypt, the Arab world’s largest country.

If Washington has not thought about this very carefully it has no one but itself to blame.

From the moment nearly a decade ago when President George W. Bush declared that democracy promotion would become a centrepiece of America’s Middle East policy, knowledgeable observers have been pointing out that a more democratic region would be a much more complex place to deal with.

The Bush administration seemed to realise this belatedly when it scaled back its democracy rhetoric after Egypt cracked down on dissent following its 2005 presidential election and in the wake of Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian elections that took place a few months later, in early 2006.
Upon taking office in January 2009 President Barack Obama travelled to Cairo to issue a dramatic call for democracy and tolerance. His administration also worked to preserve funding for low-level democracy-building efforts throughout the region. The high-minded rhetoric, however, mostly vanished.

When the Arab Spring confronted the White House and State Department with the need to choose between embracing change and loyalty to the region’s old guard the Obama administration chose change, albeit in the slowest and most cautious manner possible.

But the uprisings themselves ought not to have been a surprise. Clear-eyed observers both inside and outside the region had been warning for some time that decades of political atrophy did not bode well for the long-term survival of many Arab regimes. For almost as long it has been equally obvious that religiously-based political groups represented the best-organised opposition forces in many parts of the region. Indeed, fear of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover was one of the main things Hosni Mubarak always cited when asked why the West ought to support his autocratic regime.

Over the last decade, claims like these (and Mubarak was far from alone in making them) smoothly fed into the semi-hysterical view of Islam that achieved mainstream credibility in the US after September 11.

False equivalence

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Middle East knows full-well that the Muslim Brotherhood, whatever its faults, is a far cry from Al Qaida. Yet one need not look too hard to find American and other western commentators who claim a false equivalence between the two groups.

To be fair, this is a two-way street. More than a few of the Middle East’s emerging political leaders appear to have an almost cartoonish view of America. Conspiracy-mongering nationalism, of the type on display during Egypt’s legal harassment of American democracy-building NGOs, has done little to improve the new Egypt’s image in recent months.

But the fact remains that when Washington’s conspiracy-mongers start going on about the threat an Islamist-dominated Egypt supposedly poses to America what is on display is mainly nostalgia. Dealing with Cairo was a lot simpler under Mubarak. That, however, is no excuse for refusing to face up to the world as it is (or, perhaps more accurately, as it is becoming).

If the will is there, an initial lack of familiarity need not become a permanent gulf of misunderstanding. Despite the attacks on democracy-building NGOs that have marked the last few months, Washington must continue to offer training to any democratically-focused political party that wants training in the nuts-and-bolts of civil society and grassroots politics.

Conferences that bring members of the US Congress, the Egyptian and other Arab parliaments together need to be encouraged along with any other sort of educational or cultural exchange calculated to build relationships, educate opinion leaders on both sides, and break down barriers. If ever there was a critical test for America’s oft-criticised public diplomacy abilities, this is it.

Instead of indulging in alarmist stereotypes about Islam and Muslims, it is time for American politicians to find Muslim political leaders — Islamists included — who they can work with. The relationship may never be entirely smooth, but demagogues on both sides who say that Islam and the West cannot be reconciled are backing ideology over common sense and pragmatism. In the long run, that is always a losing bet.

The road forward in Egypt has been rocky, and promises to remain so. The military is reluctant to surrender real control (and appears completely unwilling to submit to civilian authority), the parliament is filled with novice legislators and the ultimate shape of the country’s constitution remains a mystery.

Washington can play a positive role in this transition, but only if it learns to live with Egypt as it is, rather than pining for Egypt as it was.

Gordon Robison, a longtime Middle East journalist and US political analyst, teaches political science at the University of Vermont.
Source: Gulf News

At their summit talks in Laos last November, Asian and European leaders pledged joint efforts to boost growth and ease global tensions. In China later this month, the two regions’ officials, scholars and experts will explore fresh ways to translate those words into action.

“We are looking forward to an open and flexible brainstorming on Asia-Europe relations,” says Ambassador Zhang Xiaokang, China’s top official in charge of ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting). “The meeting will be about exchanging views on ASEM: what should we do next, where are we heading?”

With the next Asia-Europe summit set to be held in Brussels in autumn 2014, the meeting in Yangzhou on April 25-26 is likely to kick-start a review of ASEM which many argue is necessary to give fresh impetus to the process. There is no shortage of ideas on increasing ASEM’s relevance in a rapidly-changing world. The meeting in Yangzhou looks set to come with still more.

Co-sponsored by China, Laos, India, Poland and the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), the Yangzhou brain-storming will look at the role of a “dynamic ASEM” in ensuring Asia-Europe peace and security. “ASEM is of great strategic importance for peace and development of the two regions,” underlines Ambassador Zhang who will host the seminar.
Zhang believes that seventeen years after its launch, ASEM still plays an important role in enhancing Asian-European understanding. “ASEM’s usefulness can be found in its role as a forum for communication and dialogue.”

“Asia needs European experience and technology. Europe needs Asia’s growth and wisdom,” Zhang quotes a European leader as saying at an ASEM Summit. Only a dynamic ASEM can translate it into practical results. The Yangzhou meeting will look at the past achievements and weaknesses of ASEM and the partnership’s future development and direction. Best practice and experience will be shared with other key regional and multilateral organisations, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and the China-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation initiative. “The key question we will be asking is this: how do we proceed in the years to come?” says Zhang.

Recommendations from the symposium will be sent to ASEM senior officials in the summer and then communicated to foreign ministers when they meet in Delhi in November this year.

ASEM has certainly increased Asia-Europe contacts in an array of sectors. There is increased understanding that tackling 21st Century non-traditional security challenges like climate change, cyber security and terrorism require closer Asia-Europe relations. Ensuring a robust global economic recovery is also conditional on stronger Asia-Europe cooperation.

Still, ASEM could do better. Zhang says that to achieve the “grand goal” of Asia-Europe cooperation, ASEM must deal with several key challenges. “Asians want practical deliverables which are relevant to their social and economic concerns,” she says. “Asians want this cooperation to produce tangible results.” Europeans are also looking for similar outcomes.

In order to boost their trade and investment ties with Europe, for instance, Asian countries need more detailed information on access to European markets. “Many people still find it difficult to understand and abide by complex EU procedures.” Such exchanges would be more useful than “dialogue for the sake of dialogue.” European businesses exporting to Asia also need similar market information to overcome obstacles they face in penetrating major Asian markets such as China. Economic discussions within ASEM must be developed further and business leaders from both sides should meet more often, Zhang underlines, adding that former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao encouraged enterprises to establish joint R&D centres, technology transfer centres, joint incubators and other platforms for long-term and stable cooperation at the ASEM summit in Laos last year.
Participants at the Yangzhou meeting will also be encouraged to reflect on questions like a possible ASEM free trade agreement. Also on the agenda: ways of improving ASEM consensus-building on political issues and enhancing public knowledge and awareness of Asia-Europe relations through stronger ASEM visibility programmes and more intensive “people-to-people” links.

ASEM countries have long discussed the pros and cons of setting up a secretariat to allow more effective follow-up of decisions. Many argue that since ASEM is not an international organisation, it cannot be judged on so-called “deliverables” and concrete output. The real value lies in its ability to bring together European and Asian representatives to brainstorm on key challenges of the day without undermining the need to prioritise.

While the informality and flexibility of ASEM is important, Zhang said she is convinced there must also be an “effective supporting mechanism to ensure systematic cooperation” among all participants. “It does not have to be a secretariat. But for the moment, we have too many subjects with little practical follow-up action. When there are initiatives, we need substantive support.” The strategic coordination role of ASEM senior officials could also be enhanced to provide such support.

After the Yangzhou meeting, European and Asian policymakers will continue to meet within the ASEM framework to discuss issues as diverse as green growth, human rights, education and urbanisation. Efforts to craft a forward-looking strategy for the future development of ASEM will also gather pace.

“I would like to define ASEM as a platform where Asia and Europe work together for peace and development,” says Zhang. “We need cooperation with vision.”

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