Asia Europe Journal最新文献

Commemorating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties, the article analyzes public health governance during the COVID-19 pandemic in the EU and South Korea. Shifting focus from traditional national security to a more people-centered understanding, the article employs the human security framework to examine nuances of the global health crisis. Through this theoretical lens, the research empirically compares and contrasts the EU’s and South Korea’s differing strategies battling COVID-19 from the pandemic’s inception to the mass vaccination rollouts. While the EU’s early approach was initially marked by slower responsiveness and border closures, South Korea stood out for its swift counter-epidemic measures, leveraging technological innovations and public–private partnerships. Yet once vaccination campaigns started, South Korea had to catch up with Europe. The article chronologically presents its findings, identifying a mutual convergence in approaches with the Omicron’s emergence. In conclusion, the article distills seven key lessons from the pandemic management: the significance of independent public health institutions, the role of digitalization and transparency in fostering public trust, the shared responsibility to bridge the vaccination gap and invest in robust public health systems, and the paradigm shift towards human security combined with the resurgence of state which has to be balanced with safeguarding individual liberties and a collective global action. In addition, the article underscores potential avenues for a strengthened EU-South Korea collaboration to enhance global health governance beyond the confines of major geopolitical rivalries.

Trade has long been the foundation of relations between the Republic of Korea and the European Union, and the conclusion of a comprehensive free trade agreement between the two sides in 2011 was both a recognition of the value of economic exchange and a catalyst for deeper cooperation in subsequent years. This paper discusses in some detail the governance of trade relations and other aspects of economic cooperation between Korea and the European Union, highlighting the multilayered nature and the expanding scope of legal ties between the two sides. The positive bilateral cooperation occurs however against the background of a changing and increasingly challenging global context. The failure of the Doha Round, the limitations of the World Trade Organization, and the growing concerns about de-coupling between the USA and China are all developments that complicate efforts towards trade liberalization and indeed threaten to disrupt global trade significantly. These adverse trends contain particular risks for Korea and the EU, both close allies of the USA and also both economies that are deeply integrated with the Chinese economy. Managing Korea-EU trade relations is therefore becoming both more complicated but also more important, and in conclusion, the paper provides an outlook on these future challenges.

Following the Paris Agreement, the European Union (EU) and South Korea became active in their pursuits of low-carbon energy solutions marked by substantial renewable energy growth and reforms in the mobility, power, and industrial sectors. Policy initiatives, such as the European Green Deal (2019) and Korean Green New Deal (2020), demonstrated their ambitious decarbonization commitments. However, their sustainable energy transitions have encountered two major challenges. First, the energy crisis due to the Russo-Ukrainian war accounts for the reduced supplies of Russian oil and gas, global price spikes, and a renewed focus on energy security; second, the US-China strategic competition exposed the over-reliance on China for the production of rare-earth materials that are essential for renewable energy technologies. The intersection of energy security and transition has emerged as a pivotal concern for both parties. In response, the EU introduced the “REPowerEU” plan to accelerate energy transition, whereas South Korea strategically expanded its nuclear power usage and recalibrated its energy mix. Both the EU and South Korea have augmented their investments in renewable energies while ensuring stable supplies of rare-earth materials and navigating new regulatory pressures from the USA. This study first represents a comparative survey of the energy-transition initiatives of both parties, including a comprehensive assessment of the European and Korean Green Deals and their measures for energy security. Further, the potential EU–Korea cooperation toward overcoming the energy crises, recognizing their shared values and opportunities to synergize bilateral- and multilateral-level energy transition, was explored.

The EU-South Korea cultural relations have intensified in the past few decades. Since the signing of free trade deal between two parties in 2010, the Korean public perception of the EU has positively evolved. Both parties initiated a protocol on cultural cooperation under the EU-RoK free trade agreement where particular emphasis was placed on the collaboration of audio-visual sector. The main part of this paper has three sections. The first section refers to EU cultural policy and diplomacy. In order to explain the EU’s cultural presence in South Korea, this paper addresses European cultural exports to South Korea and the South Korean perception of the EU. The following part discusses South Korean policy orientation and diplomacy regarding culture. By introducing the statistical data on Hallyu contents export to Europe, one can understand the current situation of Hallyu expansion in Europe. Also, the European perception of Hallyu is included. Since EU cultural diplomacy worldwide still has a national dominance, the following section discusses four national EU cases―France, Poland, Sweden, and Italy―to illustrate the types of EU-South Korea ICR.

The post-World War II experience of conflict and regional cooperation in (Western) Europe and East Asia has been very different. Despite their differences in terms of receptiveness of, and preferences for, regional cooperation, regional cooperation and/or integration still remains one of the most promising avenues for achieving or at least institutionalising peace. Against this backdrop, we aim to assess the scope for EU–Korean collaboration in regional integration, outlining the European and the Korean perspectives on regional integration and conflict resolution, their similarities and differences in this process, and prospects of cooperation amid the intensifying US–China rivalry. We argue in this paper that although confronted with the spectre of global power politics heading for a new Cold War, both the EU and Korea have normatively and practically sought to pursue a policy of ‘hedging’, and that integration may be a testament to the power of integration in the peaceful transformation of international order than undermining its rationale. The paper thus argues that the future trajectory that regional cooperation for conflict transformation would be bound up by the spectre of power politics by the geostrategic rivalry between the US and China would not necessarily be the only one expected.

The European Union and South Korea have significantly progressed in developing their bilateral relationship since their strategic partnership in 2010. Recently, they have paid considerable attention to strengthening bilateral security cooperation. Against this backdrop, this paper asks three questions: first, what is the current shape of EU-Korea security cooperation; second, how is this cooperation developing and third, what is the future potential of this cooperation. In so doing, the paper revisits bilateral security cooperation with a focus on how shared ideas are the bedrock of the development and progress of bilateral relations. In our study, we identify the European Union and South Korea as having especially strong shared ideas in the areas of non-proliferation, human rights and cybersecurity. As the Union perceives growing strategic importance in the Indo-Pacific Area, it will seek a competent and reliable partner more actively. Therefore, there is tremendous potential for security cooperation especially in an era of escalating geopolitical tension.

To counterbalance a potential overemphasis on the state as the key unit of analysis in research on Asia-Europe relations, we examine how their major cities are interconnected. Analytically, this is achieved by applying a network model to data on the office locations of 175 globalized producer service firms. We examine the strength and orientation (for 2022) and the evolution (for 2010–2022) of these connections. We find that both Asia and Europe have more well-connected cities than any other world region and are characterized by a wide variety of levels of connectedness among their cities. However, the Asian system is somewhat top-heavier and showed more comprehensive connectivity gains. Most cities tend to be oriented towards their own region, albeit that there are some notable exceptions such as Luxembourg and New Delhi having an important trans-regional focus to their intercity connections, while London, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong show a relatively balanced profile. We argue that the time is ripe for a nuanced and context-specific approach to understanding how cities can engage on the global stage in general and in Asia-Europe relations in particular.

This article examines ASEAN’s position and strategies regarding the emerging Indo-Pacific politics by employing three elements of actorness—opportunity in the external environments, capacities for internal preference convergence and external engagement, and policy entrepreneurship. It argues that Indonesia’s policy entrepreneurship enabled ASEAN to respond to a new regional opportunity of the emerging Indo-Pacific construct, and ASEAN exhibited limited capabilities in internal preference convergence and the development of institutional influence on external relations as it relied on institutional features of conference diplomacy and the strong chairmanship system. The exploration of actorness in ASEAN’s policy reactions contributes to expanding the comparative scope of actorness research and deepening the theoretical implications of ASEAN’s regional initiatives in the emerging Indo-Pacific regionalism.