Part 1

• Charting a Course in the South China Sea: The EU’s Cooperation with ASEAN and the Philippines to Maintain Order and Stability Alfred Gerstl Palacky University Olomouc David Broul Palacky University Olomouc

  In its Indo-Pacific Strategy, published in 2019, the European Union (EU) regards the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a key partner in Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific to upheld multilateralism and the rules-based regional order. Traditionally, the two regional organizations have close relations, elevated in 2020 to a stra-tegic partnership. In general, the EU is regarded positively in Southeast Asia, notably Brussels contributions to strengthening global and regional governance are highlighted. In the South China Sea, however, the principles of governance, not least international law, and multilateral cooperation are due to the unresolved territorial disputes and China’s increased assertiveness, notably towards the Philippines and Vietnam under pressure.

  This presentation will examine how the EU can support ASEAN in promoting a rules-based order and mitigating the negative impacts of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. First, building on an eclectic International Relations approach, the presentation will critically question the EU’s political will and potential to become an influential strategic player in Southeast Asia, based on a content and discourse analysis of the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia strategies of the EU and selected member states as well as speeches of key EU decision-makers and resolutions of the European Parliament. Second, in regard to Europe’s actual and potential contributions to maintaining order and stability in the South China Sea, it will examine the EU-Philippine relations which considerably deepened since the election of president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022. Thereby it will be distinguished between political-diplomatic, security and defense, and economic support for Manila.

• One or Many Indo-Pacific Strategies? Assessing EU Member-States’ Efforts In Security Cooperation With ASEAN Marco Zappa Ca' Foscari University of Venice

  Promoting a fair, transparent and rules-based maritime order; strengthening and support multilateral security architectures in the security domain; enhancing the EU’s image as a security provider in the region. These are among the aims of the Enhancing the European Union’s Security Cooperation In and With Asia (ESIWA), to date the most relevant EU initiative to engage with Northeast and Southeast Asia in the maritime and cyber-security domains. After upgrading their ties with several actors in the region such as Japan and ASEAN to a Strategic Partnership, the EU has adopted a comprehensive Indo-Pacific Strategy in 2021, promoting security exchanges and training with, among others, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Against this backdrop, how does the EU approach integrate with that of key regional partners such as Japan and the US, and to what extent are EU member-states aligned? After outlining Brussels’ approach to Southeast Asia, this paper will focus on Italy, a key EU member, which, in recent years, has upgraded its relations with ASEAN and joined other European partners in their efforts in the Asia-Pacific region. Based on a close reading of official documents, the paper will show how, despite sharing a common narrative with other EU members and allies, in actuality, Rome is pursuing a more cautious strategy in the region, valuing trade opportunities over security concerns.

• The EU’s strategy in Indo-Pacific: perceptions of Southeast Asia Ha Hai Hoang Hanoi National University of Education

  The paper aims to analyze Southeast Asian perceptions on EU contributions to peace and security in Indo-Pacific region. Peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region are crucial for Europe and the world. The September 2021 release of the European Union (EU) Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific marked the beginning of the EU’s new approach to the region in general and to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in particular. In recent years, the EU has worked steadily to improve its cooperation with the region, in particular by becoming in 2020 a strategic partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), launching its Indo-Pacific strategy in 2021, holding a successful EU-ASEAN Summit in 2022. Nevertheless, even with the elevation of the EU-ASEAN relationship to a strategic partnership, there’s no assurance of ASEAN backing for the EU’s aspiration to assume a more strategic role in the Indo-Pacific. This uncertainty stems from the fact that, although the EU is highly regarded as an economic and normative force, it lacks widespread acknowledgment as a conventional security actor. The EU, devoid of military might, is improbable to transform into one in the near future and is incapable of fulfilling the comprehensive security requirements of the region. Through cases of the South China Sea and Mekong River, the paper clarify the capacity of the EU in engaging in the regional security. To this aim, in addition to a discourse analysis of all speeches given by the representatives of ASEAN member governments, survey questionnaire with Southeast Asian scholars with professional experience in the field of international relations are conducted to assess non-EU state elites’ perceptions of EU capacity.

• Russia-Myanmar Relations During the Ukraine War: The Dilemmas of a Patron-Client Relationship Michal Lubina Jagiellonian University in Krakow

  The deepening ties between Russia and Myanmar present an unexpected outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Previously, Myanmar held a secondary role for the Russian Federation, primarily significant as a major client of its military-industrial complex. However, Russia’s global (semi)isolation has shifted this dynamic, elevating Myanmar’s importance in Russian foreign policy calculations. For Naypyidaw, these relations gained significance following the coup on February 1, 2021, wherein Moscow emerged as the primary international supporter of the Burmese military junta, acting as its political patron.

  As a result of these developments, Russia-Myanmar relations have reached an unprecedented level of closeness, unparalleled in their bilateral history. However, two key factors cast a shadow over this optimistic assessment for both the Kremlin and Naypyidaw. Firstly, Russia’s entanglement in Ukraine constrains Moscow’s capacity to support its political allies such as Myanmar. Secondly, the position of the Burmese junta, facing challenges from various guerrilla forces across the nation, has become increasingly precarious as of early 2024.

  These circumstances give rise to a series of strategic dilemmas for both the Kremlin and Naypyidaw.

Part 2

• The Return of Realism: Unpack the Transformation of EU Trade Policy towards ASEAN Countries Zhihang Wu University of Glasgow

  The past decade has witnessed the EU’s momentous policy shift towards wider and deeper in trade interactions with ASEAN countries, after the failure of negotiating region-to-region FTA in 2009 and the following trade policy vacuum. Despite deficits and mixed records with regard to labor rights and environmental sustainability within Southeast Asia countries, bilaterally and regionally, the EU displays stronger strategic interest and clearer policy path in enhancing trade relations with ASEAN relations. With the developing politicization of contemporary trade policy, conventional Fair-trade Perspective, and dominant Liberal Thesis in explaining trade policy are greatly challenged. This article, instead, utilizes geo-economic paradigm to feature this policy transformation by the EU, and further explain what gives impetus to such a change. Drawing upon interviews with stakeholders and content analysis of policy documents, key trade agreements as well as meeting records, we argue that the new power dynamic over rising China-US rivalries greatly shapes EU trade policy towards the region. First of all, economic resilience and ‘strategic autonomy’ in the context of increasing geopolitical turmoil emerge as core domestic interest in trade and economy, driving closer trade ties between the EU and ASEAN. Moving up to the international trade regime, the EU, in face of rising trans-regional trade frameworks led by China and US, seeks for enhancing its leadership in global trade system. What lie behind are the capability of supporting multilateral free trade, and contributing new arrangements in response to the reform of existing system under WTO. More importantly, the EU, sits its own Indo-Pacific Strategy at promoting normative agendas in the trade policy, underlining economic justice and environmental sustainability. Bridging the pragmatic and normative goal, trade policy tools by EU are expected to maximize the spillover effect on boarder political and security relations with countries in the region. In particular, in free trade agreements, the strengthening pre-ratification effects and policy-learning oriented follow-up mechanism out of legal texts, show a model for EU to obtain more policy space and legitimacy to embed increasing pragmatism into promoting its normative value to ASEAN countries.

• The Evolution of Human Rights within EU-ASEAN Trade and Economic Cooperation Loren Cristina Bustos Friedrich-Alexander Universität (FAU)

  The incorporation of human rights and social factors is a globally acknowledged practice in international trade and economic agreements, however, its significance is oftentimes contested and overshadowed by the primacy of economic imperatives. Within the context of the EU-ASEAN economic relations, human rights stipulations are oftentimes questioned or perceived as a tokenistic practice, serving predominantly to take advantage of economic and investment endeavors. Despite the breadth of academic work on human rights conditionality and comparative analyses of human rights recognition between the EU and ASEAN, a study and exploration into emergence ‘genesis’ of human rights within their economic cooperation has not been given careful attention. This paper aims to adopt a historical approach to discern the trajectory of human rights within EU-ASEAN interregional economic cooperation since it assumed dialogue partnership in the 1970s, the paper asks how human rights emerged and evolved within the EU-ASEAN economic cooperation since it began its partnership, with special attention on how human rights gained momentum in key economic dialogues, negotiations, events and trade cooperation.

• Between Cooperation and Competition: Weaponized Interdependence and Indonesia’s Role in Southeast Asia Deniz Kocak Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg

  This study examines the complex geopolitical dynamics of Southeast Asia, focusing on Indonesia’s central role in the Indo-Pacific region. Using the theoretical framework of “weaponized interdependence”, the study analyzes how nation-states strategically use global economic networks and interdependencies to exert influence and advance their national interests. By assessing Indonesia’s resources and how it uses them to pursue its strategic objectives, this study explains Indonesia’s approach to addressing the multiple challenges and opportunities within its geopolitical environment.
  With the intensification of the US-China rivalry, the European Union has emerged as a potential key strategic ally of Indonesia. The strengthening of security alliances and the deepening of economic cooperation with the EU would offer Indonesia a unique opportunity to maintain its position as a regional hegemon in Southeast Asia. This strategic partnership not only strengthens Indonesia’s geopolitical influence, but also positions the country as an indispensable player in maintaining regional stability and promoting economic growth amidst changing global power dynamics.

• Learning from Central Europe: Strategic implications and policy responses to Indonesia’s integration in supply chains Martin Sebena University of Hong Kong

  Over the last decade, Indonesia has become increasingly embedded in the global and regional supply chains, owing to, among others, clean technology demands for the country’s natural resources, political and regulatory efforts to climb up the value chain, as well as trade reconfiguration resulting from geopolitical tensions. The deepening of supply chain integration is typically analyzed with a focus on intra-ASEAN trade and on trade with major economies in East Asia, which are most closely linked to the country’s manufacturing output. However, since the fragmentation of production into multiple stages increases the trade in intermediate goods, the analysis of direct imports and exports does not reveal the full scope of trade dependencies. There is limited information in the Indonesian public policy community not only about the direction of Indonesian flows of value-added, but – more importantly – about their implications for the economic structure, availability of policy-making tools, and strategies. Therefore, a comparative analysis of Central Europe, a region with the world’s highest supply chain integration, can provide a number of methodological tools and insights applicable to the Indonesian context. The proposed contribution will introduce the current state of economic relations between the four Central European countries (CEEC – Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary) and Indonesia and provide a comparative analysis of policy implications of supply chain integration in CEEC and Indonesia. From a strategic perspective, it will evaluate the dependencies, vulnerabilities, and opportunities in the relations with China created by supply chain integration. From a policy perspective, it will evaluate the policy tools available to the Indonesian government for calibrating its economic relations with countries to which Indonesia has strong supply chain linkages.

Abstract