The Eurasian Economic Axis: Its Present and Prospective Significance for East Asia

Abstract

The economic relationship between East Asia and the European Union (EU) has been the subject of increasing academic attention. This has been heightened by politico-institutional endeavors to strengthen the weak link in the “Triad” (Europe, East Asia, North America—the world's dominant economic regions) since the early 1990s, including various bilateral initiatives such as the 1991 Japan–EU Declaration and the 1996 Korea–EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement, as well as the new interregional “dialogue framework” provided by the Asia–Europe Meetings (ASEM). The ASEM has wider geoeconomic significance in that it constitutes the last interregional Triadic arrangement to fall into place, the others being the Asia–Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum (augmenting the transpacific axis) and the New Transatlantic Agenda (transatlantic axis).

Sino-Russian rapprochement and Greater Eurasia: From geopolitical pole to international society?

“…"Optimists" argue that it is natural for various states and regions of the Eurasian continent to deepen their ties and that Russia and China should coordinate this process (Karaganov & Bordachev, 2017). At its heart lies the growing cooperation between the European Union (EU) and China-Eurasia's two largest centers of economic development-as well as efforts to involve other countries in this dynamic process (Dent, 2001). This has led to a new phenomenon-a trans-regionalism characterized by the linkage and synergy between several regional projects within one larger, common space.…”