The Future of the EU's Security Role in a Transformed East Asia

摘要

A fundamentally new security landscape is unfolding in East Asia due to the changing power structure among the great powers, particularly owing to the fast rise of China and the relative decline of the United States. This paper analyzes the dynamics of power transition in East Asia and assesses the possibility of the EU playing a meaningful role in the strengthening of security governance in the region. It begins by arguing that although the East Asian region is entering a transformation stage it will not likely lead to a major collision between the United States and China. This means the EU will have opportunities to become involved in East Asian security affairs, provided it further strengthens its multi-faceted, comprehensive engagement policies vis-a-vis the region. We focus particularly on the EU's ability to promote the positive aspects of East Asian regionalism via deepened and expanded cooperative measures such as bilateral and multilateral framework agreements with regional countries and organizations. In addition to offering a reliable model for regional security governance, the EU will be able to contribute to regional security by cooperating with the United States and other East Asian countries and organizations in selected security issues, such as sea-lane protection, counter-terrorism, non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), humanitarian operations, etc. Internally, we show that after the Treaty of Lisbon the EU is approaching incrementally a position wherein it can make greater CFSP/CSDP engagements-particularly those associated with peacekeeping/ peacemaking and humanitarian operations - in the wider world including East Asia.