Asia Europe Journal最新文献

{"title":"A tepid confluence of the two seas: India in the Indo-Pacific regional economic architecture","authors":"Peter Brian M. Wang","doi":"10.1007/s10308-026-00784-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-026-00784-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>India’s economic and strategic engagement with the Indo-Pacific has expanded markedly since the launch of the Act East Policy, yet its integration into the region’s economic architecture remains limited and uneven. Drawing on the metaphor of a “confluence of the two seas”, this paper examines why India’s presence across the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific remains tepid despite dense diplomatic activity and multiple institutional affiliations. It traces the distinctive evolution of Asian regionalism, contrasting ASEAN’s and APEC’s soft, consensus-based approach with European models, and assesses how intensifying US–China rivalry, shifting trade architectures (APEC, RCEP, CPTPP, IPEF), and the proliferation of minilateral arrangements constrains India’s room for manoeuvre. The analysis then turns to India’s domestic political economy, highlighting how structural vulnerabilities, protectionist constituencies, and regulatory frictions have produced a pattern of selective and often defensive trade policy that limits India’s role in regional value chains and rule-making processes. The paper argues that recent developments may mark an inflection point. The review of the ASEAN–India FTA (AIFTA) and renewed debate on India’s APEC membership illustrate both the persistence of integration challenges and the possibility of more calibrated liberalisation. Most significantly, the conclusion of a high-standard EU–India Free Trade Agreement in 2026—covering goods, services, investment, government procurement, digital trade, and sustainable development—is analysed as a potential turning point in India’s trade policy, signalling a willingness to accept deeper, rules-heavy commitments under favourable conditions. The EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy and Global Gateway initiative are situated as a “European variable” that reshapes India’s options by offering a non-confrontational, rules-based partner and an inter-regional bridge between European and Indo-Pacific economic architectures. The paper contends that if India leverages this agreement, along with targeted FTA upgrades and minilateral partnerships, as platforms rather than exceptions, it can gradually convert its economic weight and strategic relevance into more credible, embedded regional economic engagement. In doing so, the confluence of the two seas can shift from aspirational metaphor to tangible network of trade, investment, and regulatory linkages in which India plays a genuinely pivotal role.\u0000</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 3","pages":"687 - 716"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149098427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Strategy and diplomacy in a changing world: China’s high-level strategic dialogues with European counterparts (2001–2025)","authors":"Xiaosong Ni","doi":"10.1007/s10308-026-00779-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-026-00779-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>High-level strategic dialogues (SDs) constitute a central political pillar of China–Europe relations, yet their strategic functioning as institutionalised dialogue mechanisms remains under-examined. This paper investigates how China employs the SD mechanism to engage with Europe and pursue its foreign-policy objectives within the liberal international order (LIO). The study adopts a document-driven qualitative design combining grounded-theory coding with abductive reasoning. The dataset comprises 59 China-issued SD records corresponding to 75 dialogue rounds between 2001 and 2025. Using the complementary analytical lenses of forum shopping and altercasting, the analysis examines how differentiated dialogue venues and signalling repertoires structure expectations of cooperation, responsibility, disagreement management, and systemic roles within institutionalised interaction. The findings show that China’s SD engagement operates through a differentiated dialogue architecture combined with recurring signalling practices that stabilise participation across institutional settings while enabling incremental reinterpretation of governance vocabularies and role expectations. Building on these empirical patterns, the paper advances a mid-range interpretive framework linking strategic identity (the strategist–reformist actor), institutional practice (institutionalisation as diplomacy), and the patterned outcome of continuity with recalibration. The analysis demonstrates how routinised diplomatic engagement within institutionalised dialogue mechanisms can simultaneously sustain interactional continuity and facilitate incremental normative recalibration, contributing to broader debates on major-power behaviour toward the LIO.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 2","pages":"283 - 312"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10308-026-00779-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Infrastructural conjunctures under the Belt and Road Initiative: the role of China-Europe Railway Express and evolution of the laptop cluster in Chongqing, China","authors":"Rui Hu,&nbsp;Chun Yang,&nbsp;Qingyun Li","doi":"10.1007/s10308-026-00778-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-026-00778-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The evolving geopolitical dynamics are positioning the deployment of transnational infrastructure as a strategic instrument for regional development, highlighting its symbolic value beyond purely economic effects. Existing discussions on state-led infrastructure in global production networks (GPNs) have primarily focused on the hierarchical interactions among economic actors centered on the infrastructure projects and resulting uneven development outcomes. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the historical and spatial conditions shaping the emergence of such infrastructure, or to its combined economic and intangible impacts on specific industrial clusters in the geopolitical narratives. Drawing upon the conjunctural GPN perspective, this study examines the role of the China-Europe Railway Express (CR Express) under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Specifically, we focus on its impact on the evolution of laptop cluster in Chongqing, a centrally governed municipality in western China. The paper argues that, economically, the CR Express, as a transnational infrastructure, has facilitated the expansion of laptop manufacturing in Chongqing into the European market by offering crucial advantages in transportation time and costs. Symbolically, Chongqing has repositioned itself as a growing logistics hub and assembly platform along the Eurasian economic corridor. By incorporating spatiotemporal conjunctures, this study extends the typitcal firm-centric cost-benefit analysis of GPN research to the broader geoeconomic value of transnational infrastructure, thereby highlighting the BRI’s role in local industrial cluster evolution. The findings shed light on how regions in the Global South can leverage infrastructural conjunctures to forge new pathways for development through production and market connectivity.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 2","pages":"395 - 415"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10308-026-00778-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Structural pressures and catalytic shocks: Japan’s hedging strategy for “Trump 2.0” (2023–2025)","authors":"Jia Meng","doi":"10.1007/s10308-026-00780-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-026-00780-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study examines Japan’s policy adjustments between 2023 and 2025 in anticipation of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. It argues that these adjustments are best understood as Japan’s attempt to navigate the enduring alliance dilemma—the perennial tension between fear of abandonment by its senior partner and fear of entrapment in its conflicts. The shocks of Trump’s first term (2017–2021)—trade pressure, security uncertainty, and unilateralism—provided a powerful historical catalyst, sharply intensifying Tokyo’s perception of these twin risks. In response, Japan adopted a composite strategy blending proactive engagement with prudent risk hedging across high-level diplomacy, economic diversification, defense posture, and multilateral institution-building. The paper finds that Japan’s behavior resembles a dynamic risk mitigation mechanism: activated by historical experience but fundamentally shaped by the structural logic of the alliance dilemma, rather than a fully developed grand strategy. Its effectiveness remains constrained by domestic politics, U.S.–China competition, and the future trajectory of U.S. policy. The case illustrates both the possibilities and the inherent limits of hedging as a middle-power strategy under conditions of hegemonic uncertainty.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 2","pages":"489 - 516"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reconciling normativity and geopolitics: analyzing von der Leyen’s de-risking discourse from a practical argumentation perspective","authors":"Jinsong Fu,&nbsp;Min Yang","doi":"10.1007/s10308-026-00777-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-026-00777-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article investigates how European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen discursively reconciles the European Union’s (EU) self-proclaimed identity as a “normative power” with its adoption of the securitized “de-risking” strategy towards China. Employing Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2012) framework of practical argumentation, this study analyzes nine key speeches delivered by von der Leyen between 2023 and 2025. The analysis reconstructs the argumentative structure underpinning the de-risking narrative and identifies its core circumstantial, value, and goal-mean premises. This reveals a manipulated discursive mechanism that navigates the tension between normative ideals and geopolitical imperatives. Specifically, the research demonstrates how von der Leyen’s rhetoric strategically modulates threat narratives, reconfigures EU values as conditional preconditions for cooperation, and recasts defensive security measures as necessary instruments for upholding a rules-based international order. This article argues that the EU’s de-risking discourse cannot be simply regarded as a retreat from the EU’s normative identity, but rather a strategic reconstruction of its normative identity for geopolitical imperatives, which is packaged as the so-called “strategic-normative power.</p>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 2","pages":"313 - 330"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Allied hedging under pressure: US protectionism, China dependence, and strategic adjustment","authors":"Miao Wang,&nbsp;Xue Li","doi":"10.1007/s10308-026-00776-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-026-00776-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>How do US allies respond when security dependence on Washington collides with deep economic exposure to China? This article argues that renewed US protectionism has intensified an alliance dilemma that does not produce uniform alignment, but differentiated forms of hedging. Rather than choosing sides, allies seek to manage simultaneous risks: security abandonment by the USA, economic disruption from decoupling, and vulnerability to coercion from both Washington and Beijing. Building on the hedging literature, the article develops a framework to explain variation in allied hedging across three dimensions: security dependence on the USA, economic exposure to China, and institutional capacity for autonomous adjustment. It identifies three ideal-typical responses: institutional hedging, functional hedging, and diversification hedging. Through comparative analysis of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, the UK, Australia, and Canada, the article shows that US protectionism does not eliminate hedging; instead, it reshapes its form. The findings suggest that allied hedging has become more institutionalized, more issue-specific, and more closely tied to economic resilience and supply-chain governance. This trend does not imply alliance breakdown, but it does indicate growing fragmentation within the US-led order and a weakening of institutional trust among allies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 2","pages":"467 - 487"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Recasting order in the Indo-Pacific: Europe, Asia, and the future of the Liberal International Order","authors":"Jagannath Panda,&nbsp;Alfred Gerstl","doi":"10.1007/s10308-026-00775-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-026-00775-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Liberal International Order (LIO) is increasingly under threat—not only from revisionist and authoritarian states like China and Russia but also from within the USA itself. Unlike his predecessors, who recognized significant benefits for the USA in upholding and defending the rules-based order globally and in the Indo-Pacific, President Donald Trump views the existing LIO as detrimental to American interests. This special issue brings together scholars in Europe and the Indo-Pacific to examine the mounting challenges facing the LIO in the Indo-Pacific. Crucially, the contributions highlight that there has never been a shared consensus on what the LIO—or more neutrally: the rules-based order—entails, but a fragile coexistence of visions. The Indo-Pacific, as a geopolitical and normative crossroads, offers an unparalleled vantage point to test whether pluralism can coexist with rules, and whether middle powers and regional and minilateral organizations such as the European Union (EU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or the Quad can act as custodians of order rather than bystanders to intensifying great-power rivalries, likely resulting in a fragmented and divided rather than truly multilateral and inclusive order in the Indo-Pacific. In fact, the debate surrounding the future of the Liberal International Order has intensified in recent years as geopolitical rivalries, institutional fragmentation, and competing governance models reshape global politics. Nowhere are these tensions more visible than in the Indo-Pacific where the intersection of European and Asian strategic interests reveals both the vulnerabilities and adaptive possibilities of the existing order. This special issue brings these two regions into a shared analytical frame to examine how their interactions shape the evolving contours of the rules-based international system.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 on","pages":"1 - 16"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147606580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introduction to the special issue on what happens in Europe matters in the Indo-Pacific: the global impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war","authors":"Shaohua Yan,&nbsp;Biao Zhang","doi":"10.1007/s10308-026-00774-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-026-00774-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 on","pages":"141 - 150"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147606479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The interplay between geopolitics and connectivity: making sense of the EU and China’s shifting approaches to the Middle Corridor","authors":"Shaohua Yan,&nbsp;Yinghao He,&nbsp;Wei Shen","doi":"10.1007/s10308-025-00760-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-025-00760-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article examines the evolving approaches of the European Union (EU) and China toward the Middle Corridor (MC), an emerging strategic route in Eurasia. While the Russia-Ukraine war has been the primary catalyst for this shift, a central puzzle emerges: is the heightened focus on the MC a temporary reaction or a durable, long-term realignment of Eurasian connectivity? The motivations for each power are distinct yet complementary. The EU is driven by the need to enhance its energy security and curb Russian influence, while China seeks to secure its transport corridors and diversify trade routes away from potential chokepoints. This paper argues that these changes are not a temporary response to the war. On the contrary, we contend that the convergence of interests on the MC represents a fundamental and long-term shift in Eurasian connectivity. This trend is further solidified by looming geopolitical uncertainties, such as the prospect of a “Reverse Nixon” strategy under a second Trump administration, which would increase vulnerabilities for both Brussels and Beijing. Ultimately, the new politics surrounding the Middle Corridor will have far-reaching geo-economic and geopolitical implications for the entire continent.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 2","pages":"373 - 393"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Charting Italy’s Indo-Pacific strategy: from Mare Nostrum to Mare Omnium?","authors":"Gabriele Abbondanza","doi":"10.1007/s10308-025-00772-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-025-00772-x","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Indo-Pacific is gradually becoming the world’s most significant maritime region in both geopolitical and geoeconomic terms. In recent years, many extra-regional actors, including several European states, have acknowledged this condition by publishing a number of Indo-Pacific strategies. In light of Italy’s economic, political, and strategic interests in this area, however, the absence of a dedicated Italian policy on the Indo-Pacific stands out. Against this backdrop, this article contributes to recent debates by providing the first scholarly research specifically assessing Italy’s potential Indo-Pacific strategy. To that end, it contextualises the Indo-Pacific’s significance and it explains the growing interest in this region with the support of international relations theories. Next, it outlines the advantages and hazards concerning the country’s renewed attention to the Indo-Pacific, which are then assessed through a cost–benefit analysis of the potential Italian strategy. It finds that although there are several potential risks, which ought to be addressed in the future, these do not pose actual obstacles to the development of a formal regional policy. Additionally, the cost–benefit analysis reveals that the advantages outweigh the risks. Consequently, it concludes that the time is ripe for the development of a multilateral, cooperative, and flexible Italian strategy for the Indo-Pacific, which this article argues would benefit from seven elements. These are <i>multilateralism</i>, <i>stability</i>, <i>prosperity</i>, <i>cooperation</i>, <i>security</i>, <i>synergy</i>, and <i>connectivity</i>. As a novel research on a significant yet under-examined topic, this article provides a useful contribution to the study of both Italian foreign policy and Indo-Pacific security.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"24 2","pages":"447 - 466"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148193815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}