Bandung – Indonesia encourages people-to-people exchanges within the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) framework in response to growing global geopolitical tensions. This was stated by the Director of American and European Intra and Inter-regional Cooperation, Nidya Kartikasari in the ASEM Day 2023 seminar titled “Reigniting ASEM: the Future of Asia and Europe from Asia’s Perspective”, organized by Indonesian Foreign Ministry, Parahyangan Catholic University (UNPAR) and Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF) (8/3).
Teuku Rezasyah, expert in international relations, highlighted that Russia-Ukraine conflict and US-China rivalry have altered the dynamics between Asia and the West, including Europe. Teuku believes that intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations have been unable to stop the conflict. Rather, it is economic interdependence that has the power to reduce conflict.
His view is in line with Purwadi Hermawan’s who regards that the importance of ASEM to Europe is as a means to establish norms and market gateway to Asia.
Geopolitical tension
Nidya underlined that the presence of global geopolitical pressure, such as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, greatly affected cooperation in intergovernmental fora, including ASEM.
This calls for a breakthrough in track II diplomacy that involves public, so that connectivity between the two regions does not come to a halt.
This is the role that should be filled by the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF), an organization operating under the auspices of ASEM that is mandated to promote people-to-people exchange in Asia and Europe.
ASEF Executive Director, Ambassador Toru Morikawa explained that ASEF has 700 projects/activities in the fields of culture, education, government, economy, media, health, and sustainable development, collaborating with more than 800 partner organizations.
Among its flagship activities are the Asia-Europe Cultural Festival and the ASEF Young Leaders Summit, an inter-regional forum aimed to produce visionary young leaders.
“The activity is open for public, including students, academics and youth,” Nidya said.
Lurong Chen, a researcher from ERIA sees that in fact the two regions can encourage greater connectivity through digital cooperation. However, in many developing countries, digitalization faces serious limitation in capital and human resource capacity, increasing the possibility of potential risks such as data leakage and misuse.
ASEM Day 2023
ASEM Day is celebrated every March as an effort by member countries to increase ASEM’s visibility to the public.
Compared to the other regional organizations, the existence of ASEM is not well known, even though ASEM is the only Summit-level organization that connects Asia and Europe region.
As in previous years, the ASEM Day seminar received positive response from the public, especially students, academics and international relations enthusiast. More than 200 people attended the event which was held both online and offline.
Ambassador Soemadi Brotodiningrat saw that ASEM connected “the still unconnected dots in the global triangular geopolitical construct”, namely the North Atlantic (NATO), Pacific Rim (APEC), and Asia Europe (ASEM).
ASEM initially consisted of 26 countries, and has since expanded to include 51 countries, plus ASEAN and the European Union.
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