How are the rising mutual concerns of Asian and European countries shaping their approaches to the international order? Contributors to this volume discuss emerging critical issues in International relations, including the Indo-Pacific constructs, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the progress of established regional security mechanisms like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. They also compare western and non-western approaches to these issues, with a holistic perspective on the origins and evolutions of these approaches. Both the Indo-Pacific constructs and BRI present a remarkable set of opportunities for Europe as well as Asia. This book presents key implications of the changing politico-security dynamics in the two regions from the perspectives of both Asian and European scholars and theoretical traditions. A must-read for scholars of International Relations with a focus on relations between Asia and Europe.

This volume presents three claims regarding the role of middle powers in the 21st Century: first, states aspiring to become or remain middle powers choose from three possible role: to be a global middle powers; to be a regional pivot; or to be a niche leader. Second, states seeking such roles need different mixes of hard and soft power sources. Third, more so than great or small powers, middle powers walk a thin line between the domestic and systemic pressures they face. In this volume, these claims are based on (comparative) case studies of Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, and Turkey.

This unique book provides both Asian and European perspectives on a diversity of topics concerning the relationship between Asia and Europe. There are in-depth analyses of the most crucial issues including historical and cultural links, political aspects and linkages, and economic partnerships.

This book explores the opportunities and challenges that both Europe and Asia face under the framework of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative. The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSR Initiative), put forward by the Chinese government together with the Silk Road Economic Belt, reflects China’s ambition and vision to shape the global economic and political order. The first step and priority under the MSR Initiative, according to documents issued by China, is to build three ‘Blue Economic Passages’ linking China with the rest of the world at sea, two of which will connect China with Europe. This initiative, however, still faces enormous challenges of geopolitical suspicion and security risks. This book seeks to assess these risks and their causes for the cooperation between the Eurasian countries under the framework of MSR and puts forward suggestions to deal with these risks in the interdisciplinary perspectives of international relations and international law. Featuring a global team of contributors, this book will be of much interest to students of Asian politics, maritime security, international law and international relations.

Escaping the economic and security-centered approaches, prevalent in contemporary U.S. debate the contributors explore political relations between the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).Their inter-disciplinary perspectives touch on domains such as security, comparative integration, human rights, energy.

Over 250 Princeton alumni and friends from 17 countries and from classes spanning a 66-year period attended the Conference. The presentations were of high quality, as can be seen from the proceedings. The speakers and other participants came from different national and cultural backgrounds and represented different points of view. For example, in discussing US-Asia relations James Baker represented an American viewpoint, while in the same session Yoshio Hatano represented a Japanese point of view, as did Toyoo Gyohten in a different session on economic issues. This valuable volume is a collection of frank and insightful essays on Asia-Pacific by notable Princetonians who are influential in the region.

This book analyzes the Central Asian economies of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, from their buffeting by the commodity boom of the early 2000s to its collapse in 2014. Richard Pomfret examines the countries’ relations with external powers and the possibilities for development offered by infrastructure projects as well as rail links between China and Europe. The transition of these nations from centrally planned to market-based economic systems was essentially complete by the early 2000s, when the region experienced a massive increase in world prices for energy and mineral exports. This raised incomes in the main oil and gas exporters, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan; brought more benefits to the most populous country, Uzbekistan; and left the poorest countries, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, dependent on remittances from migrant workers in oil-rich Russia and Kazakhstan. Pomfret considers the enhanced role of the Central Asian nations in the global economy and their varied ties to China, the European Union, Russia, and the United States. With improved infrastructure and connectivity between China and Europe (reflected in regular rail freight services since 2011 and China’s announcement of its Belt and Road Initiative in 2013), relaxation of United Nations sanctions against Iran in 2016, and the change in Uzbekistan’s presidency in late 2016, a window of opportunity appears to have opened for Central Asian countries to achieve more sustainable economic futures.

This book argues that Europe, through the European Union (EU), should act as a great power in the 21st century. The course of world politics is determined by the interaction between great powers. Those powers are the US, the established power; Russia, the declining power; China, the rising power; and the EU, the power that doesn’t know whether it wants to be a power. If the EU does not just want to undergo the policies of the other powers it will have to become one itself, but it should differ in its strategy. In this book, Sven Biscop seeks to demonstrate that the EU has the means to pursue a distinctive great power strategy, a middle way between dreamy idealism and unprincipled pragmatism, and can play a crucial stabilizing role in this increasingly unstable world. Written by a leading scholar, this book will be of much interest to students of European security, EU policy, strategic studies and international relations.