The EU and Asia within an evolving global order: what is Europe? Where is Asia?

Abstract

The papers in this special edition are a very small selection from those presented at the EU-NESCA (Network of European Studies Centres in Asia) conference on "the EU and East Asia within an Evolving Global Order: Ideas, Actors and Processes" in November 2008 in Brussels. The conference was the culmination of three years of research activity involving workshops and conferences bringing together scholars from both regions primarily to discuss relations between Europe and Asia, perceptions of Europe in Asia, and the relationship between the European regional project and emerging regional forms in Asia. But although this was the last of the three major conferences organised by the consortium, it in many ways represented a starting point rather than the end; an opportunity to reflect on the conclusions of the first phase of collaboration and point towards new and continuing research agendas for the future