The EU’s Experience in Integration: A Model for ASEAN+3?

The thirteen ASEAN+3 countries are inching forward toward closer economic cooperation. Can the European Union serve as a model for this Asian interregional integration process? Although there are common cultural threads running through all ASEAN+3 countries, these countries have not so far envisaged themselves forming a political and supra-national legal community similar to the EU. Nevertheless, the EU as innovator and forerunner offers Asia an unparalleled road map to further regional integration.
Where are the boundaries of the European Model? What form will Asian economic cooperation take? Asian and European scholars discussed these and other pressing questions on the invitation of the EU-China European Studies Centres Programme (ESCP) at a conference entitled «The EU’s Experience in Integration – A Model for ASEAN+3?» held in Shanghai in January 2006. Their findings are presented in this collection of fifteen papers on politics, economics and history of the two regions.

The Editors: Lisheng Dong is Professor of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), China, and Chinese Director of the ESCP Management Office. He has published 11 books and 13 refereed articles and contributed to 13 books. Professor Dong’s monograph entitled A Comparative Study of the Central-Local Government Relations in EU Member States (Beijing 2000) was well received in China.
Günter Heiduk is Professor of International Economics at Duisburg-Essen University, Germany, and Director of the Asia-Pacific Economic Research Institute. He has been a visiting Professor at leading Chinese and Japanese universities. He has published 20 books and more than 40 articles in academic journals. Professor Heiduk initiated the East Asian Studies Programme at Duisburg University and founded the Schriftenreihe zur Ostasien-Forschung journal where he is now co-editor.