AEI Insights Vol. 1, No. 1 - 2015

Contributor Biographies

Ramon Pacheco Pardo is a Lecturer in International Relations at King’s College London. He is also a Committee Member of CSCAP EU and a Research Fellow at LSE IDEAS and the Lau China Institute. His main areas of research include EU-East Asia relations, the international relations and political economy of East Asia, and the EU’s economic and foreign policy. Peer-reviewed publications include articles with Asia Europe Journal, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific and Journal of Contemporary China, among others. His book North Korea-US Relations under Kim Jong Il: The Quest for Normalization? (Routledge) was published in 2014.

Matias Thuen Jørgensen is a PhD student in tourism management at The School of Hotel and Tourism Management, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Prior to this, he has worked with tourism related research independently and as part of the Tourism Research Unit at Aalborg University, Denmark, from where he holds an MA in Tourism. His current research interests include Chinese tourism and its effect on incoming markets, as well as the roles of and relations between tourism actors in different tourism destinations.

Carina Ren holds a PhD in Tourism Studies and is Associate Professor in tourism cultures and cultural innovation at Aalborg University, Denmark. In her research, she has looked into the performative role of culture in destination development and in nation branding, particularly through large scale events such as the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai and the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen.

Pekka Korhonen is a Professor of World Politics at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He has done research on international and political theory, theory of argumentation, Asia Pacific integration, East Asian politics, Asia-Europe relations, and history of the concept of Asia. In 2014, during the period of writing this article, he is also a visiting scholar at both Kyoto University and Renmin University of China. Some of his publications include Japan and the Pacific Free Trade Area. Routledge, London & New York, 1994; Japan and Asia Pacific Integration: Pacific Romances 1968-1996, London and New York: Routledge, 1998 and Katalin Miklóssy & Pekka Korhonen (eds) The East and the Idea of Europe. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.

Ulrich Volz is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, SOAS, University of London. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the German Development Institute and a Honorary Professor at the University of Leipzig. In 2012 he was a Visiting Professor at Peking University. Ulrich spent stints working at the ECB and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and held adjunct or visiting positions at the University of Oxford, Hertie School of Governance, University of Birmingham, Freie Universität Berlin, ECB, Bank Indonesia, and Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. He was also a Fox International Fellow and Max Kade Scholar at Yale University.

Ansgar Belke is Full Professor of Macroeconomics and Director of the Institute of Business and Economic Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Since 2012 he is (ad personam) Jean Monnet Professor. Moreover, he is member of the Adjunct Faculty Ruhr Graduate School in Economics and visiting professor at the Europa-Institute at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, and the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin. Formerly, he held Full Professorships for International Economics at the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim and for Macroeconomics and Applied Econometrics at the Main University of Vienna and was a member of the Adjunct Faculty Stuttgart Institute of Management and Technology. He was visiting researcher at the IMF in Washington/DC, CentER Tilburg, CEPS Brussels, IfW Kiel, DIW Berlin and OeNB Vienna. Furthermore, he has been Research Director for International Macroeconomics at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin.

Fumitaka Furuoka is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya. Previous to the current position he taught economics at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNMIAS) from 1999 to 2003 and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) from 2003 to 2012. He was also a Senior Assistant at the Consulate-General of Japan at Penang from 1991 to 1999. He is a Life Member of the Malaysian Economic Association. Fumitaka Furuoka is the author of several books and numerous articles on economic development.

Mi Park is currently a guest professor in the European School of Business (ESB) at Reutlingen University in Germany. Her work on international political economy, trade liberalization and social movements in East Asia has appeared in many international journals such as Globalizations, Critical Sociology, and the Asia-Europe Journal. Dr. Park is the author and co-author of scholarly publications including Democracy and Social Change (Peter Lang 2009), Student Activism in Asia (University of Minnesota Press 2012), and Free Trade and Transnational Labour (Routledge, 2014).

Message from the Executive Director

Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya (AEI-UM) is the realization of Malaysia’s commitment to the Inaugural Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit held in Bangkok in March 1996. The Asia-Europe Centre (AEC) was consequently established at the University of Malaya on 1 December 1997. The commitment of AEC is to promote and enhance linkages in higher education between Asia and Europe. In January 2000, AEC transformed into what is now known as the Asia-Europe Institute (AEI). The current aim of AEI is to enhance the cooperation between Asia and Europe in the field of higher education. In this view, I am delighted to introduce you to the inaugural edition of AEI Insights: The International Journal of Asia-Europe Relations. Hence, AEI Insights has been established as an annual, peer reviewed journal in order to contribute further to the achievement of the abovementioned objectives. It is our sincere intent at AEI that this publication will facilitate the promotion of findings resulting from collaborative research within academia as well as government and private sector institutions.

The collaboration of knowledge regarding Asia-Europe relations and the discourses connected to this issue shall be extended through this publication. This journal occupies an important area in this dialogue and opens up new opportunities to members of this conversational community to expand understanding through research. The establishment of this academic resource also serves as a foundational source of shared concepts, complementary plans for research, as well as support for the social sciences and humanities to catalogue the progress of the relationship between Asia and Europe.

This inaugural edition of AEI Insights features a selection of eight scholars that contribute timeless and critical points to the issue of international relations. A contemporary global positioning is introduced through the view of antiquity with Dr Pekka Korhonen providing historical cartographic accounts of conceptual, political, and geographical foundations of where the ideas of Asia, Africa, and Europe originated to help with a greater understanding of the direction ASEM may take. Dr Mi Park illuminates the growing assertiveness of China with regard to bilateral trade relations with the European Union and what future geo-political implications this may have for the world economy. Professor Dr Ansgar Belke and Associate Professor Dr Ulrich Volz share a view of the European Central Bank and its approach to maintaining the Euro’s position against other international currencies. Dr Carina Ren and Matias Thuen Jørgensen show the expansive trend of Chinese tourism and the response from a Scandinavian perspective. Professor Dr Fumitaka Furuoka addresses the continuing development of China’s currency entering into a role of significant influence within new patterns of East Asian regionalism. Dr Ramon Pacheco Pardo concludes this selection by providing a view of the direction that relations and regional dialogues between East Asia and the European Union may be taking currently.

These selections provide voices from current conversations within relationally regional spectrums, but more importantly impart themes consistent with the scholarly motivations of AEI. As AEI continues to provide a venue for intellectual discourse on globalization, regionalization, and inter-regional relations between Asia and Europe, this inaugural issue enables the expansion of that venue for widening this area of discourse. So too is the Socio-Cultural Pillar of the ASEM Process given further promotion by inviting more scholars to create new dialogues on the relations between Asia and Europe. As such, AEI Insights will continue to promote and advance findings resulting from collaborative and inter-disciplinary research to help future academics and leaders in this region not only face the rapid changes of this world, but shape and guide these changes.

It is through this publication that thanks are given to the authors that have contributed to the inaugural edition of AEI Insights: The International Journal of Asia-Europe Relations and I look forward to future submissions to the journal.

Associate Professor Dr Md Nasrudin Md Akhir
Editor-in-Chief, AEI Insights Vol. 1
Executive Director
Asia-Europe Institute
University of Malaya