The third leg of the global strategic triangle — Asia-Europe relations — has always been the weakest of the three. The Asia Europe Meeting, otherwise known as ASEM, was designed to remedy that shortcoming. The need for meaningful dialogue between the two poles has become even more important as the world reels from the recent financial crisis. At a meeting last weekend in Beijing, leaders from Asia and Europe endorsed revision of global financial rules. Turning that consensus into concrete measures, however, remains a challenging assignment.
The 45 heads of state who joined the seventh ASEM meeting recognized "the need to improve the supervision and regulation of all financial actors, in particular their accountability" and pledged "to undertake effective and comprehensive reform of the international monetary and financial systems." Their joint statement declared that "The market and regulatory failures that have led to this crisis must be addressed as a matter of urgency."
But recognizing a crisis is never the hard part: Fixing it and preventing future occurrences is. The ASEM meeting is not designed to craft those solutions. The burden for that falls on a Nov. 15 meeting hosted by U.S. President George W. Bush, and consensus on the appropriate measures to adopt will be hard to come by, even as stock markets continue their slide and financial institutions lurch.