Event reports
The findings of the studies „Asia in the Eyes of Europe“ and „EU in the Eyes of Asia“, that have been carried out in several Asian and European countries in 2011-2012, were presented in the framework of a book presentation. The basis of these studies is an analysis of the national media (newspapers, television, etc.), public opinion (internet surveys) and the prevalent opinions of the political and economic elites.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Wolfgang Röhr, German Consul General in Shanghai, emphasised the diversity of Asia, which renders it difficult to regard it as a single unit. Regional institutions like ASEAN are barely known in the general public in Europe. Therefore, European media commonly reports about single countries, particularly the People’s Republic of China.
Prof. Martin Holland from the National Centre for Research on Europe (NCRE) in New Zealand laid out the most important conclusions from the study „The EU through the Eyes of the Asia-Pacific – Post Lisbon Perceptions of the EU”. In the Asian press, reports on Europe focus mainly on economic topics, which can among others reasons be attributed to the current European sovereign debt crisis. Additionally, only few articles solely addressed the EU. The analysis also shows that EU institutions are much less in the focus than single member states. People primarily associate national heads of government, especially chancellor Angela Merkel, as faces of the EU, rather than the high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy or the president of the European Commission. The EU is widely considered as positive and efficient. However, in none of the studied Asian countries is the EU seen as the most important partner; it often ranges far behind the United States and China.
In his presentation of the study „Asia in the Eyes of Europe – Asia’s Rise as seen from Europe“, Prof. Sebastian Bersick from Fudan University offered significant insights. When looking at Asia, Europeans put individual countries, particularly China, in the forefront. For example, the “rise of Asia” is commonly mainly associated with the “rise of China”. The emphasis in media reports lies on economic issues; there are barely any articles about the political integration of the region or regional organisations. Thus, the study suggests to strengthen the exchange of European and Asian civil societies as well as to convey an image of Asia that goes beyond China.
In the following debate it was discussed how to dynamically capture the results over a longer period of time. Participants agreed that the study should go on in order to be able to analyse the development of mutual perceptions again in five to ten years. It was critically commented that news about Asia in Europe come almost exclusively from western news agencies. Prof. Bersick therefore proposed to foster the exchange of journalists from both continents.