Peace, stability, economic prosperity and development, both sustainable and inclusive, are worthy aspirations by any measure. They are the stated goals of ASEM, the Asia-Europe Meeting of governments, which is committed to achieving them through ever greater connectivity.

Twenty-five years old, ASEM adopted its strategy of ‘physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity’ in 2015, a time when the tectonic plates of international relations were shifting as China started to actively implement its own connectivity strategy, the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative. At the same time, the global mood was pushing environmental sustainability ever higher up the agenda, with its innate demands for collaboration, whilst Russia and India were developing their direct transport links. That North-South Corridor route starts by sea, from Mumbai to improved port facilities in Iran, and connects with a massive infrastructure project, 20 years in the making and serving 11 partner countries: India, Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey and Ukraine. The route is 40 percent shorter than the traditional sea route to Russia and northern Europe, via the Suez Canal, and the cost of transporting goods this way is 30 percent cheaper than by sea. Trade between India and Russia is strong, even if the mutual admiration that existed when the project was first conceived might have waned as India has looked increasingly to USA for friendship, Russia towards China.

The Chinese operations demanded a counterbalance of influence, power and investment from both Europe and the USA. With Italy and several eastern European countries already participating in Belt and Road projects, Beijing’s influence was getting too close to home for the EU’s comfort. Beijing’s Initiative, involving 130 countries across five continents, involves great quantities of Chinese money, typically for large construction projects. It has been criticised both for failing to maximise local benefits, with projects employing up to 86 percent of imported Chinese labour, and for creating debt. In Sri Lanka, for example, when the country defaulted on repayments to Beijing the Chinese accepted the lease on a major port in lieu of payment. China’s developing economic interests brought with them considerable political influence: Europe had reason to be concerned.

Who would not want better connections to Asia? With 61 percent of the global population and a level of GDP higher than the rest of the planet combined it is home to the world’s fastest growing economies. This is certainly the attraction that spurred the newly Brexited United Kingdom to apply to join the CPTTP.

But Asia starts from a low base. The Asian Development Bank has calculated that the continent’s infrastructure requires an investment of €1.3Tn every year, until 2030, if its growth momentum is to be maintained whilst tackling the climate change imperative. By comparison, Europe will require a mere €1.5Tn in total for developing its own transport infrastructure, over the same period; and a Euro buys more in Asia than it does in Europe.

What does connectivity look like? Research for the European Commission, published in 2021, analysed no fewer than 30 aspects of countries’ mutual connectivity, categorising those connections as Physical, Economic, Political, Institutional or People-to-people in nature. The elements ranged from logistics and tourism to 4G mobile coverage and embassy networks, from technical trade barriers and tourism to student mobility and migration. The latter two are matters of balance; the movement of people, such as the efflux of Indian entrepreneurs to America, can be seen both as the creation of positive opportunity and a negative brain drain. Alongside this study the research focused on 19 aspects of sustainable development across 11 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

The research findings were stark: of ASEM’s 51 members, 30 of the European states were amongst the 31 best connected nations, where they were joined by Singapore (in fourth position). Of the 20 remaining countries, the least well connected, only Russia and Kazakhstan were European. Patterns of connectivity suggested that Singapore, Japan and South Korea were, unsurprisingly, closest to Europe in their approach to connectivity. Whilst there was some suggestion that sustainability policies were more active in countries with a smaller land mass and a higher GDP, typical of Europe, those with the most sustainable practices were inevitably those with the lowest carbon footprints, the least developed economies of Asia.  There is clearly much work to be done to ensure that connectees benefit appropriately from their connections, otherwise connectivity may be seen to perceived as cementing pre-existing relationships and hierarchies rather than creating new ones.

In the 21st century connectivity is not confined to physical connections: it involves virtual congress, too. Literally underlying the world wide web of the internet is a global infrastructure of at least three quarters of a million miles of sophisticated cabling. The first successful such cable, beneath the Atlantic, was laid in 1866 and the transatlantic corridor remains the busiest route to this day. But there are now well over 350 undersea cables serving the internet, constructed at an average cost of $350Mn each, carrying clicks at unimaginable speeds. Almost all of the cables are owned by private companies, not governments or international bodies, and they are thus largely outside democratic or government control. Together, Google (You Tube in particular), Netflix and other streaming services account for over a third of traffic. 97 percent of all information and telecommunication traffic now goes via the internet, including $10Tn-worth of financial transactions each day.

Figure 1 Internet cables join Asia to the World (India Times)

As our figure shows, Asia is a growing and crowded place for undersea internet cabling. The Tokyo to Singapore route, through the South China Sea and passing along the entire Chinese coastline, is a highly concentrated forest of fibres. Mumbai is a terminal for no less than eleven of them. Yet although India has a reputation as the ‘call centre for the world’, internet traffic between India and western Europe – for which there is rapidly growing demand – relies on just three cables, presenting a relatively high risk. Technological failure is a constant concern as cables are vulnerable to weather, earthquake and sabotage, especially where they come ashore. Recent years have seen all three factors wreak damage in different places.

In January 2021 the European Parliament called upon the EU to raise its eyes from Asia and embark upon a connectivity strategy of truly global proportions. It recommended that this should be developed from good practice established through ASEM, the EU-Japan Partnership on Sustainable Connectivity and Quality Infrastructure, in particular, and the forthcoming connectivity partnership with India. Rapporteur Reinhard Bütikofer, MEP, wrote passionately about the fundamental role that connectivity plays in the geopolitical relations of the EU, arguing forcibly that a global strategy would strengthen the bloc’s role as a geopolitical and geo-economic actor. The ASEM research referred to above demonstrates the potential for reaping the benefits of connectivity whilst falling short of massive success. Connectivity must promote development, sustainable and responsible, otherwise it becomes little more than a European vanity project. Knowledge transfer enabled by connectivity, something advocated by EAF, has huge potential for Europe to forge stronger partnerships with democracies around the globe, uniting countries that share fundamental values. If China is ceded global hegemony the danger is that the Chinese, rather than Asia more generally, even the world as a whole, will be the ultimate beneficiaries. The EU needs to redouble its efforts to connect both more and better with other continents, including Asia, in a spirit of friendship and support.

Sources:

Prospects for EU-Asia Connectivity (EU Parliament) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/690534/EPRS_BRI(2021)690534_EN.pdf

How the Internet Spans the Globe https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/1/241709-how-the-internet-spans-the-globe/fulltext

Exploring the link between Asia and Europe connectivity and sustainable development https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590051X21000101

Submarine Cables (National Bureau of Asian Research) https://www.nbr.org/publication/submarine-cables/

A Giant Web of Submarine Cables Connects India to the Internet and World https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/news/submarine-cable-network-india-internet-link-world-537327.html (also source of diagram).