Approaching East Asia: the EU's Foreign Policy towards China and Japan.

Why is the East Asia region so important for the European Union? What are its interests and what challenges does it face? How it approaches its main strategic partners in the region, the People's Republic of China and Japan? The current paper is trying to answer these questions providing an analysis of the foreign policy of the EU in the region as it has formed throughout the last decade. It focuses mainly on a brief review of the literature and the research progress which has been accomplished so far with the purpose of identifying new challenges, weaknesses and factors that need to be included in future research. In the first part, there will be an effort to describe the interests, priorities and challenges of the Union. In the second part, there will be an analysis and description of the EU foreign policy towards its two major partners in East Asia, highlighting the main elements of their bilateral relationships. Lastly, there will be an effort to provide the future trends and possible actions to be taken by the EU, in order to further consolidate its presence in the area via a multifaceted strategy as presented at the EU Global Strategy of 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]