The activities that are carried out within the Asia Programme constitute a multidisciplinary approach to the reality of the continent of Asia and to the relationships which are established between Spain and the European Union and these countries. With the objective of promoting knowledge and favouring the strengthening of mutual relationships, five priority areas of research are established:

1. America – Asia relation and Spain – Latin America – Asia triangulation

After proposing a possible roadmap for Spain – Latin America – Asia triangulation, posed as a promising strategy and full of possibilities for the three vertices that comprise it, and after bringing together some of the triangular practices that already exist in the business world, evaluating the benefits that could stem from them for Spain, during 2007 the Programme aims to do deeper into the general framework of Asia – America relations especially, exploring the most favourable situation for Spain as an international actor.

2. Asian migrations, Asian communities in Spain and in Mediterranean Europe and foreign policy

Continuous throughout 2007, research on the economic activities of Asian communities, a research project in the network that is expanding in Spain (Research Network on Asian Communities in Spain, RICAE) and that has begun its projection toward Mediterranean Europe, with the intention of jointly analysing the diasporic and transnational spaces, which revitalise local economies and which the Asian communities established in southern Europe are weaving together.

3. Economic emergence and civil society in Asia

The great potential of such economies as that of China and India is often the point of departure for the composing of new geopolitical scenarios in which the centre of gravity of the international scene moves toward Asia.

4. Transition processes, political dialogue and insertion of the Asian powers in the international system

Asia is a key piece for analysing what the 21st century is and could be like. The international order depends to a fair extent on how the principal Asian actors end up inserted into the international scene and how some situations of conflict that are the focus of world attention are resolved.

5. Central Asia in the 21st century: From a peripheral region to an emerging area

During the year of the Spanish presidency of the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe (OSCE), Central Asia has become the protagonist of many of the activities of the ASIA Programme.