NEAT Working Groupon
Institutional Sustainability of NEAT:
Towards the East Asian Community
Final Report

Seoul
June 2016

1

1. Introduction

The Network of East Asian Think-Thanks (NEAT) has functioned as a pivotal
intellectual venue for sharing ideas and promoting mutual understanding towards the East
Asian Community since its inception in 2003. Throughout the numerous workshops andmeetings organized, NEAT has promoted the academic exchanges and provided intellectual
insights for East Asian cooperation. A wide range of issues such as the architecture ofcommunity building, enhancement of cultural exchange, energy security cooperation,
investment and financial cooperation and so on, has been discussed to yield academic
findings and resulted in numerous policy recommendations. Such intellectual outputs by
NEAT have been reported to the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) Summit to be materialized into
actual policy measures/projects of cooperation. Indeed, NEAT has served as a key route toconnect academia to the world of policy making of APT process in fertile ways.
However, NEAT may not be immune from the ups and downs of the regionalism inEast Asia. The re-surfacing strategic rivalries between/among the major regional powers,
despite the mushrooming regional cooperation, have become more of an hindrance than an
asset to build the East Asian community, which NEAT has pursued over the last 20 years.
It is evident that East Asia is by no means a hermetically sealed entity but a dynamicallytransforming creature.

Since shaping and sharing norms through socialization andaccumulated experience of cooperation is often distorted by strategic differences, NEAT
needs to prove its efficiency in coping with regional challenges especially in traditional andnon-traditional security issue areas.
NEAT emphasizes that enhancement of the level of institutionalization of NEAT is
the key to properly responding to the demands of heightened intellectual contributions
toward the building of East Asian Community. Main activities of NEAT, according to its
official website, are to “… facilitate the theoretic research on the integration andcommunity building of East Asia”. Unfortunately, there are still considerable gaps between
the current institutional arrangements and desirable monitoring/implementation of therecommendations suggested by NEAT. To narrow such gaps, NEAT is supposed to secure2

institutional capacity to produce outputs that are well-valued, and to function beyond theindividual segmented projects so that it can ensure a sustained, useful and valuable
contribution to the process of building a regional community. An institution includes rules,
procedures and organizations that help shape patterns of behavior, interaction, roles etc. ofmajor actors. Despite the achievements that will be mentioned below, it should be admitted
that NEAT has operated at a relatively low level of institutionalization over the last 20
years. Indeed, there remains a lot of work to do for NEAT to evolve as a stable institution
with productive and firm roles and functions.
NEAT, as a representative of Track II bodies, needs to review and re-examine its
roles and functions within the APT process and East Asian community building. There are
increasing demands for regional arrangements for institutional connectivity by facilitating
discussions and in-depth inquiries to reach a consensus on feasibility and priorities in aharmonious way. In our view, NEAT is still the best platform to meet such demands.

2. An Overview of NEAT Development and Achievements

There has been a great reap forward towards East Asian regionalism since the firstmeeting of APT in 1997 amid the East Asian financial/economic crisis. In particular, themechanism of APT has contributed to enhance cooperation for mutual understanding andactual economic benefits. In addition to the 68 formal mechanisms that compose the APT
cooperation framework, the member countries pursue networking of Track 2 and Track 1.5
meetings, too. East Asia Forum (EAF), began in 2003, is the representative of Track 1.5
cooperation mechanism.

Likewise, Track 2 cooperation is being pursued through the

Network of East Asian Think Tanks (NEAT), which was established by the East AsianStudies Group (EASG) in 2002. In the Vision Group Report, article 69 recommends theestablishment of a network of East Asian think tanks to explore long-term policy issues ofstrategic importance to the region. The APT SOM has restated through its annual meetings
and the APT Cooperation Work Plan (2013-2017) that the Track 2 mechanism such as
NEAT should be strengthened.

3

NEAT processes would not have been possible without a certain level of
institutional development. The Second Annual Conference of NEAT held in August 2004
adopted the “Basic Rules and Framework of NEAT”, which has served as a NEAT Charter.
The organization of NEAT is consisted of 3 elements; 1) NEAT Country Coordinators
Meeting (CCM), 2) NEAT Annual Conference (AC) and 3) NEAT Working Group
Meeting. The regular meetings comprising these three elements are held annually, with the
CCM and AC rotated among the member countries. Arising from these NEAT meetings is
a consolidated recommendation paper or NEAT memorandum to be submitted to the APT
Summit through the APT SOM for policy considerations.

Table 1. Topics of NEAT Working Group MeetingsYear

Moderator

Topic

Area

Country
2005

2006

China

Financial Cooperation in East Asia

E

China

Investment Cooperation in East Asia

E

Japan

East Asia’s Role in Resolving the New Global Imbalances

E

Japan

Overall Architecture of Community Building in East Asia

PS

Malaysia

Concepts, Ideas and Empowering Guidelines for East Asia

I

Singapore

Energy Security Cooperation in East Asia

PS

China

Financial Cooperation in East Asia

E

China

Investment Cooperation in East Asia

E

Japan

Overall Architecture of Community Building in East Asia: Regional

PS

Architecture for Non-Traditional Security and Environmental
CooperationJapan

Trade-FDI-Technology Linkages in East Asia

E

Japan

Intra-regional Exchange Rate Stability and Prevention of Financial

E

Crisis in East Asia

2007

Singapore

Investment Cooperation in East Asia

E

Singapore

Energy Security Cooperation in East Asia

PS

China

Financial Cooperation in East Asia

E

China

Investment Cooperation in East Asia

E

4

JapanOverall Architecture of Community Building in East Asia: Regional

PS

Architecture for Non-Traditional Security and Environmental
Cooperation

2008

Malaysia

East Asian Cooperation Framework on Migrant Workers

SC

Singapore

Energy Security Cooperation in East Asia

PS

China

East Asian Financial Cooperation

E

China

East Asian Investment Cooperation

E

Japan/

East Asian Environmental Cooperation

PS

Korea

Enhancement of Cultural Exchange in East Asia

SC

ThailandFuture Direction of NEAT

I

China

Financial Cooperation in East Asia

E

China

Investment Cooperation in East Asia

E

Japan

East Asian Food Security

PS

Korea

Enhancement of Cultural Exchange in East Asia

SC

Singapore

Environment Towards a Livable and Sustainable Urban Environment:/JapanEco-cities in East Asia

PS

China

East Asian Trade and Investment Facilitation

E

China

Financial Cooperation in Response to Post-Crisis Challenges

E

Japan

East Asian Food Security

PS

Korea

Enhancement of Cultural Exchange in East Asia

SC

ThailandEast Asia’s Evolving Regional Architecture

I

Singapore

Water Resource Management

PS

China

Trade and Investment Facilitation and Connectivity

E

China

Regional Cooperation on Disaster Management

PS

Japan

Disaster Management in East Asia

PS

Korea

Enhancement of Cultural Exchange in East Asia

SC

China

NEAT: The Next 10 Years

I

Japan

Regional Cooperation on Disaster Management in East Asia

PS

Korea

Enhancement of Cultural Exchange in East Asia

SC

Singapore

Inclusive Growth: A New Development Challenge and a New Ground

E

Singapore

2009

2010

2011

2012

for Regional Cooperation
2013

China

Financing Infrastructure Connectivity in East Asia

E

Japan

Enhancing People to People Connectivity-Education, Tourism andSC

Cultural Exchange

5

2014

Indonesia/

Inclusive Growth(Phase II) Social Welfare Policies in East Asia: Sharing

E

Singapore

Experiences for a New Ground of Regional Cooperation

China

Accelerating the RCEP Process through Strengthening APT Cooperation

E

Japan

Enhancing People to People Connectivity-Education, Tourism andSC

Cultural Exchange

2015

2016

Indonesia

Governance of Extractive Industries in East Asia

E

Singapore

A New Wave of Urbanization

SC

China

East Asian Poverty Reduction

SC

Japan

Maritime Cooperation in East Asia

PS

Singapore

Urbanization

SC

Thailand

Towards Seamless Connectivity

E

China

East Asian Economic Community

E

Japan

Enhancement of Regional Health in East Asia with Special Reference toPS

the Public Health and Universal Health

I

Korea

Institutional Sustainability of NEAT

E

Thailand

Toward Seamless Connectivity

E: economic community, PS: political-security, SC: socio-cultural, I: Institutionalization

During the last 13 years, NEAT has made meaningful contributions to East Asian
community building processes on the firm basis of practical approach. By the end of 2016,
NEAT will have held almost 60 working group meetings and produced equivalent numberof working group reports, covering regional architecture building, financial cooperation,
investment cooperation, trade and economic integration, cultural exchange, non-traditional
security, environment cooperation, energy security cooperation, migrant workers, foodsecurity, disaster management, trade and investment facilitation and connectivity,
urbanization, migration, East Asian Economic community 2020, public health, etc. (see,Table 1). By 2016, NEAT will have conducted 14 ACs and 25 CCMs, and submitted 13
NEAT Memoranda—policy proposal papers—to the APT Summit, winning increasing
recognition from Track 1 processes. As it grows, NEAT has successfully established itself
as a leading Track 2 process under APT framework, playing important roles to build East
Asian community.

6

Increasingly recognizing the virtue and the valuable intellectual contributions of the
NEAT, the idea of enhanced relationship between NEAT and the track 1 processes has
been put forward in various occasions. For example, the APT SOM, held on 18 May 2013
mentioned the necessity to form a closer linkage with the NEAT, to enhance Track 1
officials’ participation and interaction with Track 2. The APT SOM, held on 9 October
2015 expressed appreciation to NEAT for coming up with recommendations as outlined in
the NEAT Memorandum No.12. and reiterated the importance for this platform to becontinued. At the 18th APT Summit in November 2015, the APT Leaders acknowledged
the contribution made by Track 1.5 and Track 2 and further welcomed the contribution of
NEAT in supporting East Asian community-building and noted with interest NEAT
Memorandum No. 12.
Despite these achievements of NEAT, it still remains a loose institutionalized entity
which arose as major challenges for its practice which we shall turn to next.

3. The Challenges ahead

3.1 Positioning NEAT in relations with Track 1

It has long been advised for the NEAT CCM and NEAT ACs to strengthencommunications with Track 1 in order to efficiently direct NEAT recommendations to the
APT SOM and Summit. The 11th NEAT annual conference held in August 2013 in
Malaysia noted the participation of Track 1 officials and advised for this platform to becontinued in the forthcoming NEAT meetings. The 20th NEAT CCM, held in June 2014 in
Cambodia also agreed to invite the representative of ASEAN Secretariat to get supporting
information to the meetings such as the progress of APT cooperation and relevant rules,
regulations, and procedures in ASEAN. However, this agreed principle to engage Track 1
officials and ASEAN Secretariat in NEAT meetings is still not firmly established. It should
be noted that the involvement of the track I officials tend to rely on individual capacity of
the host person rather than on institutionalized procedure.

7

For instance, both of thepresences of a SOM leader at the 20th annual conference in Malaysia in 2013 and theASEAN Secretariat officer at the 22nd CCM in Indonesia in 2015 were realized regardlessof the institutional capacity of NEAT.
There has been a great diversity of NEAT’s coordinating institutions in terms of its
relations with the Track 1.

The majority of the institutions are autonomous andindependent academic institutions but, in some cases, depending on the varied conditions ofeach member countries, involvement of Track 1 may be opted. Thus, they may haveregular reporting lines to the government or relevant agencies but some others may nothave been successful in having such regular communication links.
One of the challenges NEAT encountered is to enhance the implementation of therecommendations submitted to the APT leaders.

To do so, on the one hand,recommendations are supposed to further focus on the state of affairs, but, on the other,
they should be streamlined and coordinated with the policy makers.
In order to enhance smooth communications with track 1, the regular attendance of
the NEAT chairperson to designated Track I or other Track II meetings to report the
progresses of the WG and annual meeting recommendations need to be considered. The
recent practice is expected to secure a regular communication channel between the two
tracks. In addition, NEAT has yet to establish an official coordination with the ASEAN
Secretariat even though the APT SOM has requested the ASEAN Secretariat to develop
more engagements with NEAT, there is still a loophole in getting connected with a proper
agency under the Secretariat.

3.2 Enhancing the level of institutionalization

NEAT internal process and function need to be consolidated with further
institutionalization. Although NEAT meetings have convened without a hitch since its
inception, NEAT still lacks a consolidated procedural mechanism. Neither a secretariat incharge of routine administrative work nor an overall blueprint or strategy for long-term
development has been established.

8

NEAT should prioritize the agendas of WG meetings and ACs with the focus oncommon interests of the APT countries and multilateral cooperation rather than individual
or bilateral interests. NEAT should deal with the topics of interest carefully considering its
two-pronged effects that may impede the dynamics of NEAT cooperation. There is ashared recognition among NEAT members that it is in need of a kind of administrative
supports for smooth functioning and should embrace a long-term vision to increase therelevance of NEAT with the evolving regional architecture. Composed of the WGs and
ACs where the issues of common concern are brought up for general discussion, NEAT has
enormous potential to be a far better platform to discuss cross-cutting themes and suggest
practical measures that will develop strategies and propose recommendations to improvethe coordination, implementation and reporting of the wide-ranging measures envisioned in
the APT Cooperation Work Plan and EAVG II report, etc.
To optimize NEAT institutionalized process, NEAT may consider the possibility ofcreatinga NEAT secretariat and making use of its function to increase NEAT capacity andpublic profile. For example, NEAT can expand the scope of activities to cover more APT
agendas such as facilitating the research on East Asia integration and community building,promoting collaborative study and research that help shaping the future direction of East
Asian regionalism, and providing support for regional development on the priority areas
identified by APT Track I meetings.
The decision-making system for chairing CCM and AC, and hosting WG has been
based on consensus with voluntary bids. The voluntary consensus bids system has been
regarded and functioned as an ideal mechanism as it would not reveal the differences ofwillingness and capacity of the member countries. However, as the record of 13 years
demonstrates, such system has witnessed serious imbalance in hosting WGs and chairing
CCM and AC (See table 2).

Certain member countries do not seem to have paid

appropriate attention to NEAT, appeared inactive, or even been invisible in the process of
NEAT.

It is necessary to develop more rational and participatory system to attract

increased attentions from the member countries.

9

Table 2. Host of Working Group and Annual Conference of NEAT by country
Countries
Brunei
Cambodia
China
Indonesia
Japan
Korea
Laos
Malaysia
MyanmarPhilippines
Singapore
Thailand
VietnamNo. of Working
Nil
Nil
19
3
15
7
Nil
4
Nil
1
10
3
Nil

No. of Annual
Nil
1
2
2
1
1
Nil
2
Nil
1
1
1
1

3.3 Managing Working Groups

The working group mechanism is one of the core elements of NEAT as academic
fora to deal with wide spectrum of relevant issues. NEAT CCM may coordinate with otheragencies whose areas of expertise are in line with the specific themes of the WG. It isnecessary for the WGs to be advocated by the specialists in order to ensure that therecommendations are reliable and practicable in the eyes of the APT leaders. However,there have been some limitations in practice as joint pre-study or follow-up research
impaired the quality of the research and the relevance of NEAT policy recommendations.
For the WGs, NEAT members have to raise fund on their own from government,
businesses, institutions or others to sustain their activities and researches. There is a huge
difference in financial capacities of the members. Hosting NEAT meetings seems to bemainly dependent on the availability of financial support. Hence, without stable financial
support, full participation of each member and the sustainable development of NEAT
cannot be guaranteed in the future.

10

NEAT is necessary to maintain publicity to enhance its influence in the future.
NEAT has limited contacts with the media and the public. Thus, few studies and findingsof NEAT have reached beyond its own circle of academics and Track I process. To
enhance the educational function of NEAT and upgrade its influence, more attempts toelevate its public profile is necessary. In this regard, NEAT website should be properly
upgraded to be readily reachable and practically usable. The host country is supposed to
attract more public participation to this knowledgeable gathering, considering that this open
and inclusive process will encourage participants to have extensive discussions andinteractions both within and beyond their academic span. Moreover, the positive impacts
deriving from the conferences that combine the dual-track participation is foreseen as agood platform for international academic collaboration.
NEAT has a potential to function as an epistemic community where participating
scholars may have opportunities to develop common understandings and solutions forvarious regional issues through exchanges and sharing of vision, information, andknowledge. NEAT need to upgrade itself by employing more pro-active approach invarious respects.

NEAT’s function can be enhanced and upgraded by inviting moreacademic people and specialists to its organization and activities. It needs to set up a
database covering and accumulating a pool of intellectual assets with policy implications.
Likewise, the key coordinators of Track 2 should be accommodated by Track 1 to establish
communication networks between the two tracks. Networking with the public is also oneof the key areas of concern for NEAT to focus on. So NEAT need to engage in developing
its networking with general public and media and to increase publicity through various
methods including publications, website, lectures, forums, etc.

4.

Policy recommendations

11

Against the backdrop of a series of profound and complex changes of regional andglobal environments, NEAT is at a crossroad as it has to cope with such a new situation.
Fundamentally, NEAT should strengthen its function by enhancing institutional capacity toensure the sustainability of both its organizational development and contributions to East
Asian integration. Through the discussions of the working group on “Institutional
Sustainability of NEAT: Towards the East Asian Community”, participants collected andsuggested policy recommendations listed below.
First, establish the NEAT secretariat. It is agreed that NEAT need to make somemodifications on its operation mode to adapt itself to the evolving regional environment.
Along with such line of thinking, participants of the NEAT working group strongly
recommend the establishment of the NEAT secretariat that can serve as a coordinator
covering communication, documentation, management of official NEAT website, and otherrelated works.
Second, improve the chairmanship system. For those member countries that could
not host Working Group meetings for some reasons, it is encouraged to employ the methodof co-hosting at present stage upon agreement of the co-hosts. We already have some casesof successful co-hosting of working group meeting and research. The accumulation ofexperience and know-how will help NEAT’s adoption of new system of hosting WG
meetings. In the long run, NEAT may consider shifting the chairmanship system of themeeting from voluntary bids to a rotational system of the whole member states to safeguard
stable participation, to enhance legitimacy, and to cover wider variety of regional issues.
Third, enhance institutional connectivity between Track 1 and Track 2. NEAT
proposes the regular attendance of a SOM member of hosting country as well as
representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat to NEAT AC. Feedback, advice, or guidance
to the NEAT recommendations is expected to be delivered by participated Track 1 and
ASEAN secretariat. In a similar vein, NEAT need to seek representation at important
Track 1 and Track 2 regional forums, and strengthen close communications with thosegroups through regular meetings and discussions especially with SOM+3 or DG+3 and the
APT unit at the ASEAN Secretariat.

Only through institutionalized and close

12

communications with Track 1, policy recommendations will have higher possibility of
implementation.
Forth, interact more with other APT Track II initiatives. NEAT is supposed toenhance its horizontal networking by encouraging and facilitating exchanges of personnel
with all other parties related to the processes of APT Track II initiatives, in particular, East
Asia Forum. NEAT suggests that NEAT chair to be regularly invited to EAF on behalf ofacademia to share and discuss the ideas and knowledge they collected to contribute to theprocesses of East Asian community building.
Fifth, diversify funding sources. While continuing to safeguard financial support
from their respective national governments, NEAT members are advised to fully utilize
available funds from domestic, regional and international sources, and to develop
partnership with private sector actively. For instance, APT Cooperation Fund is definitely
an ideal source for joint research on strategic issues. In line with the decisions of the APT
SOM in 2013, the ASEAN Plus Three Cooperation Fund can be considered for financing
the NEAT secretariat, NEAT WGs and for the rotational hosting of NEAT CCMs and ACs
too. The long-term goal may be to establish the “NEAT fund.”13