"CEAC Commentary" introduces news analyses andopinions in Japan on the concept of an East Asian
Community, but they do not represent the views ofCEAC as an institution.

February 26, 2010

A Testing Time for Discussions on an East Asian
Community
By ISHIGAKI Yasuji
Towards the end of the year 2009, we have seen convened a series of suchimportant official fora on regional cooperation in East Asia as ASEAN Summit,
ASEAN+3 Summit, East Asia Summit, APEC Summit, etc., just as in the previousyears. In the wake of those events, universities, think-tanks, newspapers have been
holding seminars and symposiums to discuss afresh numerous topics related toregional cooperation in the region. Here, let me make some notes in retrospect.
First of all, discussions on an East Asian community have regained wide
attention both at home and abroad, to a large extent, because an East Asian
community building is counted among the main pillars of Japan’s foreign policies
launched by the Hatoyama Administration. It is worth noting that, as a consequence,a great number of intellectuals, politicians, academics, and journalists not only inJapan but also in Europe, the U.S. and other Asian countries, many of whom had
paid little attention to movements of regional integration in East Asia andAsian-Pacific region, have come to join and get actively involved in the discussions.
Some newcomers are prone to neglect what have already achieved or thoroughly
discussed on this topic and hasten to draw such conclusions as “under the current
situation, there is no point of discussing a community building in this region,
because it is a totally unrealistic concept.” Therefore, in a sense a gap betweenproponents and opponents might have even widened.
Secondly, there has already been a consensus among the governments of
ASEAN Plus Three countries that, in pursuit of a community building in East Asia,
ASEAN Plus Three process will continue to be the main vehicle, while theframework of East Asian Summit including Australia, India, and New Zealand,should also be considered as a significant alternative. The recent discussions,however, point to the geographical scope of the community building expanding
beyond East Asia in a strict sense to a broader area of entire Asia-Pacific region,
spurred by a suggestion repeatedly made by Prime Minister Hatoyama thatengagement of the U.S. in the community building should be necessary or an idea of“Asia-Pacific Community” pushed for by Prime Minister Rudd of Australia.
Thirdly, with the expansion of the geographical scope as mentioned above, itwould become practically impossible to achieve the realization of such an East Asian1community, with substantial tight-knit regional integration institution as those
proponents visualize. Hence in such case an East Asian community might end up
following in the footsteps of APEC and become a merely nominal community as aloose regional cooperation framework.
Fourthly, while the efforts in pursuit of an East Asian community building
were initiated by a small number of intellectuals called the "East Asia Vision Group(EAVG)," hereafter the Track-one diplomatic talks and negotiations among thegovernments concerned in the region will become increasingly important.
Nevertheless, the Track-two discussions and exchange of views will remain as
important as before as arena to promote and give directions to those talks andnegotiations. To sum up, the efforts and discussion for “an East Asian community”
are now facing a critical testing time that have never been experienced before.
(This is the English translation of an article written as personal view by Mr. ISHIGAKI
Yasuji, Delegate for Japan to AALCO and Former Professor of Tokai University, which
originally appeared on the BBS “Hyakka-Somei” of CEAC on December 3, 2009.)

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