NEAT MEMORANDUM No.20
NETWORK OF EAST ASIA THINK-TANKS (NEAT)

I. INTRODUCTION
As a track two process of the ASEAN Plus Three (APT), the Network of East Asia Think Thanks(NEAT) provides intellectual support for East Asia cooperation. NEAT reaffirms that the goal ofcommunity building in East Asia is to promote the well-being of the people and realize the East
Asian Vision of Peace, Prosperity and Progress. Community building should be based onuniversal values, including good governance, the rule of law, democracy, human rights, andinternational law and norms.
II. NEAT ACTIVITIES IN 2023
This year NEAT has virtually organized its core activities as follows:
1.

NEAT Country Coordinators’ Meeting (CCM)
The 37th and 38th NEAT CCMs were held on 31 March 2023 and 17 July 2023 respectively
via Zoom platform under the host of NEAT-China. These meetings were participated by
NEAT Country Coordinators with their delegations.

2.

NEAT Working Group (WG) Meetings
In addition, 3 WGs were organized under the following themes in 2023:
1) Belt and Road Initiative: Partnership for Enhancing Regional Connectivity (13 June byNEAT-Laos)
2) Toward Enhancing Food Security in the East Asia (21 June by NEAT-Japan)
3) The Revitalization of ASEAN Plus Three: Towards Stronger Functional Cooperation
and Greater Visibility (23 June by NEAT-Korea and NEAT-Indonesia)

III. RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the outcomes of NEAT activities in 2023, NEAT submits key recommendations in threefollowing areas to the APT leaders for consideration.
1.

Belt and Road Initiative: Partnership for Enhancing Regional
Connectivity
Since its inception, the BRI initiative has made positive contributions on socio-economic
development of the BRI participating countries. However, there are certain challenges to beaddressed. These include a growing competition among existing and emerging cooperation
mechanisms and initiatives in the Mekong Sub-region, inadequate infrastructure, skilled
labour and lack of production capacity in some participating countries as well as
displacement, social disruption and environmental issues. Therefore, in order to make the
BRI more impactful and ensure that the benefits are maximized, recommendations are put
forward as follow:
1) There is a need for high-level political will, trust and commitment to ensure thesuccessful implementation of projects under the BRI initiatives qualitatively andefficiently by improving legal frameworks, judicial system and law enforcement
capabilities as an effort to create a more favorable environment to build confidence
for both domestic and foreign investors.
2) The implementation of “open, clean, and green” BRI projects is a shared
responsibility between China and the recipient countries. Therefore, BRI projects’design and implementation should be based on meticulous calculation, detailed
planning, and serious commitment by both parties. Responsible agencies from bothsides must practice good governance ideals such as transparency, participation,inclusivity and social and environmental accountability to effectively respond tointerests and concerns of the local communities.
3) Debt sustainability framework should be developed between China and the BRI
participating countries, taking into account the national capacities and developmental
context of the countries involved to ensure debt sustainability and social andeconomic growth.
4) There should be more production capacity cooperation between the more developed
and developing nations. Technological and skill transfer from the advanced to smaller
economies should be taken place, so that the small economies will be able toenhance their competitive production capacities, which will, in turn, benefit themeconomically and increase the promotion of local employment.
5) It is equally essential to invest in soft infrastructure development including ICT andtrade facilities, including synchronizing standards, rules, regulation, cross-borderprocedures and customs which will allow goods, services and people to flow moresmoothly.
6) In addition, there is also a need to explore the possibility of Third-Party Market
Cooperation among East Asian economies (10+3) under the BRI framework.
7) Lastly, encourage exchange of information and dialogue among cooperation
frameworks, with a view to promoting effective synergy among them.
2.

Toward Enhancing Food Security in the East Asia
The importance of food security is reminded even in the 21st century. APT Emergency RiceReserve (APTERR) and ASEAN Food Security Information System (AFSIS) have madegreat contributions, but many challenges, consolidated with other problems such as poverty,
natural disasters and climate change, still remain to be solved. The recommendations are:1)

We should make best efforts to raise the public awareness of this problem to wider
stakeholders. AFSIS and APTERR should play an important role in this field.

2)

3)

4)

5)

3.

It is desirable to further enhance the activities of APTERR and AFSIS. The AFSIS
should improve its functions for early warning and more accurate statisticalinformation. Utilizing remote sensing data, micro-level information and big data are
conducive to accurately serving the concerning stakeholders internationally anddomestically.We also recommend the expansion of crop coverage in the Rice
Growing Outlook (RGO) report.
To promote regional cooperation, the three large economies, including Japan, Chinaand Korea, should provide experiences and technical assistance for the design andimplementation of right measures for achieving our purpose.
Taking into consideration of the budget constraint, it is curious to establish links andcooperation with other institutions, such as government agencies, internationalorganizations, research institutes, and key enterprises in the industry.
Keeping our eyes on the future direction of the organizations involved, we confirmed
the importance of strengthening the framework and cooperation with concerned
institutions such as APTERR to enhance the sustainability of AFSIS activities in aself-reliant way.

The Revitalization of ASEAN Plus Three: Towards Stronger
Functional Cooperation and Greater Visibility
The ASEAN Plus Three (APT) has served as a central platform for functional cooperation
among East Asian nations across political-security, economic, and socio-cultural domains
since its establishment in 1997. However, in recent years, the APT has been faced withmultifaceted challenges within and outside the region. Therefore, against this backdrop, toidentify current functional challenges and crises that could impact an East Asian community
building and explore ways to revitalize the APT, the recommendations are proposed asfollow:
1) Establish the East Asia Vision Group III to review ASEAN Plus Three cooperation ingeneral and the Work Plan 2023-2027 in particular, as well as to recommend concretemeasures and directions for further enhancing, expanding, and deepening ASEAN
Plus Three cooperation in the future. This initiative is timely and crucial, considering
the evolving regional and global order since the aftermath of COVID-19.
2) Prioritize functional cooperation within the APT to address emerging challenges topeace and prosperity, encompassing both traditional and non-traditional security
issues such as climate change, digital transformation, cybersecurity, health security,
food and energy security, supply chain disruption, financial cooperation, preventive
diplomacy, transnational crimes, and trafficking, by maximizing existing mechanisms.
This should be facilitated by the engagement of broader stakeholders, including
tracks II and III, in the APT's functional cooperation process to make APT Framework
be truly people-oriented.
3) Integrate ASEAN Plus Three economic cooperation into existing regionalarchitectures, including the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific (AOIP) and the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
4) Enhance ASEAN centrality in the regional architecture as well as effective

coordination between ASEAN and the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat, andharmonize the ASEAN Plus One initiatives with China, Japan, and Korea, whichshould serve as building blocks towards revitalizing the APT process.
The detailed recommendations refer to the WG reports in the Annexes.
IV.CONCLUSIONNEAT greatly appreciates serious consideration by the APT SOM, Ministers and Leaders of
the recommendations in this Memorandum, and welcomes opportunities to interface furtherwith decision-makers. We reiterate our continued support to build a sounder, healthier andflourishing East Asian Community. We look forward to making further contribution towards
the socio-economic development of the community in the region.
V. Annexes