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

October 22, 2008

Six-Year-Old NEAT Scores HighBy ISHIGAKI Yasuji
The Council on East Asian Community (CEAC) organized its 28th Policy Plenary
Meeting on 19 September to hear reports about the 6th Annual Conference of the Network of
East Asia Think-tanks (NEAT), which was held on 24-25 August in Bali, Indonesia. Having
attended that Policy Plenary Meeting and heard reports from Japanese delegates who attendedthe NEAT Annual Conference, I , as an ex-insider of NEAT, felt fairly encouraged to learn thatNEAT has made a steady progress despite some twists and turns on its way. NEAT is asecond-track organization which was founded upon the government-level agreement of ASEAN
plus Three countries. As one of those regional cooperative frameworks working towards an East
Asian Community building, NEAT exhibits an interesting dimension of antiphony with different
interests and ideas of the respective ASEAN plus Three countries, as if it were an East AsianCommunity building put into rehearsal.
The NEAT in its initial period of 2003 to 2004, which was developed by the 1st and2nd Annual Conferences in Beijing and Bangkok, was shaped by such a strong initiative ofNEAT China that it was at first proposed that the organization of NEAT should be governed bya pair of permanent General Coordinators, one from China and another from Thailand, while thesecretariat of NEAT should be permanently placed in Beijin.

However, this was apparently

counter to the common international practice of running an international organization.

When

this was pointed out, China showed wisdom to agree with Japan that the secretariat should beprovided by the incoming host of an Annual Conference and the host should perform the role ofthe chairperson during the year.

The result was the adoption of the Basic Rules andFrameworks of NEAT at the 2nd Annual Conference in Bangkok. Thus, NEAT grew up to atruly international organization operating under the principle of equality of member countries.
The 3rd Annual Conference held in Tokyo in 2005 marked an important juncture.
Since then, such NEAT member countries as Japan, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Korea,Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia have, at their own initiatives, organized Working Groups onsuch topics as investment, trade, environment, energy, non-traditional security, etc. And theachievements reached at those Working Groups have been reported to every Annual Conference
thereafter. The Policy Recommendations which Japan drafted as the host country of the 3rd
Annual Conference, by compiling the reports of various WGs as well as the fundamental ideas
and principles for an East Asian Community building, were unanimously adopted, and later
submitted to the ASEAN plus Three Summit held in the same year in Kuala Lumpur. The
Chairman's report of the Summit took note of the NEAT recommendations.

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Since then untilnow it has become customary that the ASEAN plus Three Summit annually takes heed of theNEAT Policy Recommendations.

I must say that the six-year old NEAT scores high.

(This is the English translation of an article which originally appeared on the BBS"Hyakka-Somei" of CEAC on 3 October, 2008.

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