2010-E-4
ASEAN+3: Becoming more like a normal regionalism?
Takashi Terada
Professor, Organization for Asian Studies,
Waseda University
February 2011

A revised version will be published as a chapter in Mark Beeson and Richard Stubbs (eds.) Routledge
Handbook of Asian Regionalism, Routledge, 2011.

Introduction
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus Three (hereafter ASEAN+3) began
discreetly in Kuala Lumpur in December 1997 as a symbolic sideline event marking the30th anniversary of ASEAN. Malaysia, which held the ASEAN Chair, invited only threeleaders from China, Japan and South Korea. It was believed that Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamed finally had succeeded in materialising his long-cherished
East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) plan, which had been strongly opposed by the
US during the early 1990s. However, the inaugural ASEAN+3 Informal Summit
Meeting was held in the midst of the Asian financial crisis, and Mahathir only proposedthat the ASEAN+3 leaders meet in 1998. Vietnam, the next ASEAN Chair, also invitedleaders from three Northeast Asian countries to the Hanoi summit, ensuring the further
institutionalisation of East Asian regional cooperation. It was only after the ASEAN+3
Finance Ministers Meeting in Hanoi in March of 1999 that the term ‘ASEAN+3’ waswidely used. Finally, the ‘Joint Statement on East Asia Cooperation’ was launched forthe first time in history by the 13 heads of government at the 3rd Informal Summit
Meeting in Manila in November 1999. The Statement broadly describes the aim of theASEAN+3 meetings,1 but the fact that all leaders from East Asian states gathered andlaunched the joint statement as a collective voice for East Asia was criticalsymbolically.
It was not until the 2000 ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers Meeting that East Asian
regionalism established a substantive and concrete regional cooperation mechanism.
This was the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI), which included a network of currency
swapping and repurchasing arrangements, and showed the degree of the impact 1997-8
financial crisis on East Asian nations. Since then, the ASEAN+3 process has expanded
the areas of functional cooperation, which now includes senior officials, ministerial andheads-of-governments meetings. As a result, ASEAN+3 now covers twenty policy areas
with fifty-seven bodies, including one Summit, fourteen ministerials, nineteen Senior
Officials, two Directors-General, eighteen technical-level meetings and two other track
meetings and establishing itself as a fully-fledged regional institution in East Asia.
Although another regional institution representing East Asia, the East Asian Summit(EAS), was established in 2005 as a result of a power struggle between China and Japan(and the United States), ASEAN+3 is now viewed as ‘the main vehicle towards
1

It was decried as to “enhance interactions and foster closer links through increased opportunities
for cooperation and collaboration, thereby strengthening the promotion of mutual understanding,trust, good neighbourliness and friendly relations, in the interest of furthering peace, stability andprosperity in the region.”1

achieving an East Asian community,’ while EAS is referred to as playing a‘complementary’ role according to the 2ndSecond joint statement launched by
ASEAN+3 leaders in 20072.
The first ten years of ASEAN+3 were characterized by three features which appeared tochallenge established orthodoxies of the study of regionalism. First, ASEAN+3 is thefirst regional institution in Asia that excludes the United States as an official member.
The United States had previously demolished any Asian regional proposal which
excluded its participation, as seen in cases of the East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC)
and Asian Monetary Fund (AMF). There are at least three reasons behind the US
absence or exclusion from ASEAN+3: the US disengagement from the Asian financial
crisis; Malaysia’s decision not to invite non-East Asian nations to the inaugural
ASEAN+3 summit in 1997; and the US ‘benign neglect’ attitude towards ASEAN+3
development. The second feature is that financial cooperation as embodied in CMI
became the first and foremost agenda in ASEAN+3, illustrating an anomaly from theconventional path of regional integration taken elsewhere (Dieter and Higgott 2003).
This bilateral approach to financial cooperation, together with a constellation of bilateralrather than regional Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), signified the lack of a regional
approach to formal integration in East Asia. Finally, as the name ‘ASEAN Plus Three’signifies, ASEAN, as a group of fragmented and relatively small economies unable toenjoy the benefits of economies of scale in production, has been allowed to organise theannual summits in Southeast Asia, treating the three big powers in Northeast Asia as
guests. This position of ASEAN makes it possible for the ASEAN leaders to advocate
for ASEAN centrality in East Asian cooperation, while powerful nations such as Japanand China that normally take a leadership role in regional institutions and integration
have seemingly taken on a secondary role. However, ASEAN’s capability to lead East
Asian regionalism has been questioned by scholars such as Jones and Smith, and thequestion of who leads and who becomes a driving force has been a major contested
issue in the ASEAN+3 intellectual discourse.
This paper aims to examine these three features in order to illustrate the uniqueness ofthe birth and growth of ASEAN+3, an unusual regional institution. It then argues
that East Asia, especially in the ASEAN+3 process, has witnessed the transformation ofthese three features since 2009 due to three factors. First, increased US engagement inEast Asia has been propelled by the Obama administration partly through its
2

http://www.aseansec.org/21099.htm
2

participation in the East Asian Summit (EAS), representing a sharp contrast to theapathetic attitude under the Bush administration. Second, the momentum behind
Trilateral cooperation among China, Japan and Korea has been growing, which appears
to challenge the ASEAN centrality formula. Finally, regional integration through ‘+3’and ‘+6’ frameworks officially began, driven by the establishment ofgovernment-involved feasibility studies of regional FTAs as well as themultilateralisation of CMI, a development which represents a moving away from abilateralism-oriented integration approach for East Asia. Although Webber (2010)
asserts that from the perspective of European experiences, ASEAN+3 has beenpromoting cooperation and not integration, more than ten years has passed since its
establishment and these recent changes may suggest a possible employment of more
serious approaches to regional integration in East Asia.
Origins
A regional concept that identifies its geographical boundaries is necessary for any
regional grouping; without clear and agreed-upon boundaries, there can be no
demarcation of the region upon which regional institutions are based. In the 1990s, theconcept of ‘East Asia’ developed through a combination into regional unity ofNortheast Asia and Southeast Asia, which served as the formation and development for
the ASEAN+3 meeting. Until the appearance of the abortive EAEC idea, put forward by
Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia in 1990, there was no strong conceptual
framework for regionalism in East Asia as a whole. Although Malaysia’s EAEC
concept was not realized, it contributed to the establishment of the ASEAN+3 meetings
in that EAEC created the East Asian concept, without which the framework ofconnecting Northeast Asia with Southeast Asia, the regional setting in the ASEAN+3
meetings, could have been accepted by the regional states. A Filipino senior official
then in charge of ASEAN matters was reflective: “any form of East Asia cooperation,
be it a Summit, or an ASEAN+3 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, arose out of the initialidea of EAEC that ASEAN should pursue cooperation with its East Asian neighbors, as
it showed a link between the concept of the EAEC and the ASEAN+3 meetings”(personal correspondence, 3 March 2001).
I have emphasized elsewhere the importance of acclimation for a new regional concept
as a basis for the creation of any regionalism to be accepted among potential members,
and applied it to the case of the emergence of ASEAN+3. This acclimation occurs
through the socialization of the concept through official diplomacy, academic or3

business gatherings, social publications and speeches (Terada 2003). It was stressed that
centripetal forces identified as a ‘common Other’ and a `common experience ofproblems’ reinforced the acclimation process, helping to distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them’and to entrench a collective ‘regionness’ among states. The Asian financial crisis(common experience) and the expanding regionalism in Europe and the Americas(common others) played important roles, contributing to the clearer sharing of the East
Asian concept by the member countries, and culminating in the consolidation of East
Asian unity, the establishment of the ASEAN+3 meetings in 1997 and the launch of key
policy directions such as a currency swap arrangement of CMI to prevent a second
financial crisis from occurring. From this analytical viewpoint, the creation of
ASEAN+3 can be seen as a responsive arrangement to existing (financial crisis) andpotential (challenging growing regionalism elsewhere) problems.
As briefly described in Introduction, the ASEAN+3 meetings were discreetly
established, and especially in the case of Northeast Asia, leaders’ interest in nurturing
this regional institution have gradually grown (Terada 2003). Given this steady
beginning, the ASEAN+3 development needed a sound future vision, and it was South
Korea who took an initiative. 3 In 1998, South Korean President, Kim Dae Jung
proposed the establishment of the East Asian Vision Group (EAVG), which consisted ofeminent experts representing each member state, to map out the major purposes, basic
principles, and specific measures of cooperation. It submitted a report to the ASEAN+3
Summit in 2001 that included proposals of the East Asian summit, the East Asia Forumand the East Asia Free Trade Area as long-term goals. Then, the East Asian Study
Group (EASG), which was composed of senior officials from member states, wasassigned to review the EAVG report and to provide more realistic plans for East Asian
cooperation in November 2002, breaking down twenty-six projects into long-term,
mid-term, and short-term categories. This mapping-out process of the two study groups’
reports suggested the desirability of a more vigorous political connection between
ASEAN and Northeast Asia, enabling East Asian leaders to identify common positions
more easily and to mobilize the region more effectively, providing a quick response tofurther economic problems in the region through coordinating policies and setting
cooperative directions collectively for the welfare of the region. Yet, the path towards
the realisation of the two concrete programs, the East Asian Summit and the East Asian
FTA, proved to be thorny.
3

The EAVG Report was published by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP),
in which the EAVG Secretariat was also located.
4

U.S. exclusion
ASEAN+3 became the first regional institution in Asia to exclude the United States, amajor importer of Asian products and a stabilizer of regional security. The United Stateshas been a key participant in major Asian regional institutions such APEC, the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF) and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC). Yet,with its geographical position located at the Pacific Rim, its erratic commitments to theregion as seen in its hesitation to rescue Thailand and Indonesia during the Asianfinancial crisis, and its inevitable involvement in global issues which diverts US humanand financial resources away from Asian issues, US participation in East Asian
regionalism has been always contested.
Fred Bergsten emphasises the inappropriateness of the US participation, borrowing
from practices other regional institutions have employed: “Asians are not invited to theperiodic Summits of the Americas (and that neither Americans nor Asians are invited to
the frequent summits of the European Union)” (Bergsten 2007: 3). Noboru Hatakeyama,
a former Vice-Minister of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry,also indicated that participation by the US would be difficult if an East Asian FTA were
to be formed, because the US does not geographically belong in East Asia (cited in
Terada 2010: 87). There is, however, a contrary view that East Asian regionalism such
as ASEAN+3 would “have little substantive effect if it excludes the United States, themost important provider of markets, capital, technology, and political stability”(Munakata 2006: 15). Although regionalism is discriminatory, which means that
non-members are not allowed to enjoy any benefit accrued from regional cooperation
including trade liberalisation within the region, the United States has not sought toparticipate in the ASEAN+3 integration process. There are at least three reasons behind
the US absence.
First, the establishment of ASEAN+3 amidst the gloom cast over the region in the wakeof the Asian financial crisis was a factor behind the US reluctance. The United States
turned its back on a strong commitment to rescue the region, and moreover, the UnitedStates and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), were staunchly opposed to the AMF
idea, proposed by Japan’s Ministry of Finance in September 1997 as an Asian financial
institution with an initial capitalization of US$100 billion. The United States thought of
the AMF as eroding the significance of the US-dominated IMF, causing a moral hazard
problem for borrowers.4 The US attitude was viewed as putting a higher priority on the4

China was also opposed to the AMF proposal. China was approached by the United States and5promotion of “Anglo-American style capitalism than [on] solving the financial crisis,”strengthening the perception in East Asia that the IMF was looking to protect theinterests of Western monetary institutions and to open Asian markets for Western firms
at the expense of Asian workers and the sovereignty of Asian countries (Bowles 2002:
237-8). In East Asia, this led to mistrust towards the IMF and anger against the UnitedStates and, since then, has sparked East Asian interest in strengthening ties with eachother and forming organizations to prepare for possible future disasters.
Second, as mentioned earlier, the Malaysian Prime Minister invited only leaders from
China, Japan and Korea, and not from any other ASEAN dialogue partners such as theUnited States. Mahathir’s EAEC proposal had been demolished by the United States,
indicating its reluctance to share the limelight with another initiative that could
drastically lower American influence in the region. The US placed strong pressure on
Japan, which was expected by Malaysia to play a leading role in the initiative, not toparticipate in EAEC. Annoyed by the US opposition, Mahathir boycotted the APEC
inaugural summit meeting initiated by US President Clinton in Seattle in 1993. It is thus
rational to presume that Mahathir had no interest in sending the US President an
invitation letter to the 1997 inaugural ASEAN+3 meeting in its capital.
Third, the United States did not oppose the development of the ASEAN+3. For instance,
Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly considered it as ‘an interesting development’and ‘a very healthy kind of dialogue within East Asia.’ This view was echoed by thethen US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who mentioned that the United States‘welcomes closer regional integration in Asia’ and ‘is not worried about exclusion’from ASEAN+3 (cited in Capie 2004: 160). This was mainly because, unlike the casesof EAEC and AMF, ASEAN+3 was established without any clear future agenda andwith only a tentative path toward institutionalization, leading the Americans to conclude
that it would be mostly process-oriented and thus relatively harmless to US interests.
Yet, as discussed later, the United States was forced to change its ‘benign neglect’attitude toward East Asian regionalism due to two substantial developments in East
Asia in the 2000s: the rise of China, and the growth of preferential trading arrangements
promoted by East Asian states. The United States was concerned that China’s rapid
economic growth with its huge market was exerting an overwhelming influence on
came to see Japan taking advantage of its neighbours’ weakness during the financial crisis to assert
regional monetary hegemony (Moore 2004: 120).
6

regional trends in East Asia, and that the China’s rise due to its aggressive trade
diplomacy had become responsible for the regional proliferation of FTAs, which
excluded the United States.
ASEAN-centred approach
The second feature which challenges regionalism orthodoxies is that ASEAN isunderstood as taking a leading role, as is symbolised in the name of ASEAN+3. Despite
the small size of most members, and so the political and economic unfeasibility of
their leading the big countries, in the regional integration process, be it ASEAN+3 or
ASEAN+6, ASEAN is supposed to function as a hub by signing the five ASEAN+1
FTAs with China, Japan, Korea, Australia/New Zealand and India. Therefore, ASEAN
leaders have, on various occasions and platforms, consistently highlighted the central
role ASEAN has played in leading and shaping the development of the regionalarchitecture of East Asia, including ASEAN+3. On the occasion of the 43rd Anniversaryof ASEAN on 7 August 2010, for instance, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan
Dung declared that “ASEAN has successfully initiated and played the role as thedriving force in [East Asia] regional frameworks” (ASEAN 2010). This regionalsituation does not sustain a claim informed by hegemonic stability theory, whichsuggests that leadership in regionalism is premised upon the use of the hegemon’s
preponderant material capabilities to facilitate the sound development of regionalism;
ASEAN is not well unified as a single player, and remains as a group of fragmented,
relatively small states that do not enjoy material predominance. ASEAN’s source ofpower may be a non-threatening posture, which seemed valuable while Japan and China
were engaged in the power struggles in East Asia and so judged it appropriate tomaintain good relations with ASEAN, the third party and a group of ten countries,
under such confrontational situations.
Evaluations of ASEAN’s role in regional cooperation, including regional integration ina wider East Asia, are starkly divided among international relations specialists.
Stressing the contribution ASEAN made by bringing three Northeast Asian countries toparticipate in ASEAN+3, Mahbubani (2008: 85) asserts that ASEAN should be viewed
as a “diplomatic superpower” and “peacemaker” in East Asia and Zhang (2010: 23)
views ASEAN as a “pathfinder in developing regional convergence in East Asia.” On
the other hand, some cast doubts on ASEAN’s commitment towards institutionalizing
the ASEAN+3 framework, as, they argue, ASEAN norms such as non-intervention and7practices of non-binding consensus prevent deeper integration within ASEAN, not tomention the wider East Asian region (Jones and Smith 2006).
‘The ASEAN Way,’ a guiding principle which informally stipulates non-intervention
and non-binding consensus approaches to regional cooperation, has been cited often as
an impediment to high level regional institutionalization, because it tends to avert
transnational cooperation that requires regulation and obligation on each state. The
ASEAN Way is primarily applied to political and security fields, but the basic idea canalso be employed in the economic field. Regional integration through FTAs, forinstance, involves legally-binding provisions for the reciprocal exchange of preferencesthat discriminate against non-partner countries, and presents itself as an inharmonious
approach with the ASEAN way. As Eaton and Stubbs (2006: 137) argue, that ASEAN
has “few centralized mechanisms” through which it can “either enforce agreements
struck between members, [or] monitor domestic events in members states” in a crisis. It
seems that a mismatch between ASEAN norms and economic integration practices has
hindered the further institutionalisation of ASEAN economic cooperation, not mention
to a wider East Asian integration including ASEAN+3.
In effect, a step toward the commencement of East Asian FTA negotiations depends on
ASEAN’s willingness to move beyond this framework. ASEAN as a loose group of
relatively small economies inevitably depends upon external economies for its growththrough FDI and exports, but its institutional significance would be diminished if alarger arrangement such as the EAFTA developed rapidly. ASEAN’s reluctance tomove trade liberalization by itself, or perhaps its inability to take a political initiative
toward a wider regional integration as a unified player, can be seen in the fact that it has
never proposed an FTA to any of those ‘+1’ partners.
One of the major factors that has made it possible for ASEAN to host the ASEAN+3
Summits is competition or confrontation, especially between China and Japan because
both nations, strongly suspicious of each other’s initiatives, tended to lack strong
incentives to drive ASEAN to side with either of them. What they tried to do to attract
ASEAN to their side was to support ASEAN as a prerequisite for East Asian integration
rather than engage in full-scale competition for regional hegemony (Terada 2006). In
fact, despite the positive evaluations of an expanded ASEAN machinery “to socialize
the [East Asian] region with the same norms and values that have proved successful inSoutheast Asia,” it is still difficult to discern any official statement which clearly8

delineates what ASEAN actually does in this context (Jones and Smith 2007a: 149). In
sum, the China-Japan rivalry which checked their mutual initiatives enabled ASEAN tooveremphasise its role with successful rhetorical portrayals.
Financial cooperation
One of the significant areas ASEAN+3 has developed is financial cooperation, as seenin the 2000 establishment of CMI, promising mutual supply of intervention funds inemergencies and in which China and Japan, holding the world largest foreign reserves,
have played a key role. The fact that ASEAN+3 began its cooperation mechanism withfinancial cooperation such as CMI indicated a salient feature of ASEAN+3, as thisinitiative represented an atypical path for regional cooperation or integration process.
Almost half a century ago, Béla Balassa published a study which classified the course ofevolution of regional integration into five stages, depending on the level of integrationachieved. The work in which the five-stage integration process was outlined has become
essential reading, and is still one of the most-frequently quoted and referred to in thefield of regional integration. However, the Balassa’s five-stage integration approach wasformulated based on the course of European integration at the time, and what Dieter and
Higgott (2003) call the Balassian understandings of trade-driven regional integration
became irrelevant in East Asia especially because the development of ASEAN+3 started
with financial cooperation.
The raison dêtre of regional cooperation lies in its function to resolve common
problems, which can be achieved only through collaboration, or to gain joint benefit
through policy coordination. In this regard, crisis occasionally serves as a powerfulstimulus for regional cooperation, and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis is a classic
example of this. Despite the failure to create the AMF due to the opposition from theUnited States and the IMF, Japan continued to be engaged through substantial total
contributions of 44 billion dollars in the IMF-led rescue packages for Thailand,
Indonesia and Korea, respectively, which suffered from severe capital shortages.
Subsequently, to establish a mechanism for crisis management and especially to counterthe influence of the US dollar, ASEAN and three Northeast Asian countries formed
ASEAN+3 and worked to increase their foreign reserves as well as to engage in the
CMI, which stipulated the bilateral swap agreements of the mutual supply ofintervention funds in emergencies.5
5

The CMI also includes the following functions: 1) an information exchange mechanism on
short-term capital movements in East Asia, including the establishment of an early warning system
9While Horst Kohler, then Executive Director of the IMF, had dismissed the concept of
the AMF, he later expressed the opinion that East Asian nations felt that such an
institution would best serve their interests (Asian Wall Street Journal, 26 September
2000). This can be seen as a growing awareness that the creation of a system tosupplement the IMF was essential, because the IMF alone would not be capable ofresponding in the event of a recurrence of another financial crisis, given the limits on
the amount of funds that it could supply. In fact, the ASEAN+3 Finance Minister’smeeting (AFMM+3) held in Kyoto, April 2007 saw an agreement on the preparationand management of foreign reserves within the ASEAN+3 framework. A system waslater established that builds on the CMI to promote a basis for creating a regional lenderin the form of multilateral assistance, indicating a possibility that ASEAN+3 wasentrenching its position as a more functional regional institution. The AFMM+3, held intandem with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meetings, has served as achief platform to advance regional financial cooperation.
Significantly, the crisis triggered China’s serious commitment to regional cooperation in
East Asia, and since then China, together with Japan, has continued to be committed toregional integration. China’s contribution to the crisis was initially found in its pledge
not to devalue the renminbi which was hailed by regional countries. The then Thai
Foreign Minister Surin remarked: “the Chinese are bearing the burden for their past
aloofness” (Straits Times, 16 December 1998). China became the first nation to offer
aid of one billion dollars when Thailand’s currency collapsed. Such a friendly gesturecontrasted with that of the United States, who “castigated the Thai Government for poor
economic management” (Vatikiotis 2003: 69). The financial crisis brought China and
ASEAN closer; as one official close to the Chinese foreign minister commented, “it wasaround that time that China ‘began advocating all countries involved should put aside
disputes and develop the region’” (Asian Times, 10 February 2004). These strengthened
relations with ASEAN acted as a foundation for China’s East Asian engagement, andthe closer China-ASEAN relations also invited Japan to be more engaged in ASEAN,
especially in the proliferation of ASEAN+1 FTAs (Terada 2010). This process became
a powerful force for the development of East Asian cooperation, including theinstitutionalization of ASEAN+3.

to monitor signs of emerging financial crises; 2) a dialogue framework for APT group discussions onreforming the international financial architecture; and 3) regularized meetings between deputy or
vice-ministers of finance to review all CMI-related developments (Dent 2008: 157).
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Transforming features: more like a normal regionalism?
While the development of ASEAN+3 towards an effective regional economic andpolitical integration mechanism has been viewed as sluggish or even problematic(Webber 2010), this stark view can be partly attributed to the three features this paper
has so far highlighted. First, the US absence, together with other Western developed
nations like Australia, contributed to the ASEAN+3 agenda’s avoiding of sensitive
political issues such as the promotion of human rights, intellectual property rights or
democracy, since China and many ASEAN members have been reluctant to deal withthese issues. Second, the CMI development, growing out of East Asia’s consensus that
financial cooperation should be promoted first as a mechanism to prevent the second
financial crisis from taking place in the region, remained as a network of bilateral swap
arrangements, lacking the political impetus to move into a regional framework. Third,
the ASEAN-centred approach symbolised the process by which ASEAN kept the major
powers engaged in East Asia as the hub and core player through ASEAN+3. However,a step towards the commencement of an East Asia FTA negotiation, be it ASEAN+3 or
ASEAN+6, depends on ASEAN’s willingness to move beyond this framework. The
lack of willingness and capability on the part of ASEAN would be a major obstacle tothe establishment of region-wide integration in East Asia.
However, some recent structural changes in East Asia have contribute to thetransformation of these three features: more serious US engagement in East Asian
regionalism; more regional approaches to financial cooperation and market integration;and more powerful impetuses towards the East Asian cooperation/integration among‘+3’ states, possibly challenging the ASEAN centrality.
US engagement in East Asian regionalism
The United States had never been interested in participating in any East Asian (asopposed to Asia Pacific) regional institution until Barack Obama assumed office inJanuary 2009 and subsequently declared himself ‘America’s first Pacific president.’
One of the first steps the Obama administration took in regard to regional engagement
was to sign ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in July 2009, fulfillingthe only precondition for official EAS participation that had not previously been met by
the United States. American interest in the EAS was then underscored by President
Obama in a speech he delivered in Tokyo in November 2009, in which he stated that US
regional engagement with EAS will be implemented “more formally as it plays a role inaddressing the challenges of our time.” Soon after, President Obama met with Southeast
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Asian leaders at the inaugural US-ASEAN Summit, held during the Singapore APEC
meeting. This involved the first encounter between a Myanmar leader and a US
president in more than four decades. Myanmar had previously been an obstacle to theUnited States signing the TAC, which includes the principle of non-interference in theaffairs of other signatories. A linchpin of ASEAN’s political values, this principle
appeared to previous administrations to restrict the scope of American regional policy,
including the possible imposition of political pressure on Myanmar to promote humanrights and democracy. In the end, the United States realized that signing TAC would notcause serious problems for its diplomacy, as many signatories—including such US
allies as Australia and Japan—have demonstrated (Terada 2006). Thus, Obama’s
decision to sign TAC and join EAS does not rule out the option to pressure Myanmar
directly, but instead promotes high-level dialogue with Myanmar. This provides a wayof enhancing the American presence in Southeast Asia amid the growing Chinese
influence in the region, which has been palpably articulated in ASEAN+3 and throughwhich China could gain predominant influence.
The US engagement in East Asia, especially through the participation in EAS, has
contributed to the rise of the ASEAN+6 framework as a rival institution to the existing
ASEAN+3 one, which may encourage the latter to accelerate its regional integration
programs including a regional FTA. Yet, the ASEAN+3 structure in which most of themembers are developing countries and China acts as a representative in this groupremains unaltered, so it is a future question as to how the US engagement in EAS andEast Asia as a whole will or not urge ASEAN+3 to tackle, for instance, the promotionof universal values such as democracy.
Emerging ‘+3’ cooperation
As mentioned earlier, there has been a lingering doubt about ASEAN’s capability tolead East Asian cooperation through ASEAN+3. For instance, Jones and Smith argue
that “ASEAN itself is an empty vessel. It can be easily manoeuvred by external powers
who, like Japan and China, use the rhetoric of regional solidity to pursue theirself-interested competition for regional hegemony” (Jones and Smith 2007b: 163). Thisview is further elaborated on by Ravenhill (2010: 201) who asserts that ASEAN+3
cooperation is “initiated and financed by one of the Plus Three countries with little or no
input from the others” representing “a series of ‘bilateral’ ASEAN Plus One projects …
rather than ‘East Asian’ schemes”. Despite these consistent criticisms against ASEAN,
the ASEAN-centered approach in ASEAN+3 could be sustained as far because more12

powerful ‘+3’ states were not interested in taking initiatives based on their superior
economic and political capabilities. Yet, the Trilateral cooperation among them has
started to flourish with the growth of trans- and intra-governmental networks including
Summits, as well as ministerial and senior officials’ meetings in finance, foreign affairs,
economy and trade, environment, health, and culture or tourism. These policy networks
in Northeast Asia represent the rapidly expanding array of cooperative linkages within‘+3’ nations, and are instrumental in nurturing a sense of cooperation among theseofficials. Furthermore, the negotiations for a trilateral investment treaty are almost
complete and a feasibility study report for the trilateral FTA is expected to be submitted
to the 2012 Trilateral Summit. The three leaders of China, Japan and Korea adopted‘Trilateral Cooperation Vision 2020’ at the 3rd Summit in May 2010 as a blueprint for
the future institutionalization of trilateral cooperation, and agreed to establish ‘Trilateral
Cooperation Secretariat’ in Korea in 2011.6 Given that 80% of the total amount of
CMIM ($12 billion) is provided by these three nations and that their combined GDP
accounts for nearly 90% of the total East Asian region, the upsurge of trilateral
cooperation appears therefore to have the capacity to challenge the centrality of
ASEAN’s role. An editorial article of one of the major Korean newspapers expresses
this view: “given combined political, economic and military power of [‘+3’ nations], it
is a matter of time [when] ASEAN+3 is changed into 3+ASEAN” (JoongAng Daily 15
Dec 09).
Northeast Asia’s intention to lead ASEAN+3 was already manifest in the 2003 Joint
Declaration on the Promotion of Tripartite Cooperation, which formalized trilateralexchanges for the first time. Article One of the Declaration subtly positioned the
Tripartite Cooperation as “a major driving force for cooperation under the 10+3
framework” (TCCS 2003). Yet, with the gradual fruition of the various exclusive
collaborations under the Trilateral Cooperation framework which could potentiallyusurp ASEAN’s centrality in shaping the East Asian regionalism through ASEAN+3,
the trilateral institution has attempted to allay the fears of ASEAN through its explicit
statement that the three Northeast Asian countries will “support ASEAN as the driving
force for cooperation in East Asia” (TCCS 2010). This may illustrate the seriousness of
ASEAN’s concern about the marginalization within ASEAN+3.
6

Secretariat was assigned to liaise with “other international organizations, particularly with other
East Asian cooperation mechanisms” (TCCS 2010), assuming the coordination role with ASEAN
and other regional or international institution, on behalf of China, Japan and Korea.

13

Despite the growth of these cooperative linkages in Northeast Asia, there remains one
structural problem for consolidating the trilateral cooperation strongly enough to lead
ASEAN+3, as highlighted by Tommy Koh Singapore’s Ambassador-At-Large: “Due tohistorical differences, the three major powers … don’t trust one another. For this reason,no regional institution can be led by them… any proposal that marginalises ASEAN’s
centrality in the region is … unlikely to succeed” (Koh 2009). There are historical andterritorial disputes among each other in Northeast Asia, especially seen in theloggerhead confrontations over the Senkaku and Takeshima Islands, and Koh’s
insistence represents a doubt that the ‘+3’ nations can further cooperate without solving
these problems.
More multilateral approaches
The first ten years of ASEAN+3 cooperation was predominantly characterized bybilateralism rather than regionalism, as seen in the proliferation of bilateral FTAs andthe networks of bilateral swap arrangements in CMI. Yet, ASEAN+3, as well as
ASEAN+6 and APEC, has intended to promote regional economic integration, and CMI
has been multilateralised. So, these ten years saw regional efforts in East Asia to form
more institutionalized multilateral cooperation and integration. The problem of bilateral
cooperation lies in its limited impact. For instance, the bilateral FTAs are not well
utilized by multinational companies in the region, especially in Southeast Asia
(Severino 2006). The number of Japanese companies that have used FTAs with someSoutheast Asian countries like Malaysia is small due to complicated procedures and theexpense of the certificates of origin that are required to qualify for duty exemption. Thisis especially true in the case of automobiles, for which companies would need to obtaintens of thousands of certificates for their parts (Terada 2009). A regional approach isthus considered to be desirable in order to enjoy the benefits of economies of scale inproduction and to avoid a ‘spaghetti bowl’ effect (Bhagwati 2008), meaning that a large
number of rules of origin with specific standards and involving specific procedures will
be formulated, and different rules will be applied to a single commodity. As forfinancial cooperation, through the multi-lateralisation of the CMI, for instance, theamount of funding could be increased, and negotiations could be consolidated.
Therefore the CMI could serve as a regional lender that would be capable of responding
with multi-lateral assistance in the event of financial crisis.
The ASEAN+3 Leaders’ Meeting and EAS endorsed the recommendations covering theaccomplishment of regional economic integration submitted by the respective study
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groups in 2009, and both have entered the next stage of feasibility studies by involving
government officials. Although membership is the only institutional difference between
APT and EAS, the latter includes India, Australia and New Zealand, and the respective
study groups suggested a different approach to regional integration. ASEAN+3 FTA,
called the East Asian Free Trade Agreement (EAFTA) and proposed by China in 2004,
would be formed by consolidating the existing three ASEAN+1 FTAs with China,
Japan and Korea, while the 16-nation FTA or the Comprehensive Economic Partnershipin East Asia (CEPEA) that was proposed by Japan in 2006 would focus more on
institutional development with an emphasis on economic cooperation and sustainable
development. The CEPEA study group suggested the formation of a stable institutionalfoundation by utilising a research and technical support mechanism provided by the
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), which aims to serve asan ‘East Asian OECD.’ APEC, once viewed as an ineffectual body for tradeliberalization after it failed to implement the Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalisation(EVSL) program in late 1990s, has been re-emerging as a potential Asia-Pacificintegration framework, especially after the United States advocated a Free Trade
Agreement in Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). The shift became better known after the US
announcement of its intention to participate in an FTA formed in 2005 among
Singapore, Chile, New Zealand and Brunei, called the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic
Partnership (TPP), as an initial step towards the eventual formation of a FTAAP.
The 2008 global financial crisis highlighted the growing impact of the rise of China on
financial cooperation in East Asia. China emerged as a leader in regional financial
cooperation, a position that used to be predominantly occupied by Japan, which playeda prominent role in the Asian financial crisis. The battle between China and Japan over‘which country pays more’ was seen as instrumental in the multilateralisation of CMI in
May 2009; both prolonged talks until they eventually agreed to provide equal
contributions of 38.4 billion dollars towards the settlement, although the Chinese
contribution includes one by Hong Kong. In the end, the total amount of 120 billion
dollars was broken down with thirty two percent by China and Japan each, sixteen
percent by Korea and twenty percent by the ten ASEAN countries. Japan’s status as thelargest contributor was matched by China, but in an international financial institution
for the first time. One reason why the size of the contributions is so contested between
China and Japan exists in the tendency for nations to consider their contributions asvoting power in the CMIM, culminating in the prolonged negotiations. Despite thesebattles, the decision to establish the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office15

(AMRO) in May 2011 in Singapore to provide strong financial surveillance andmonitoring systems, which East Asia currently lacks, is one the initial firstachievements in the multilateralisation of bilateral swap arrangements, which in turn isessential for the realization of the AMF.
Conclusion
This paper has illustrated the origins and development of ASEAN+3 as a basic
institution in East Asian regionalism while elucidating three major features which madeASEAN+3 a relatively unique regional framework: the exclusion of the United States,
the most influential external actor in East Asia; the centrality of ASEAN and not of
big powers; and financial rather than trade regionalism with an exclusive focus on
bilateral approaches. The paper, however, highlights the reduction of this uniqueness for
ASEAN+3 as these features have been vanishing. US engagement began under the
Obama administration; the most significant decision he has made in this context has
been US participation in EAS in 2011, while also urging the need to promote TPP and
FTAAP by hosting the APEC Honolulu meeting in 2011. ASEAN’s centrality has been
more strongly questioned after China, Japan and Korea have entrenched trilateral
cooperation, including the possible conclusion of an investment treaty and a FTA
among them, which would snatch more investors from Southeast Asia. Finally, theglobal financial crisis contributed to the establishment of CMIM with an independent
surveillance mechanism from the IMF, a process which was accompanied by a modest
impetus towards a regional FTA in East Asia. This means multilateral rather thanbilateral formulas have been embedded in regional integration process in East Asia.
One of the key variables that likely affects the prospects of ASEAN+3 is the influence
and role of China with high economic growth and a huge amount of foreign reserves.
The global crisis has also provided an impetus for East Asia, in which almost seventy
percent of trades are settled in US dollars, to consider the possibility of its own currency
mechanism. Given that the total GDP of ASEAN+3 nations is expected to surpass thatof the United States and eventually that of the EU in the near future, Masahiro Kawai,
ADBI President, comments that “it's disturbing that the most vigorous economic bloc in
the world does not have its own currency system and relies on another currency” (Nikkei,
6 July 2009). The crux of the argument rests on whether China will carry out theinternationalisation of the renminbi by making it float on the international currency
market.

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GIARI Working Paper Vol. 2010-E-4,
February 2011
Published by Waseda University Global COE Program
Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration (GIARI),
Waseda University, Nishiwaseda Bldg. 5F#507 1-21-1
Nishi-waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0051 Japan
E-mail: affairs@waseda-giari.jp
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