EAST ASIA'S EMERGING REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE

East Asia is currently undergoing significant transformation as a result of its economic dynamism and because of the end of the Cold War. We are witnessing growing regional cooperation among a diverse group of economies and political regimes. The region is currently involved in various multilateral initiatives such as ASEAN+3 (APT), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and more recently, the East Asian Summit (EAS). A regional architecture is emerging although it remains unclear at the moment what the final outcome will be. Nevertheless, it is clear that collaboration among East Asian states is founded on a basis of shared interests and concern especially in the economic, political and social spheres. Not only does such behaviour indicate acknowledgement that growing inter-dependence among states require greater cooperation, it also underscores the growing willingness of governments to assume greater collective responsibility for the security and stability of the region, though it should be added that East Asian regionalism still has a long way to go.

While East Asian regionalization has been going on for several decades through Japanese foreign direct investments and the workings of Chinese business and financial networks, East Asian regionalism is relatively new. Aside from imperial Japan's Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere during World War II, reference to East Asia in political lingo only emerged in the early 1990s through then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's proposed East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC). Until then, East Asia was embedded within the concept of the Asia-Pacific. It was not until 1997 that East Asian regionalism formally took root with the establishment of the ASEAN+3 (consisting of China, Japan and South Korea) initiative in Kuala Lumpur.

The trend towards East Asian regionalism is in fact an attempt to integrate two sub-regions: Northeast Asia — which at present lacks any form of institutionalized, multilateral mechanism for conflict prevention and management and is one of the most militarized and tense areas in the world — with Southeast Asia — which boasts ASEAN, the most mature and enduring multilateral institution in Asia.