The Role of Regional Powers in East Asian Community Building

Abstract

After the 1997 Asian financial crisis there has been various effort of region-building across East Asia. In 2003, at the Bali Summit, the region’s leaders announced their intent to create an East Asian Community (EAC), supported by three pillars: a security pillar, an economic pillar and a socio-cultural pillar. As these countries have sought closer collaboration they have encountered the difficult challenge of how to integrate their disparate states with different needs, capacity levels and worldviews into a coherent whole. Undoubtedly, the shape of East Asian Community will be largely determined by the interaction of the policies of the regional powers such as Japan, the United States, and China. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of regional powers in East Asian Community Building. Different powers have their own national interests and policies, and hence have different impacts on the building of EAC. With the discussion of their roles in the process of building, the prospect and challenge of East Asian Community will also be presented.