Development of the ASEAN+3 and Its Prospects for the East Asian Community

Abstract

This paper investigates the challenges and the prospects of the ASEAN+3 system in order to progress to the East Asian Community by looking at the development process as well as the performance of ASEAN+3 system. Even though ASEAN+3 have had a East Asia Summit since 2005 and have deepened economic integration, they seem to need a long and rough journey in order to form the East Asian Community. Because of the big economic and political gap between the ASEAN countries and the north east Asian countries, especially China and Japan would have opportunity to express their ability competitively within the ASEAN+3. Next, there have been significant differences in terms of culture, social discipline and historic experience between the ASEAN countries and north east Asian countries. However, as a earlier phase before the East Asian Community, they need the East Asian FTA because the trade volumes within the region have been rapidly increasing and other regions such as Europe and America already formed a big trade bloc.