ABSTRACT
Developments since the mid-1990s have institutionalized regional collaboration in the Asia-Pacifi c at levels never previously experienced. In this period, the AsiaPacifi c Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping adopted an ambitious agenda for its member states to remove their trade barriers by the year 2010 (for industrialized economies) and 2020 (for less-developed economies); ASEAN committed itself to the implementation of a free trade agreement; and a regional security dialogue was initiated through the ASEAN Regional Forum. In the years since the fi nancial crises of 1997-98, proposals for regional collaboration in East Asia proliferated at multiple levels: for bilateral free trade arrangements; for sub-regional trade liberalization; and, most ambitiously, for various forms of cooperation in the monetary fi eld.1 And by inviting the governments of China, Japan and Korea to a special meeting after their own summit, ASEAN members brought into being the fi rst truly East Asian grouping – the ASEAN Plus Three forum. In late 2005, this new East Asian collaboration was to be institutionalized in the East Asian summit, the fi rst of what are intended to be regular meetings of East Asian heads of government.2
