ABSTRACT
It is a measure of the recent economic success of many of the East Asian countries that the European Commission speaks of working towards a ‘partnership of equals’ in its 1994 document on future EU strategy for the region (Commission of the European Communities 1994:1-2). But whereas the European Union is a distinct institutional entity with a sizeable bureaucracy and common policies on both economic and security issues,1 East Asia has no such clearcut identity. Indeed, no universally acceptable definition even exists for the region, and no one organization speaks for the countries therein. In large part, this reflects the fact that the countries within the region are not only culturally diverse, but also differ markedly in their size, level of economic development, and political orientation.
