ABSTRACT
The new millennium has ushered in a stronger sense of regional identity across East Asia, and ASEAN, the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is playing a key role in bringing it into focus. The ASEAN Plus Three grouping, with the Three consisting of China, Japan, and South Korea, has given East Asia its most promising regional forum in the fifty years since most Southeast Asian countries were founded. It provides the very early stages of an institutional manifestation of an East Asian community.
