The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
In his remarks at the ground-breaking East Asia Summit (EAS) in Kuala Lumpur last year, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi emphasized that the East Asian Community (EAC) would become a reality as cooperation grew and strengthened.
By the inaugural summit's conclusion, 16 leaders had vowed to work toward building a permanent community, the Asian equivalent of the 25-member European Union (EU). It would be defined by shared strategic, geopolitical and economic interests rather than just geography.
The ""shared strategic and economic interests"" are key reasons why Australia, New Zealand and India, which are not geographically part of East Asia, are a part of this forum.
Non-East Asian countries can join the East Asian Community if they sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), have dialog partner status with ASEAN and have a substantial relationship with the group.
Of course, the last point in that list certainly applies already to India, Australia and New Zealand.
The East Asian Community consists of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) along with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.
China, Japan and South Korea have been working with ASEAN under the ASEAN+3 process.
These countries work together through cooperation in various areas. Information from the ASEAN Secretariat shows that there are at least 48 ASEAN+3 fora, ranging from leadership summits to expert-groups.
The East Asian Community was initially designed to resemble the European Union, not only in terms of economic and trade cooperation but also socially and culturally.
In 1990, the then Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad put forward the ""East Asian Economic Caucus"" concept but in 1991, Indonesia's Soeharto poured cold water on the idea, saying the time was not ripe for such as gathering. According to many analysts, Soeharto feared that Indonesia would not have a dominant position in a new grouping like ASEAN.
After the departure of these ASEAN's strongmen, the EAC idea resurfaced in Laos in 2004 during the ASEAN Summit. This time all the leaders agreed to the idea.
Indonesia, the backbone of ASEAN and Southeast Asia's biggest economy, proposed India, Australia and New Zealand be invited to the first EAS in Kuala Lumpur and that ASEAN be in the driving seat.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed hamid Albar announced at the 2005 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Vientiane that the first East Asian Summit would be held in December 2005 and India, Australia and New Zealand would be invited.
Economic cooperation, which is expected to eventually move to integration has taken place in East Asia for some time, as can be seen by the constantly increasing trade and investment in the region.
However, it is seen not as an institutionalized integration but rather the result of active investments by multinationals in the region.
It means that the integration of East Asia is driven by economic realities, not institutions.
The seeds for an expanding regional unity were planted in 1993 and 1994, before the financial crisis, when the ASEAN countries (at that time only six) invited South Korea, Japan, and China to join them in a broader forum.
That ASEAN+3 formula became the foundation for the discussions on Asian cooperation going on today.
At a meeting of ASEAN+3 in Hanoi in 1998, at the suggestion of then South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, the regional leaders agreed to set up an East Asia Vision Group to study the ways their countries could cooperate more effectively.
The concept of an East Asian Community has spread quietly but steadily, and lead to the creation of a great movement in the East Asian region.
