Why Regional Cooperation Cannot be a Regional Matter: The Politics around the East Asian Summit.

The goal of this paper is to show the importance of power politics in regionalism/regional cooperation with the case of East Asian regionalism. Unlike the expectation of liberal theory, the necessity of regional cooperation is not a sufficient condition for successful regional cooperation. The intention of strong power regardless of its geographical identity has strong impact on the formation of regional institution. The first East Asian Summit held in Malaysia revealed how much the interests of the United States matters in East Asian regionalism. The attempt to create an East Asian regional institution failed due to the objection of some countries(Indonesia and Japan) to Asia-only regional institution. This paper tries to show that East Asian regionalism is not regional matter but the competition of two strong powers, the U.S. and China for sphere of influence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]