Creating an East Asian Regionalism.

This article reports that in trade policy, Japan and China have both been committed to FTAs, and the establishment of an East Asian FTA has been considered the means for transforming ASEAN + 3 into an East Asian regionalism and a common regional interest shared by Japan and China, as discussed below. The ASEAN + 3 leaders' meeting, in Singapore in November 2000, agreed to examine the feasibility of establishing an East Asian FTA, although the leaders are yet to endorse this ambitious goal. Given the fact that the region has, collectively, 1.9 billion people and a gross domestic product of US$2 trillion, an East Asian FTA is expected by some observers to form the basis for the emergence of a huge single market, possibly having a major impact on the creation of a tripartite world economic system with the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area. A fundamental but significant question is how an East Asian FTA can be created under the current circumstances, where there have been negotiations for a number of bilateral and plurilateral FTAs in East Asia.