[East Asia Summit] A New Drive for East Asian Community

A tripartite summit between South Korea, Japan and China on October 10 is highly likely to draw a great attention from the international community given that a variety of pending issues among three countries are going to be discussed during the meeting.

An agenda of how to stabilize the financial markets in Asia is expected to be talked since the markets still show some signs of insecurity in the aftermath of global economic crisis.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is also likely to make efforts to find solution to a nuclear issue with Chinese and Japanese Prime Ministers – Wen Jiabao and Yukio Hatoyama.

The trilateral meeting is going to provide three leaders with an opportunity to build the cooperative response to issues which cannot be easily addressed through bilateral talks as the globe continues to integrate.

◆ Win-win and Co-prosperity Model

The three summits are poised to announce that their countries keep the cooperative frame strong and that they maintain the ‘comprehensive cooperative partnerships’ based on a futuristic point of view.

It can be translated that three nations are going to seek for a win-win and co-prosperity model as the major engines in the Pacific Rim of 21st century.

Leaders of three nations would make an announcement to establish stronger and broader relationship in diverse aspects ranging from politics to economy, society, and culture and introduce manifold ways for collaboration by signing up lots of declarations including a joint statement and action plan.

“The leaders are expected to converse about a better model to strengthen the ties among three nations in celebration of ten-year anniversary of trilateral summit and exchange opinions on issues in Northeast Asia including nuke problem in North Korea,” said an official in Cheongwadae (the Blue House), the South Korea’s presidential office.

For the past half century, the three countries witnessed striking changes in the relationship despite cultural difference and historical background; it is the 17th year to have diplomatic relations between Korea and China and 37th year between China and Japan.  A new axis for true peace and prosperity should be pursued based on mutual understanding and friendship, cultural and personal exchanges, and more economic trades. 

The need for more integration between three countries is getting eminent after taking into consideration the fact the gross domestic product (GDP) of three countries accounts for 16.7 percent of the global GDP and that the intra-regional trade takes more than half of total exchange.

The solidarity among three nations will play a role of lending impetus to the idea of East Asian Community, which used to be lead by ASEAN countries.

In the regional context, the contours of an Asian integration in terms of economy and security defense have already begun to take shape through APEC and six-party talks. The cooperative system between three countries will eventually help the international community in reorganizing the global financial market.

◆ Economic Crisis Expedites Cooperation
It is economics perhaps more than anything else which is driving the summit meeting, especially because the thorough collaboration in the region is needed to break down the recession

As the economies seek in-depth interaction with neighboring countries along with international cooperation to weather the worst crisis ever since the great depression, three major economies in Northeast Asia would try to create the complementary and mutual cooperation in order to combat the crisis.

International collaboration becomes far more important today than ever before since the current crisis affects every inch of the planet, not only one country.

In particular, a huge synergy in helping each other to cope with the economic difficulty can be expected for both Japan and China belong to G8 and the Korea’s economy is the 13th largest. The amount of foreign exchange reserve in three nations is also grounded as the legitimate reasons for the Aisan community; China ranks No. 1 for its reserve followed by Japan and Korea in 6th place.

Apart from the financial cooperation, the leaders are going to share opinions and ideas about the North Korea’s nuclear program and how to introduce the method in bringing the issues in Northeast Asian region out to the international community.

In addition, President Lee is likely to highlight the importance of ‘grand bargain’ to solve the North Korean nuclear issue, which was brought during his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations office in New York on September, though North Korea rejected it, calling it “an absolutely harmful proposal for the solution of the nuclear issue."

The trilateral cooperation is now sought-after more than ever in the light of complexity to solve the nuclear matter in Korean peninsula. And it is a widely accepted assumption that the dismantling nukes in the peninsula would lead to stability and peace in the region and be served for benefits of both China and Japan.

During the summit, three leaders are also going to discuss agendas related to climate change and food safety.

“This meeting will be an opportunity for three countries to level up the trilateral communication and cooperation by having wide and in-depth conversation about the current issues,“ said the official.

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