Towards a Broader Asian Community: Agenda for the East Asia Summit

Drawing upon the recent work conducted at RIS and other thinktanks, this paper finds a compelling case for broader regional economic integration in Asia. It finds a case for formation of a broader economic community in East Asia coalescing the emerging web of FTAs linking Japan, ASEAN, China, India and Korea into a region-wide or an East Asian RTA that could be a core of an East Asian Community. The East Asian Community could be eventually expanded to cover other Asian countries in an Asian Economic Community. It has been shown that economic integration in East Asia or JACIK could enable the region to resume its rapid growth and help it emerge as the center of gravity in the world economy. The simulations made suggest that such a grouping would enhance welfare of the partners as well of the rest of the world, hence would be a win-win for the world economy. It also discusses the potential of cooperation in other areas such as monetary and financial system, energy security, new technologies, global governance and security. It is concluded with an agenda for the East Asia Summit.