Abstract

Ever since the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) formation, many attempts have been made to promote regionalism particularly in East Asia with an inclusion of Southeast Asia. As was propagated, the idea of ‘Look East Policy’ was in the cards for a long time and Mohathir Mohammed was also blaming Japan for not looking at the East Asian countries. By the end of the Cold War, the geopolitical scenario has been changed not only in the Asian countries but over the globe. ASEAN has successfully admitted all the countries of Southeast as its members and further ASEAN+China, Japan and South Korea (ASEAN+3) was formed including China, Japan and South Korea. The long pending slogan of East Asian Community has eventually surfaced in the form of ‘East Asia Summit’ in 2005. This time it was not just the combination of neither Southeast Asian nor East Asian countries but included Australia and New Zealand from South Pacific and India from South Asia. In view of the rare and uncommon composition of the countries, many critics have raised questions over the sustainability of the regional platform. With this backdrop, this paper attempts to analyze the compulsions, expectations and their own national interests of the member countries of the East Asia Summit.

Key words: East Asia, regionalization, ASEAN+3, East Asia summit