The first East Asia Summit will take place in the capital city of Malaysia this Wednesday with high hopes that it will break new ground in building an East Asian community. While the original decision by APT leaders in 2002 was for EAS to evolve out of the APT summit, competition between major countries for leadership prompted the sudden decision to launch EAS earlier than anticipated and to invite Australia, New Zealand and India. These unexpected developments drew much attention to the future scope and timetable of developing a closely interacting East Asian community.  

Although the idea of holding an East Asia Summit was initially suggested as part of long-term plans to have the ASEAN Plus Three framework develop into an East Asian community, Malaysia and China have been insisting that EAS be held much earlier than planned since 2004. As a result, ASEAN countries, afraid of seeing a Chinese-led EAS, requested that the summit extend its membership to include Australia, New Zealand and India. The invitation was not extended to the United States.  

This leaves the question of identifying the nature of EAS. The participation of Australia, New Zealand and India in the enlarged summit has been under debate for months, as it may weaken common regional identity. Thus, clear distinctions must be made between various regional cooperation frameworks. To avoid a duplication of agendas and to develop a distinctive EAS, it is desirable that the APT framework serves to promote economic and financial cooperation in the region, leaving EAS to focus on diplomatic and security cooperation.  

In terms of the regional cooperation frameworks that currently coexist in East Asia, Korea should exploit each and every one, be they small or large, including EAS, ASEAN+3, and ASEAN+1. Korea should contribute to building a collective security system in East Asia by promoting EAS to the level of diplomatic and security cooperation. At the same time, efforts should be channeled into turning APEC into an OECD for the Asia-Pacific region. Then, ASEAN+3 could evolve into an East Asian Free Trade Area in trade and strengthen the Chiang Mai initiative in finance.  

Because Northeast Asia, and not ASEAN, is the pivotal actor in dynamic East Asia, Korea should retain its firm footing in Northeast Asia and focus on promoting economic diplomacy between China and Japan. It should seek to have leveraging power over these neighboring countries by pre-coordinating major issues with them.  

In this context, Korea may benchmark the role of Belgium in the European community and function as a hub country for the East Asian community. Consideration may also be given to a double-hub approach, under which Korea would take on the role of a hub country in Northeast Asia while Singapore carries out the same role in Southeast Asia.