Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama floated the idea of an East Asian community, similar to the European Union, in a meeting with the Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month.
The plan, in the long run, aims at the establishment of an Asian common currency and permanent national security across the region.
For the immediate future, its target is stable economic cooperation between the regional neighbors.
With the talks of an East Asian regional bloc rekindled tensions are high over who would have the most influence in the region among China, Japan and the United States.
For Japan, the East Asian Community means collaboration with other nations to contain China's rising power as a regional hegemon.
Japan, realizing its limits in containing China one-on-one, intends to keep China in a multinational system and deal with the potential superpower within the framework.
Meanwhile, China, although it agrees with the fundamentals of the East Asian plan remains skeptical worried Japan may take over its role as the leader of the region.
The United States' stance on this proposal, although not final, is rather negative regarding the move as an attempt to restrict American influence over the area.
However, as seen by the premature attempt for an East Asian Economic Group by the Malaysian premier in 1990, the establishment of an East Asian community is onerous without US alignment.
A potential snag between Tokyo and Beijing also lies in which nations should be included in the regional bloc.
China prefers the community to be restricted within the ASEAN Plus Three grouping, mainly where its influence is the greatest, while Japan seeks greater leverage with the involvement of other nations beyond this boundary, including India, Australia and New Zealand.
Homogeneity in the region is also another factor that may hamper the development of the area into a common bloc.
Heterogeneous political systems, economic development and complicated history are other elements hindering a smooth formation of a regional community.
While the concept of an East Asian community remains an ideal and the idea of a single currency far-fetched the summit between the leaders of Korea, Japan and China in Beijing this weekend should be the first step for further developments of this plan.
Moon Conn-young, Arirang News.
OCT 06, 2009
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Arirang Town
Wednesday, FEB 10, 2010, (KST) 
