EAC building is a comprehensive process that includes
institutional-building in the economic, political and social areas.
For the economic area, the most important progress should be
achieved in realizing the East Asian FTA (EAFTA) and a regional
financial architecture (further enhancement of the Chiang Mai
Initiative and towards a regional financial fund). EAFTA should
be rule-based and WTO-consistent, i.e. high level harmonization
of the regional market. But in the political (and also security) area,
the regional institution should be more flexible whose major role
will be to help the members in the region for consolidation, reconciliation and cooperation, rather than super-intervention. In the
social area, E A C needs to develop mechanisms for people to peo-
pie exchanges, which will help to reduce the gaps and grievances
and to develop a shared community spirit and culture. E A C needs
public support.
East Asian institution-building has to overcome the difficulty
of balancing the regional institutions and sub-regional formalities.
For example, ASEAN's identity and role in East Asian institution-building
must be respected, but A S E A N itself has to adjust to the
new development in East Asia. As for East Asian political cooperation, it needs collective wisdom on how to define and establish
East Asian political cooperation and security without hurting the
existing relations both within the region and with those outside the region.9