Ganeshan Wignaraja, director of research at the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo and an expert on integration in Asia, believes that Asian leaders will continue to prioritize development over dissension. The economic ties binding Asia together are too strong and too profitable, he contends, to be so easily thrown away in nationalist wrangling. Intra-Asia trade has surged from 30% of the region's total in 1985 to more than 50% in 2013