Choosing peace or chaos

To distant observers, East Asian regionalism has been an on-off subject since the 1990s. For East Asian policymakers however, it has remained an intriguing scheme for more than half a century. 

The concept has had numerous interpretations through the decades. Among the better-known variants of the idea have been Japan’s 1940 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Malaysia’s 1990 East Asian Economic Grouping (EAEG), and Asean’s mid-1990s East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC).