Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (5-L) link hands with ASEAN leaders during group shot before the ASEAN-Japan meeting at the 15th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, in the seaside town of Hua Hin, some 190 km (118 miles) south of Bangkok, October 24, 2009. From (L-R) are Laos Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh, Myanmar's Thein Sein, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo, Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong, Hatoyama, Thailand's Abhisit Vejjajiva, Vietnam's Nguyen Tan Dung, Malaysia's Najib Razak, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Cambodia's Hun Sen, and ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)Source: Xinhua
The topic of forming the East Asian Community, proposed by Japan, was once again brought up during the 15th ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Summit, but the concrete ways and means to realize such idea of grouping together so diverse a range of Asian nations are still not clear.
Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, the eager proponent of the idea, proposed the formation of East Asian Community, when meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, U.S., this year.
The idea was to establish a regional cooperation organization similar to the European Union and the African Union, and was viewed by many analyst as Hatoyama's shift of Japan's diplomatic focus to the relations with its Asian neighbors.
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