earticle

영어

This article will analyze the current state of East Asian regionalism and draw the Japanese strategy toward East Asian regional integration in general and bilateral FTAs in particular. This article provides an analytical framework to evaluate FTA partners, upon which the Japanese government can design a FTA strategy. The Japanese designed East Asian regionalism has been more realistic in recent years, particularly after the financial crisis of the late 1990s. However East Asia, composed of many countries at different levels of political and economical development, is still far away from becoming a single community or a free trade area. This article concludes that Japan will have many limits doing FTA among East Asian countries due to potential domestic disturbances to an acceptable level, as well as in securing proper implementation of it. This article also cautions that the Japan's FTA policy of East Asian with regional block, particularly dominated by potentially anti-Japanese due to previous history. Joining this kind of anti-Japanism may jeopardize Japan's relationship with the East Asia.