The Emerging East Asian Community: Security & Economic Issues. 2006. Penerbit UKM: Bangi. ISBN 967-942-764-1 (paperback). 344 pp. RM 50.00. Lee P

The Emerging East Asian Community: Security & Economic Issues. 2006. Penerbit UKM: Bangi. ISBN 967-942-764-1 (paperback). 344 pp. RM 50.00. Lee Poh Ping, Tham Siew Yean & George T. Yu (eds.)

The East Asian Summit (EAS) convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in December 2005 will be attended by the heads of states from Australia, New Zealand, India and the countries in the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) grouping. This EAS marks the latest development towards an East Asian regional grouping since Mahathir Mohamed, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, proposed the East Asian Economic Grouping (EAEG) in 1990. It would thus seem an East Asian Community is emerging. But to say that an East Asian Community is emerging is not to say it has arrived. Many of the issues that have plagued the formation of Asian regional groupings in the past and, as indeed a new one, like the role of China, still dog the formation of this East Asian Community, such ‘old’ issues being the membership, the structure and the role of ASEAN in this community. This book is an attempt to consider such issues and the security and economic aspects that underlie many of these issues. The book takes both a comparative approach and an individual country analysis. As to the former, there are chapters by two of the most senior scholars working on Asia, Wang Gung Wu and Robert A. Scalapino. Wang offers his reflections on an East Asian Community while Scalapino analyses the trends in the international relations of Asia. As to the latter, there are contributions by authors from not only the APT countries but also Australia and India. This book is thus highly recommended for those looking for a comprehensive approach towards the study of the East Asian Community.

LEE POH PING, Ph. D., Professor and Principal Fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. His other work with Penerbit UKM is Whither the Look East Policy (2003 co-authored with Khadijah Khalid). THAM SIEW YEAN, Ph. D., the Deputy Director of IKMAS, UKM is a Professor in International Trade. GEORGE T. YU, Ph. D., is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is immediate past Director of the Centre for East Asian and Pacific Studies and former Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois.

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