Abstract: After the Asian financial crisis, facing the new situation of world economic development and regional economic cooperation in the new century, the desire of East Asian countries to strengthen cooperation has been continuously enhanced, and a multi-level cooperation mechanism has taken shape. East Asian economic cooperation has broad prospects, and there are two possible ways to establish East Asian Free Trade Area. [Keywords:] East Asia Regional Economic Cooperation 10+3 East Asia Free Trade Area 1964 Japanese scholar Kiyoshi Kojima put forward the idea of establishing a "Pacific Community", but by the mid-1990s, East Asia regional economic cooperation had made slow progress. The Asian financial crisis made East Asian economies realize the importance of strengthening regional economic cooperation, which laid the foundation for East Asian economic integration. I. Current situation of regional economic cooperation in East Asia 1. China-ASEAN Free Trade Area Since 1990s, the economic and trade exchanges between China and Southeast Asian countries have become increasingly close. The bilateral trade volume between China and ASEAN has increased by more than 18% every year. In 2006, the bilateral trade volume between China and ASEAN reached160.8 billion US dollars. ASEAN has become China's fifth largest trading partner, and China is ASEAN's sixth largest trading partner. 20011165438+6 10, China put forward at the fifth leaders' meeting of "/kloc-0+1"and reached an understanding with ASEAN leaders: "China will On June 4th, 2002,10 China and ASEAN leaders signed the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between China and ASEAN, and decided to build China-ASEAN Free Trade Area by 20 10. The Framework Agreement is the legal basis of the future China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, which generally defines the basic framework of the free trade area. The framework agreement marks that the economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN has entered a new historical stage, which will bring a mutually beneficial and win-win situation to China and ASEAN. From June 5 to 10, 2003, the ASEAN series summit was held in Bali, Indonesia. China and ASEAN reached an important agreement, and the two sides agreed on a plan to drastically cut tariffs in order to start the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. According to this tax reduction agreement, the "early harvest" plan was implemented from June 5438+1 October1in 2004, and the China-East Trade Expo was held every year. The free trade zone was implemented on June 5438+ 10/2005. Six ASEAN countries (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) agreed to implement the FTA with China on 20 10, and the other four countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Viet Nam) extended the implementation time to 20 15. At the same time, China has formally joined the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia and signed the Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity with ASEAN countries. This is the first time that China has established a strategic partnership with a regional organization. With the deepening of mutually beneficial cooperation, the construction of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is progressing steadily. The tax reduction plan of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area was launched in July 2005. China and ASEAN will gradually reduce tariffs on 7,000 products according to the timetable of the Agreement on Trade in Goods signed on June 5438+065438+ 10, 2004, with the goal of reducing tariffs to 0 or 5% by 20 10. This means that the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area with developing countries as the main body, a free trade area with a population of more than 654.38+0.7 billion and an economic aggregate of 2.4 trillion US dollars is gradually taking shape, which will strongly promote the process of economic integration in East Asia. From June 5th to1October 30th, 2007, China and ASEAN signed the Agreement on Trade in Services in China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. The signing of the agreement has laid a more solid foundation for the scheduled completion of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. 2. Progress in Economic Integration in Other Countries (1) Japan has signed a free trade agreement with East Asian countries. On June 5438+ 10, 2002, Japan and Singapore signed a bilateral free trade agreement, which is called Japan-Singapore New Era Economic Partnership Agreement. This is the first free trade agreement signed between Japan and foreign countries and the first bilateral free trade agreement in East Asia. The agreement came into effect in April 2002. At the same time, Japan hopes to establish a "Japan-ASEAN Free Trade Area" based on the Japan-ASEAN agreement, and hopes to realize the cooperation of the whole East Asia region on the basis of the "* * *" relationship between Japan and ASEAN, that is, from the establishment of a "Japan-ASEAN Free Trade Area" (10+ 1) to the establishment of East Asia economy. During the ASEAN summit in June 5438+ 10, 2003, Japan proposed to establish a free trade area with ASEAN, and Japan and ASEAN signed the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which decided that the two sides would start negotiations in April 2005 and implement the Japan-ASEAN free trade agreement by 20 12. (2) Japan-Korea Free Trade Area negotiations. In March 2002, the leaders of Japan and South Korea met in Seoul and agreed to set up a high-level research group to study the feasibility of reaching a bilateral free trade agreement. The proposal of FTA will apply to the two countries with a population of 654.38+0.7 billion and a GDP of * * * 5 trillion US dollars. However, due to strong protests from farmers and protected enterprises, the implementation of this agreement will take time. (3) According to the annual report of the World Trade Organization, Singapore signed a free trade zone agreement in Jordan in 2004, and initiated negotiations with Kuwait and Qatar to establish a free trade zone, and plans to hold consultations with Bahrain and Sri Lanka. South Korea is actively negotiating with Singapore, ASEAN and Chile. 3. Normalization of "10+3" cooperation. The "10+3" economic cooperation mechanism refers to the cooperation between ASEAN 10 member countries and China, Japan and South Korea. 1At the end of 1997, the heads of nine ASEAN member countries met with the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea for the first time. ASEAN hopes to promote economic growth in East Asia through more effective regional cooperation. Since then, at the end of each year, the informal summit of "10+3" will be held during the informal summit of ASEAN. 1999165438+10, the leaders of "10+3" held an informal meeting in Manila and issued the Joint Statement on East Asian Cooperation. The statement pointed out that in order to further maintain the stable growth of regional economy, all member States should strengthen policy dialogue and regional cooperation, establish a monitoring mechanism for regional capital flows, strengthen the self-supporting mutual aid system of funds, and enhance the regional ability to resist the financial crisis. This can be regarded as the beginning of East Asian regional economic union, which is of epoch-making significance. The "10+3" cooperation framework highlights the "East Asia consciousness", which will strongly promote the economic cooperation in the whole East Asia region and make the cooperation move towards the process of institutionalization. Second, the prospect of East Asian economic cooperation At present, the global economy is in the process of a new round of cyclical growth. According to the latest data released by the International Monetary Fund, the global real GDP growth rate in 2005, 2006 and 2007 was 4.9%, 5. 1% and 4.9% respectively. The rapid growth of global economy is accompanied by the rapid expansion of international trade and the obvious recovery of international investment. Global trade increased by 8% in 2006. The new round of global economic growth provides new opportunities for export-oriented economic development in East Asia. China's economy continues to maintain rapid growth, and together with the United States, it has become the two pillars of global economic growth. In 2006, the real GDP growth rate of China was as high as 8.7%. Japan's economy shows a good growth momentum. In 2006, Japan's real GDP increased by 2.6%, which was 1.7 percentage points higher than the previous average growth rate of 10. Regional economic integration is a general trend in the world today, and East Asia will inevitably integrate into it and push forward downstream. East Asian economic integration is not just an idea, but a real regional economic cooperation. We can consider establishing a free trade zone first. At present, East Asian countries are very enthusiastic about establishing bilateral and multilateral free trade areas, and various policy suggestions, measures and diplomatic activities to establish free trade areas emerge one after another. There are at least four organizational forms for the construction of East Asia Free Trade Area, namely, the ASEAN-China-Japan-ROK Summit and bilateral cooperation between China, Japan and ASEAN. Inferring from the current actual situation, there are two possible ways to establish East Asia Free Trade Area: 1. The three "10+ 1" naturally merged into one, and the so-called three "East Asian Free Trade Zones" were established. Japan and South Korea believe that the establishment of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area will weaken their exports to ASEAN, accelerate the transfer of Japanese and Korean industries to China, and lead to the so-called "hollowing out of industries" between Japan and South Korea. Japan and South Korea are also worried that the world-renowned multinational companies will further move their regional headquarters and operation centers to China, which may lead to their "marginalization" in the globalization strategy of the world-renowned multinational companies. Because of this concern, after China proposed to establish a free trade area with ASEAN, the Japanese and Korean governments took active actions to seek to establish a free trade area with ASEAN. As all the major countries in East Asia have participated in the arrangement of the free trade area, the East Asia free trade area with ASEAN as the center will eventually be established. 2. The cross unification of bilateral free trade areas among several East Asian countries finally formed the East Asian Free Trade Area. At present, East Asian countries are interested in concluding bilateral free trade agreements and establishing bilateral free trade zones, trying to provide guidance for the construction of the overall regional free trade zone through the construction of bilateral free trade agreements and bilateral free trade zones, which will affect the establishment of future free trade zones. Nearly 65,438+00 free trade zones have been established or are being established in this region. These free trade areas intersect with each other, and it is very easy to achieve the goal of unification, thus forming a free trade area in the whole East Asia region. These two ways to realize East Asia Free Trade Area exist in the current process of economic and trade cooperation in East Asia. They are not isolated, either one or the other, but contain and promote each other. The first way puts greater pressure on strengthening intra-ASEAN cooperation, which drives ASEAN member countries to strengthen internal cooperation in response to the establishment of China-ASEAN, Japan-ASEAN and South Korea-ASEAN free trade areas, and also drives China, Japan and South Korea to strengthen mutual cooperation. Similarly, the development of the second mode urges the member countries in this region to seek stronger and more bilateral free trade areas for their own economic interests, economic sovereignty and security. The signing of bilateral free trade agreements and the establishment of bilateral free trade zones between member countries in East Asia and the economies inside and outside the region will not only affect the efforts of member countries to establish regional free trade zones, but also encourage them to actively promote the establishment of East Asian free trade zones, and will bring about a higher level of cooperation-the establishment of East Asian Community.