The book intents to locate the process and effectiveness of cooperation in East Asia, to regard the construction of the East Asian community as the ideal, to see the contradictions and difficulties in construction as the reality, and to identify the actual development and achievement as the choice and effort between the two.

The year of 1997 saw the Asian financial crisis, which turned out to be a disaster but also opened up an opportunity for East Asia to establish cooperation mechanisms. Starting with the crisis, this book examines the origin and development of the East Asian cooperation movement. More importantly, it investigates the obstacles and resistance, and provides insights into the cooperation within East Asia in the context of unstable political environments. Specifically, it expounds the East Asian Free Trade Area, monetary cooperation, as well as the cooperation within Northeast Asian and Asia-Pacific regions.