Comparative Regionalization: EU Model and East Asia’s Practice for Regional Integration

Abstract

The EU model of integration does exist and is exported to other regions by several means. However, East Asia stimulates a unique model by drawing les- sons from the European Union. By the token of the European example, we should follow its theoretical development of regionalization to scrutinize the East Asia’s common interests, functionality, socialization, and the impact of regionalization. However, the route to get regional integration for East Asia is far from the European example. The market-based mechanism pushed the regional cooperation in East Asia go forward, with domination by the states and governments; Fight for lead- ership have existed among the core states; Intergovernmental network is too weak to dominate the process of regional cooperation in East Asia. The ‘‘ASEAN way’’ institution-building has made a great progress in East Asia in past two decades, but it is not mature enough to lead the regional integration. The spillover of sovereignty and the institutionalization of supranational framework will hardly happen in East Asia. The combination of institutionalised FTA networks and flexible sub-regional cooperation will be an optional choice for East Asia’s regional integration. Keywords