East Asian Regionalism and the Trilateral Cooperation among South Korea, China and Japan

What makes ‘the trilateral cooperation’ possible? What were the factors that enable the formation or development of cooperation among Korea, China, and Japan? And did the trilateral cooperation stagnate when there were insufficient factors to increase cooperation? In response to this question, this study examines the development of regional politics in East Asia concretely, and pays attention to the chain of East Asian cooperation and how the trilateral cooperation mechanism among Korea, China, and Japan was formed in the process. Although it has not established an integrated organization in East Asia like EU, there has been various attempts to expand and promote regional cooperation system from ASPAC to ASEAN, APEC, ARF, ASEM, ASEAN+3(APT), EAS and TCS. From the Cold War until now, East Asian regionalism is trying to evolve into institutionalization through diplomatic initiatives and strategies of countries in the region. This paper analyzes the mechanism of trilateral cooperation was enabled by the overlapping of membership of the East Asian Regional cooperation, and the fluctuation of dynamics in East Asia can be repeatedly appeared depending on the direction of diplomatic strategy for regional cooperation.