In 1947, two years after the end of World War II, the World Movement for World Federal Government (WMWFG) adopted the Montreux Declaration, in which it said as follows: “We consider that an integration of activities at regional levels is consistent with the true federal approach. The formation of regional federations… insofar as they do not become an end in themselves or run the risk of crystallizing into blocs… can and should contribute to the effective functioning of a world federal government. In the same way, the solution of technical, scientific, and cultural problems, which concern all the peoples of the world, will be made easier by the establishment of specialist functional bodies.”
So far, the world has been moving along the lines the declaration predicted. Quite a few of the regional unions, such as the AU (African Union, 2002, – as a successor of the Organization of African Unity) or ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 1967) have formed. Who would ever have anticipated the present EU in 1947?
But it still does not exist any concrete organization in Northeast Asia. Michio Morisima, professor emeritus at Osaka University, might have been the first Japanese who elaborated on the formation of an East Asia Community as a well-grounded undertaking. He proposed to found an East Asia Community in his book entitled Collaborative Development in Northeast Asia (Iwanami Shoten, 2001). However, the idea of an East Asia Community as such was not a new one. Since the 1990s, it had gained considerable influence among regional policymakers. The initiation of the ASEAN+3 process (APT: Japan, China, and Korea) as well as the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) indicate that Northeast and Southeast Asians have begun to formulate their own cooperative mechanisms of regional self-help. However, the rapid proliferation of bilateral and subregional preferential-trade agreements in recent years does not correspond to the logic of building a collective East Asian identity. This article examines the origins of the major barriers to community building in East Asia.
The Manila Summit in November 1999 issued the Joint Statement of East Asia Cooperation in which APT leaders endorsed East Asia collaboration in the economic field, in financial and monetary affairs, in social and human resources development, and various other areas. Yet it is worth noting that the joint statement does not specify the intention of building an “East Asia Community.” A number of reasons retard this process. When Japan started the Pacific War on December 8, 1941, it stated that the war was to emancipate the nations that were suffering from Western colonialism and establish a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, but the military had their own ideas and reality turned out to be far from their declared objectives. After being “liberated” from the West, the attacked Asian nations had to face a new colonial power. After the war, the relationship between Japan and Southeast Asia began to change as a result of enhanced trade in the 1970s, so that from that decade onward the Asianist map was gradually widened to include Southeast Asia on equal terms.
Since the 1970s, Japan has issued quite a few war-apology statements. In the most famous of these, on August 15, 1995, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama formally stated, “During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly those of Asia. In the hope that no such mistake will be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humanity, these as irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology” (statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war’s end).
These apologies naturally inclined the Asian people more favorably toward Japan and fostered better relationships among the three countries: Japan, China, and Korea. Moreover, they paved the way for formulating an East Asia Community.

Japanese Neo-Nationalism and the Idea of East Asia Community
However, coupled with a decreasing number of Japanese who knew of the crimes their government and military had committed in the Pacific War, Japanese politics has since been swinging to the right and toward militarism. Now the Liberal Democratic Party plans to amend the Peace Constitution, among other ways, by abolishing Article 9 (which renounces the right to wage war). Also, the tide of grassroots rightism or neo-nationalism is rising, especially on the pretext of threats from North Korea. This new Japanese neonationalism is a complex phenomenon. Unlike the traditional rightists, neo-nationalists tend to be rather young people who are socially disconnected from communities (companies, labor unions, and the like). Moreover, in recent years, the visits by high-ranking officials to Yasukuni Shrine have become a sticking point in relations between Japan and its neighbors. The enshrinement of war criminals, honoring them for having fought and died for their country (even though the Japanese Constitution implies the separation of church and state) has greatly angered the people of various countries that had been invaded by those same men. Especially, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has committed himself to visiting Yasukuni Shrine regularly, and did so every year as the Prime Minister of Japan, causing uproar in China and Korea. He used to say, when he visited Yasukuni Shrine, that he visited it to swear by God “eternal peace”, but his assertion could not persuade the people or leaders of Japan’s neighbor countries, China and Korea, and the leaders of China and Korea refused to see him formally. This friction was one of the main reasons for deteriorating relationships between Japan and its neighboring countries, China and Korea, and also hampered the formation of the East Asia Community.
At the same time, it seems to me that another explanation behind Koizumi’s visiting Yasukuni Shrine could lie within the USJapan Alliance. The American president and his colleagues are wary about the idea of the East Asia Community. For example, in a speech at Jochi University in Tokyo, last March, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice clearly opposed the idea of an East Asia Community and proposed instead the idea of a Pacific Community including America. The fear is that an East Asian Community would weaken the present strong US-Japan Alliance, especially in military terms. Mr. Koizumi, a loyal partner of the Bush administration, may have felt encouraged to carry on with his visits, accepting the fact that they made further talks with China and Korea about the formation of an East Asia Community more difficult.
The well-known peace campaigner Prof. Sung Suh of Ritsumeikan University in Japan declared: “For a long time, I have dreamed of a regional community of co-prosperity in Northeast Asia like the EU. The age of Northeast Asia will finally come to full fruition. I pledge to devote my whole heart and effort to bring about that day at the earliest possible time.” Sung argued that achieving a Northeast Asian Community will require two fundamental steps. The first and perhaps the easiest will be to reestablish an international balance of power, “to check US unilateralism… to recover the world balance of power, which was damaged by the United States, it is useful to set up a new ‘three-kingdom age’, that is, an era characterized by a balance among the ‘kingdoms’ of the United States, the European Union, and a Northeast Asian Community.”
The second and perhaps more difficult step, Sung continues, “will be to find a way to get away from where we are today”, facing the growing strength of Japanese neo-nationalism, and to where Prof. Sung believes we should be in the future: a Northeast Asian Community of peace. The fundamental problem is Japan. “Will Japan be able to turn to a Northeast Asian Community? What concrete steps are possible today?” I believe that answering these questions posed by Prof. Sung Suh must be the vital first task assumed by Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe. At this moment, it is uncertain what Mr. Abe will or can do to improve the deteriorated situation. He is known as a conservative and rather a more nationalistic politician than Mr. Koizumi. However, we hope that in cooperation with his advisors he will make a serious effort to establish relationships with China and Korea to form an East Asia Community.