ABSTRACT
ASEAN+3 is now an established international institution in East Asia. It includes the leaders of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries, as well as their Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean counterparts. Annual summits bring together these 13 leaders as well as a wide range of other officials. The summit held in Vientiane in November 2004 was the eighth such gathering. In addition to the leaders meeting, there are many other functional meetings including meetings of the regional foreign ministers, economic ministers, and finance ministers as well as many other meetings of representatives from lower levels of government. In addition, non-governmental policy networks such as the Network of East Asian Think Tanks (NEAT) are now being created to support the ASEAN+3 process. The further transformation of the ASEAN+3 Summit has now been realised, with the first East Asian Summit (EAS) taking place in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005.
