British newspaper Financial Times published an article not long ago saying the fast-growing Asian economy and the advancing regional cooperation there are ushering in the "Asian Century".

Meanwhile, the participants at a recent gathering of dignitaries from China, Japan and South Korea – known in China as the Northeast Asian Dignitaries Meeting, in Japan as the Chinese, Japanese and Korean Dignitaries Talks and in Korea as the 30 Korean, Chinese and Japanese Dignitaries Meeting – called on the three governments to begin negotiating the China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) as soon as possible and take the leading role in creating the Asian Century.

Regrettably, however, there are still many real risks associated with a China-Japan-South Korea FTA in Northeast Asia.

Chinese, Japanese and ROK leaders were invited to the first ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Summit following the Asian financial turmoil of 1997 and put in place the framework of cooperation between the three East Asian countries and ASEAN.

After 10 years of development, the regional multi-lateral structure has also given birth to the so-called "China-ASEAN, Japan-ASEAN and South Korea-ASEAN cooperation axles" and a number of bilateral economic partnership agreements (EPA) led by Japan. All these form the cooperation pattern characterized by a "multi-axle and multi-spin-off" setup called "10+3" (the 10-member ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea).

Things seemed to have been going quite well from then on but the "10+3" format suddenly faced the danger of becoming redundant when participating countries of the Vientiane (Laos) conference in late 2004 decided to establish the East Asia Summit and proposed the creation of "East Asia Community" (EAC).