With the end of the Cold War, cross-border flow of goods, people and money has increased drastically both in quality and quantity. The one taking place on a world-wide scale is called globalization, while the other on a regional level is called regionalization. While regionalization has advanced in many parts of the world, East Asia had long been left behind as a region with barriers separating countries so high and with prospect of regionalization so dim. However, in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, East Asia was also awakened to see a swift advance of regionalization as a defensive step towards the crisis. It was in this context that the Network of East Asian Think-tanks (NEAT) and the East Asia Forum (EAF) were established in 2003 at the request of the ASEAN+3 (Japan, China and ROK) Summit. On that very occasion, The Council on East Asian Community (CEAC) was established in Japan as a body to represent think tanks, businesspersons, intellectuals as well as government officials.
　Accordingly, it should be noted that CEAC is not designed to help promoting an “East Asian community” per se, but to study it. This means that CEAC is not presumptive of any specific definition of an “East Asian community.” There being various views on the geographical scope of “East Asia” and the concrete structure of “community,” CEAC has confined its activities to the study of the implications of each of these views and to the pursuance of whatever kind of strategic responses Japan should choose.
　Let me offer my sincere gratitude for all the support we received from members and friends of CEAC.

Honorary Chairman of CEAC
ITO Kenichi