Yankee stay home

摘要

What would an East Asian Summit entail? When the decision to hold such a gathering was first announced, at the annual summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations in Laos last month, no one seemed to know the answer. Ong Keng Yong, ASEAN'S secretary-general, had to retract a press release stating that the new grouping was simply a revamp of ASEAN + 3, which brings the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea together with their South-East Asian counterparts. The details, he said, were still up for negotiation. But Malaysia, which will host the new club's first get-together next year, has an ambitious agenda.