Korea, China and Japan: Their Trade with the World and Its Impact on New Asian Regionalism ASEAN+3

Success of recent developments in Asian economic regionalism and free trade agreements depends to some significant extent on the continuing role and importance of trade of these economies with themselves and also with the world’s major trading blocs. The paper reviews especially the case of Korea, Japan and China’s interest in new Asian economic regionalism and FTAs, surveys particularly its important trends in international trade in the past 35 years and discusses how these trends and patterns will affect the Asian 3’s growth and provide the background for more effective implementation of ASEAN+3 or even ASEAN+5 or similar bilateral, pluri-lateral and multilateral regional economic integrations in the long term.