Investment Framework and Action Plan, and created a Committee on Trade and Investment. [FN13] Moreover, as part of APEC's increasing institutionalization, APEC members promulgated the Bogor Declaration to create a free trade area by 2020. [FN14] Subsequently, APEC leaders also agreed that each member economy would produce an Individual Action Plan that detailed how it intended to liberalize trade by the target dates. Despite these ambitions, such plans were often described as inadequate. [FN15]

Although APEC has ambitiously attempted to replicate the EU and World Trade Organization agendas, its efforts have been insufficient to overcome fundamental, inherent flaws. Its diversified membership has resulted in collective action problems, prisoners' dilemmas, and mutual suspicion among individual member economies. In particular, the failure of larger economies, such as the US and Japan, to promulgate bolder proposals for trade liberalization has set a conservative tone among lesser-developed member economies, which would not consider opening their markets unless developed members did so as well. [FN16] Furthermore, many APEC members operate in an environment akin to "high-stakes trade poker" in which the economy that initiates trade liberalization exposes itself to greater competition without necessarily gaining reciprocal concessions, resulting in a sort of prisoners' dilemma. [FN17]

Perhaps more importantly, ASEAN countries within APEC have expressed doubts about expanding APEC's scope. A primary concern among joint members of ASEAN and APEC is that APEC will evolve into an instrument of US foreign policy. [FN18] Consequently, APEC's role in Asian economic integration is constrained by the diversity of its potential membership. An exclusively Asian association with a strong leader thus appears to be the only plausible vehicle for successful regional integration.

B. ASEAN

ASEAN was founded in 1967 as a means of securing peace, stability, and development in Southeast Asia. It began with just half of the countries in the region--Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand--and gradually incorporated the remaining countries until it formally included all ten Southeast Asian nations in 1999. With the specter of communism looming during the 1970s, ASEAN members quickly adopted two treaties to foster greater economic cooperation, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia and the Declaration of ASEAN Concord, both signed at the 1976 Bali Summit. [FN19]

The rise of trade blocs in Europe and North America during the 1990s inspired calls for deeper economic integration within ASEAN. [FN20] Such calls culminated in the seminal ASEAN Free Trade Agreement ("AFTA") in 1992. AFTA's ultimate purpose is to increase ASEAN's competitive edge in the world market, an objective that China has for itself. While ASEAN and China's twin goals would seem to put them in competition with one another, AFTA may actually create an opening for one of the larger Asian-Pacific economies, such as China, to expand its economy. [FN21]

In contrast to APEC, ASEAN has a relatively homogeneous membership. Indeed, it is comprised of lesser-developed economies, which is both a strength and a liability. On the one hand, ASEAN members are unified by a shared resentment of the West and its domineering politicians. [FN22] Yet it is the lesser-developed nature of ASEAN members that also hinders the regional association's competitive edge in the global marketplace. At the turn of this century, for instance, the ten member countries of ASEAN received only a fraction of the foreign direct investment that flowed into China, a trend that islikely to continue. [FN23] Although China (as well as Japan and South Korea) has a larger economy than the members of ASEAN, it needs the support of these lesser-developed states in order to promote economic regionalism. [FN24] Thus, a symbiotic relationship exists within the ASEAN Plus Three framework.

At present, the ASEAN Plus Three bloc, or a subset thereof, is the most promising vehicle for Asian regional economic integration. As it currently stands, however, ASEAN Plus Three lacks a strong leader. [FN25] The question that remains is whether China can be such a leader, filling the role of the nucleus already present in other major regional economic blocs.

In addition to the agreements that China has forged with ASEAN (discussed  infra), Chinese leaders have exercised diplomatic tact in their courtship with ASEAN. Chinese ministers have been careful to avoid the appearance of having plans to dominate the movement toward Asian regionalism, preferring instead to generate harmonious feelings toward China among ASEAN members. For instance, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has touted China as a "gentle and friendly elephant" to its smaller Asian counterparts. [FN26] Moreover, China has willingly played the part of a gracious guest at various ASEAN summits. [FN27] Perhaps China is assuming a non-threatening stance in order to avoid stirring the type of resentment that ASEAN members have toward the West. This strategy may be working.

III. The Rationale Behind China's Leadership Aspirations

In order to understand why China seeks to lead Asian regional economic integration, one must initially ask why Asian countries want a regional economic grouping in the first place. Much of the early impetus for the development of an Asian-Pacific economic grouping arose from the inadequacies of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ("GATT"). [FN30] The GATT lacked an institutional

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