Empty talk of East Asian community

Now that Japanese foreign minister Okada clarified what his boss, prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, meant when he talked about East Asia community.

It's Asean plus China, Japan and South Korea, plus Australia, New Zealand and India. The same old membership of the East Asia summit, which is a talkshop.

China will not be interested because the whole idea of the grouping is to counterbalance China.

ASEAN will be against it because it will sideline Asean.

The China-Asean axis is the core of the East Asian community. Anything else makes no sense and will not work.

China will just sit back and Asean will do the opposing.