The prospect of a new, rapidly rising China poses both opportunities and challenges for the task of regional community building in Asia Pacific. China’s rise has been met with ambivalent reactions from its neighboring countries in a region that is still struggling to establish a viable arrangement for regional governance that will contribute to economic development and political and security stability. With a view to building the Asia Pacific regional community, what is clearly needed for the establishment of a viable system of governance in the region is to engage in sustained joint intellectual efforts to develop a better understanding of these opportunities and challenges.

Under the joint leadership of three senior intellectual leaders in the region—Wang Jisi, director of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Ryosei Kokubun, Professor of Keio University, and Jusuf Wanandi of CSIS Jakarta—a major research project was organized in 2002 to study the opportunities and challenges that the rise of China as a regional power presents for the task of regional community-building. The joint task force, part of the Asia Pacific Agenda Project (APAP), consisted of emerging intellectual leaders from China, Japan, Korea, and several ASEAN countries. The participants discussed their preliminary paper drafts in Singapore on November 24–25, 2002, and then came together at the 8th APAP Forum in Kunming, China, on March 21–23, 2003, to present the main themes of their research. Their papers were compiled as The Rise of China and the Changing East Asian Order, published in 2004.