Can Northeast Asia Become Like the EU?

Phase 1 · 0–6 min · Whole class

Why Europe integrated and Northeast Asia did not

Europe turned former enemies into members of shared institutions. Northeast Asia trades intensely but keeps its institutions thin. Today your delegation decides how far that could change.

The question behind todayWhy has Europe achieved deep regional integration, while Northeast Asia remains institutionally fragmented despite extensive economic cooperation?

Today you will answer three questions

Could it happen? Does Northeast Asia have the political, economic and security conditions Europe had?
Who would take part? Which states are members, and what roles do the US, Russia, Mongolia and North Korea play?
What would it look like? If a full EU model is out of reach, how much could states hand to a common body?

Three concepts you will use all class

Economic interdependence

经济相互依赖

States depend on each other for trade, investment and production. It raises the cost of conflict but does not remove it.

Regional integration

区域一体化

States turn some policy coordination into permanent common rules and common institutions.

Supranational authority

超国家权威

Members give a common body the power to decide or enforce in a defined area, even against a member's wishes. This is what separates the EU from ordinary cooperation.

Phase 2 · 6–15 min · In delegations

Set your national position

Read your briefing card, then agree on three judgments as a delegation. Represent your government's interests in 2026, not your personal view.

Your delegation must decide, in 9 minutes

Would your government support deeper regional integration? Fully, conditionally, or not at all?
In which one area is it most willing to cooperate?
Which institutional arrangement is hardest for it to accept?

Write these into the group worksheet now. One worksheet per delegation.

My delegation

Choosing highlights your card and pre-fills your worksheet. It stays on this device only.

Country briefing cards

Phase 3 · 15–26 min · Plenary

Country hearing

Each delegation has 60 seconds. Then 5 minutes of questions and challenges across the room.

Your 60 seconds must cover

Would your country support deeper regional integration?
One potential benefit for your country.
Your most important political concern.

After all six have spoken, the chair opens the floor. Expect a challenge from another delegation and prepare one of your own.

Speaking order

Phase 4 · 26–38 min · Speakers at the front, delegations advise

Institutional negotiation

Six speakers negotiate at the front. Everyone else stays with their delegation and passes advice. You may change your position at any time.

Three institutional models

A

Intergovernmental cooperation

Build on the existing China–Japan–Korea mechanism: regular summits, ministerial meetings and joint projects. Governments decide everything by agreement. No independent supranational body.

Low depth. Easy to agree, easy to ignore.

B

Sectoral integration community

A treaty body for a few limited fields such as public health, environment, disaster response or energy. Binding common rules in those fields, with compliance monitoring and dispute settlement.

Medium depth. Limited, tested power sharing.

C

EU-style regional union

A broad common market and policy institutions: common legislation, a regional court, and supranational decision-making in some fields.

High depth. Heavy shared obligations.

These are classroom models for analysis. None is an existing plan for a Northeast Asian organization.

Keep returning to thisWhich specific powers would your government be willing to delegate to a regional institution?

Negotiating table: four issues

The chair records what the room agrees on the classroom screen. Use these options to plan what your delegation will accept.

Phase 5 · 38–46 min · 45 seconds per delegation, then vote

Final positions and the vote

Each delegation states its final position in 45 seconds: did you change your view, and which model do you back? Then one vote per delegation for the most feasible model.

This is an analytical vote on feasibility, not a treaty signature. Each delegation counts once, regardless of real-world membership or voting rules. The United States votes as an analyst and is recorded separately as an external stakeholder.

Your final statement, 45 seconds

Did your delegation change its position during the negotiation? Why?
Which model do you now judge most feasible: A, B or C?
Under what conditions would your government sign up?

The vote is recorded and shown on the classroom screen. Write your final answer into question 7 of the worksheet.

Phase 6 · 46–50 min · Whole class

What the room just showed

Three theories of regional integration, read against your class's result.

Neofunctionalism 新功能主义

Success in one sector creates pressure to integrate the next (spillover). Europe went from coal and steel to a common market. Ask: what would have to spill over in Northeast Asia, and who would push it?

Liberal intergovernmentalism 自由政府间主义

Integration goes only as deep as governments bargain for, driven by national interests and domestic politics. Clear economic gains still come with different conditions on sharing power.

Realism 现实主义

Great-power rivalry, threat perceptions and alliance systems limit how much authority states hand to common bodies. Economic cooperation can continue while security politics caps it.

Reading pack · about 8 minutes

Background for delegates

Short enough to read during preparation. Every delegation should know Sections 1 to 3.

1. Two regions, side by side

2. How deep is an institution?

"Cooperation" covers very different things. The question is how much a common body can do without each government's fresh consent. Northeast Asia's institutions sit on the lower rungs; the EU sits at the top.

3. What Northeast Asia already has

Mechanism	Members	What it can do	Status in 2026
Trilateral summit	China, Japan, ROK	Leaders set shared priorities. The 9th summit (Seoul, May 2024) named six areas: people-to-people exchange, sustainable development, economy and trade, public health and ageing, science and digital transformation, disaster relief and safety.	No 10th summit yet. In November 2025 Beijing said conditions were not ready, after the Japanese prime minister's remarks on Taiwan.
Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS)	China, Japan, ROK	Coordinates, supports and promotes cooperation from Seoul since 2011. It cannot make binding decisions.	Operating; ministerial meetings continued in 2025.
RCEP	15 states incl. China, Japan, ROK and ASEAN	Binding trade rules and tariff cuts. The first trade agreement linking China with Japan, and Japan with Korea. No supranational court or legislature.	In force since 2022. The 2024 trilateral declaration treats it as a base for a China–Japan–Korea FTA.
ASEAN+3	ASEAN + China, Japan, ROK	Forum since 1997, born from the Asian financial crisis; financial-safety-net cooperation.	Ongoing; ASEAN, not Northeast Asia, sits at the centre.
China–Korea FTA, phase 2	China, ROK	Talks to extend the 2015 goods FTA to services and investment.	17th round held in Seoul, 12–16 October 2026. Talks continue; no opening package announced.
Six-Party Talks	China, Japan, ROK, DPRK, Russia, US	The region's only security forum on the North Korean nuclear issue.	Dormant since 2009.

4. Europe in the 1950s vs Northeast Asia today

Condition	Western Europe, 1950s	Northeast Asia, 2026
Reconciliation	France and West Germany made reconciliation a political project, later sealed in the 1963 Élysée Treaty.	Wartime history, apologies and textbooks remain live political issues, especially between Japan and its neighbours.
Security umbrella	All six founders were in, or soon joined, one US-led alliance (NATO).	US alliances are separate bilateral deals with Japan and ROK. China and Russia stand outside and see them as aimed at them.
Political systems	All six were democracies.	Democracies (Japan, ROK, Mongolia) alongside one-party states (China, DPRK) and Russia.
Balance of power	France and West Germany were roughly matched.	China's economy is larger than Japan's and Korea's combined.
Common threat	The Soviet Union united Western Europe.	The likely members perceive each other as the threats.
Outside sponsor	The US pushed Europeans to cooperate, for example through Marshall Plan aid.	The US prefers its own alliance network and is wary of exclusive Asian groupings.

5. Primary sources

Joint Declaration of the Ninth Trilateral Summit (2024)

Chinese Foreign Ministry. Read the sections on trade and on the six cooperation areas.

The Schuman Declaration, May 1950

European Union. The original proposal to pool coal and steel.

Regional cooperation in East Asia

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Diagram of overlapping regional frameworks.

17th round of China–Korea FTA services and investment talks (Korean)

Aju News, October 2026.

China rules out trilateral summit amid tensions

Prensa Latina, 24 November 2025.

Group worksheet · one per delegation

Delegation worksheet

Fill this in during Phases 2 to 5. Your draft saves on this device as you type. When you finish, copy it and submit it the way your instructor asks.