There is not much optimism about the Hong Kong meeting. Japan has offered some additional ODA funds as carrots, but the important step would be to put the cards on agriculture policy on the table. The good news is that Japan as well as China are working hard behind the scenes to get to some results, and they seem to be willing to open their agriculture markets further. One of the big problems of the current negotiations is that the EU Commission might be willing to play ball, but that it seems to be lacking the necessary support from the European member states, which seem to have almost no interest in WTO policy and further concessions right now.

Though there won't be any direct result and because everybody has different and often opposing interests in such an East Asian Community, it helps to push bilateral FTA talks. So far progress depended on talks between Japan, China and Korea with the AEAN group, which basically have been stuck over the year. Some competition and the involvement of India and Australia might help here, and might also increase the interest in the more general WTO framework again.