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This article analyses the impact ASEAN’s expansion to include the +3 countries of China, Japan and South Korea. By placing post-97 developments in a chronological and sectoral matrix, this article attempts o evaluate ASEAN’s recent efforts at region-building. It is argued that the expansion of ASEAN’s Informal membership coupled with a higher level of policy convergence by ASEAN member countries at the regional and sub-regional levels is leading towards the development of an East Asian bloc. The choice now confronting these countries is whether to institutionalize the current arrangements or to allow the present, looser formation to continue. A new East Asia is being built: one with stronger financial institutions and corporations and one where openness applies not just to trade and finance but increasingly to information and even politics