The Problems Facing Regional Cooperation in East Asia Great efforts are being made in East Asia to improve regional and sub-regional multilateral cooperation in the face of a bottleneck.The key issues are listed below: First,there is a mismatch between size and effectiveness.Generally speaking,the larger the cooperation organization the more conflicts that arise and thus the less effective they are.Because of efforts by countries such as the U.S.,2 Australia,Japan,and India to further their strategic or diplomatic interests,these organizations are growing in regional coverage,which causes issues to become diversified and in turn causes the organizations to lose sight of their mission.Subsequently,many regional or trans-regional multilateral organizations such as APEC,the East Asia Summit (EAS),and the ASEAN Security Forum are increasingly playing a less effective role.For example,APEC summits and the EAS usually just end up with a symbolic proclamation without any substance or implementable policy.Furthermore,because of interference from some countries and disputes,even smaller cooperative bodies are becoming less effective.