INTRODUCTION

Today ASEAN and China are clearly the world's emerging economies. Both are considered crucial to the future development of East Asia. In general, China is obviously more of a heavyweight in the global economy than ASEAN. In order for their economies to further prosper, they all need consistent integration both in trade and investment and to deepen their interactions with the region and the world. However, most ASEAN countries were weakened by the financial crisis of 1997 before the recent recovery. China's economy, on the other hand, still keeps on growing despite increasing apparent weaknesses related to the strong economic expansion.

Across the world, as much as in the Southeast Asian region, China's economic performance has become a subject of intense debate among the concerned public. China's economic locomotive has dramatically driven the world and even more, the East Asian region, into a new kind of economic interdependence, centred around relations with China's own economic growth. This has led to a new perception of China, which would include seeing China as both economic threat and opportunity. The Southeast Asian region is geopolitically speaking, next to China. It has to take these challenges even more seriously than others as China's future growth path is in direct relation with the region's future development. For sure, the weight of China's economic presence is to be felt more over time, thus causing ASEAN's need to pay attention to these new economic challenges.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, relations between ASEAN and China have called into increasing focus the signed agreement of the ASEAN-China FTA (ACFTA). Upon China's accession into the WTO, China's growing confidence was displayed in its push toward ASEAN to accept this pact. Willingly or not, all ASEAN members, once accepted, have been busy negotiating with China the new framework. For both parties, this is the first FTA agreed with outsiders. For ASEAN, this agreement has opened doors to negotiate for similar proposals with India, Japan, and others for instance. Amidst the proliferation of bilateral and regional FTAs in East Asia after the financial crisis, it seems valid to ask questions about what this sort of agreement could represent and whether and how it could ensure longterm cooperation between the two sides.