The foremost purpose of CNEAS is to establish and broaden frameworks for regional understanding in Northeast Asia. The period since 1996 when CNEAS was established has indeed been one of substantive progress in the formation of regional frameworks in the region, which consists of Siberian and Far Eastern Russia, China, the Korean peninsula, Mongolia, and Japan. With links forming in economic development between China on the one hand and Japan and Korea on the other, with redefinition of Russia and Mongolia as Asian-Pacific states and the building of their ties with East Asia, and with the emergence of mechanisms for coordinating relations mainly between China and Russia, Northeast Asia today is incomparably more tightly knit than it was in the days of the Cold War.