The East Asian Institute (EAI) was set up in April 1997 as an autonomous research organization under a statute of the National University of Singapore. It is the successor of the former Institute of East Asian Political Economy (IEAPE), which was itself the successor of the Institute of East Asian Philosophies (IEAP), originally established by Dr Goh Keng Swee in 1983 for the study of Confucianism.
The main mission of EAI is to promote both academic and policy-oriented research on East Asian development, particularly the political, economic and social development of contemporary China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), and China’s growing economic relations with the region and the world at large, including Japan, Korea and ASEAN.