The inaugural East Asia Summit, hosted by Malaysia in its capital city of Kuala Lumpur last Wednesday, could easily have been one of the most pointless diplomatic events that has ever taken place. Leaders from 16 countries with different visions and identities gathered together for one day to try to achieve the impossible objective of “One vision, one identity, one community,” as the slogan of the summit suggested.

For any multinational grouping to work, it must possess a clear common purpose. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for example, was established in 1949 by America and Western Europe to safeguard the free world from the communist threat. NAFTA and CAFTA were founded to create more wealth. Member states in such alliances of course have differences among themselves but are more or less unified under a larger theme: be it democracy or economy.

The ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations was the biggest bloc in attendance at the East Asia Summit. ASEAN was originally started in 1967 by five non-communist states: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. They shared an anti-communist slant of keeping a close eye on China, which at that time was exporting its revolution to the region. Like NATO, ASEAN later admitted former and not-so-former communist states as members in the 90s: Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (Brunei joined separately in the 80s).China, Japan and South Korea, the so-called ASEAN Plus Three nations, were there. Australia, India and New Zealand were also invited. Russia showed up as an observer. America, however, was notably excluded.

The composition of the East Asia Summit reflects a complete lack of any similar gluing effect. I’m totally lost to see how a diverse group like this can form a functioning club in any meaningful sense. Just one example was enough to expose the farcical nature of the event: two top players in East Asia were not even talking to each other at the summit. Using historical grievances as an excuse, China refused to engage with Japan. So even though the gathering represented about half of the world’s population and a fifth of global trade, it would almost have no impact on international affairs in the foreseeable future.

The idea of an East Asia Summit, proposed by the Malaysian politician Mahathir Mohamad almost two decades ago and later championed by China, envisions a “caucus without Caucasians” – with ASEAN Plus Three as core members to cooperate on security, social, and economic problems and to balance other regional groupings such as Europe and North America. Countries in the region were understandably more receptive to the idea when America had just won the Cold War and was poised to be the only invincible superpower. The rise of China in the last decade, nevertheless, has forced many to have second thoughts.

“Given the rise of China… we also want America to maintain a strong and sizable presence in the region,” Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew school of public policy at the National University of Singapore, told an audience at the Brookings Institution recently. He also said Southeast Asian countries have to live with a rising China but they don’t have to bend over backwards to China on everything.

China, being the largest member in ASEAN Plus Three, founded in 1997 largely in response to the Asian financial crisis, naturally wants to turn the East Asia Summit into another Shanghai Cooperation Organization – founded in 2001 by six countries: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – excluding the participation of America.

While China succeeded in keeping America out, Beijing failed to dominate the summit as planned. Japan, along with Indonesia and Singapore, fought to include three non-East Asian countries: India, Australia, and New Zealand. China’s influence was thus much diluted. No wonder Mr. Mahathir was disappointed and said, “this so-called East Asia Summit is an East Asia Australasian summit” and claimed that “Australia’s views do not represent the East, but the views of America.” He has called Australia a “deputy sheriff for America.”

The East Asia Summit’s fatal flaw lies in the fact that it can’t deal with real issues even if it wants to. The two most dangerous flashpoints in East Asia today are the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait respectively. But as long as China maintains its support for North Korea and insists Taiwan is “internal affairs,” there will be no true discussion on these two pressing issues. And if an East Asia Summit can’t tackle problems that could disrupt East Asia in a disastrous fashion, then what good does it do?

The only thing the 16 countries seemed to have agreed on was that the summit would become an annual event. America, however, should not seek an invitation to go to the Philippines next year. It can do something more constructive by organizing an East Asia Democratic Summit instead. Bonding with democratic nations and seeking ways to enlarge democracy in East Asia tops wasting time in an incoherent talk shop.

Mr. Liu is a Washington-based columnist.