International trade among the East Asian countries, such as China, Japan South Korea, Taiwan, has formed the Pan Pacific supply-chain of manufacturing for the world market. Its stability over time is crucial for the stable supply of manufactured goods to the international market. The East Asian region, however, has a highest level of international political tension among the component countries and regions, and potential tension ofen flares up in violent expressions of territorial disputes and conflicts which end up with calls for boycott of the partner country’s products. We are working on an on-going project to examine whether international politics affects international trade in the East Asian countries. In its first step, the current paper deals with how to effectively quantifiy internatioinal relationship: We review the existing conflicts and peace index data sets, and empirical works based on them. To overcome their apparent shortcomings, we have come up with our own international political index of China and its East Asian economic partners, which is based on human coding of the daily reports by the respresentative Chinese news media. Our preliminary results show that there is no relationship among international politics and international trade among the East Asian countries in most cases, and indeed there seems to be a dichotomy between politics and economy in the East Asia.