I completely subscribe to the idea of intercontinental cooperation, and it appears ASEM is achieving this.

However, cooperation on economic & environmental matters is only part of it. Do we really want a world where Asian values are prominent?

Are the European nations promoting the values of human rights to these nations, as, let's face it, the entire non-western world, Asia in particular, have some very questionable morals.

The UN has stated that China's rampant economic growth is being built off the backs of hundreds of millions of rural low paid, often not paid, slaves.

What is Europe doing to stop such practices?

India is the same, and even has a child labour problem, partly due to their caste system arrangement where children must work off family debts. Although these manifestations are predominently in rural areas where the education levels are non-existant, the middle-classes in such nations don't seem to care about human rights one iota.

It would be interesting to hear about this aspect of the partnership, as I suspect it's mostly about economic cooperation, as after all, what cultural cooperation could there be, when many Asian nations stifle free speech, documentaries on the darker aspects of Asian culture, and so on.

And what about the political aspects? Are the Europeans concerned about the nature of Asian societies? Even Japan, by far considered the most civilised of the Asian nations, has institutional discrimination against South Korean citizens, who can't hold specific jobs, have numerous barriers to the workforce, as well as a host of other demeaning criteria.

That's Japan, we all know how bad it is in other Asian nations, i.e, Malaysia recently passed legislation making all females have to wear the veil to Universities, even non-Muslim women.

No doubt this was a childish reaction to the logical policy secular France initiated regarding it's Muslims....

...There's a whole issue right there, too, as what is going on about the friendly relationship with some Asian governments, particularly Indonesia, to terrorists?

The current president has denied J.I even exist, prominent politicians visited Abu Bakar Bashir (spiritual head and terrorist mastermind of J.I) in prison regularly, and it's well known that Indonesia won't ban this group because their people would riot, which says a lot about their morality.

It seems that unless Europe ignores all these aspects of Asian culture, it would simply be a process of pointing the finger at our Asian friends for their endless human rights abuses wouldn't it?