The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) is a partnership of the fifteen European Union member states, the European Commission and ten East and Southeast Asian countries. Asia and Europe provides the first comprehensive review of this enterprise and examines what exactly it is and how it came about. The book both gives a chronological and systematic overview of the conception, birth and development of ASEM and contextualises ASEM within the theoretical frameworks of the realists, social constructionists and liberal-institutionalists. ASEM is therefore examined in the framework of summit diplomacy, as an instrument for regional integration and as an institution for regime creation. The author gives a clear assessment of ASEM by sieving the rhetoric from the reality, and examining its promises and potential. This study is not only important for us in understanding the state of Asia-Europe relations but also, and more significantly, it provides a sober look into the issue of international cooperation and warns that the health and wealth of international cooperation that underlies the global order depends on enlightened leadership and wise statecraft.