With the institutionalisation of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in 1996, the historical relations of Asia and Europe is said to have been reaffirmed and rediscovered towards greater political, economic, and cultural cooperation. Yet a deeper logic underlies the political economy of Asia-Europe relations. It is the interest and logic of global capitalist reproduction interacting with particular social forces and states to control and benefit from it, and the conflicts and contradictions generated in these processes.