The existence and significance of ASEM as a forum for inter-regional relations between Asia and Europe is little appreciated in both regions, and even less in the rest of the world. Within Asia, only a small number of state officials and non-official actors have any real understanding of, or engagement with, ASEM. Nevertheless, ASEM has survived and even enlarged. Most Asian leaders have continued to attend the ASEM summits despite the frequent failure of their European counterparts to attend with a complete team and despite little attention being given to this inter-regional institution. Why is this? What has ASEM delivered to its Asian partners? If the sceptics and critics are right about ASEM's weaknesses, why has it been maintained? This puzzle provides the rationale for this investigation into why and how ASEM has sustained, from the Southeast Asian perspectives, given the challenges in maintaining multidimensional relations and the inter-regional character of ASEM. This concluding chapter brings together the various strands of the overarching arguments in this study, and in so doing seeks to make a contribution to the literature of ASEM.

Whereas other studies of ASEM have indicated the challenges and what have been perceived as failures of these inter-regional relations, a distinctive feature of this study is its focus precisely on the question of why ASEM has endured as long as it has. Scholarly articles and reports during the initial years of ASEM mostly consist of the excitement and hopes for the new framework of relations written in neoliberal perspectives or historical-cultural points of view (Stokhof and van der Velde 1999; CAEC 1997; Dent 1997/1998). The positive tone, however, largely disappeared and was replaced by the negative assessments and criticisms of ASEM when the relevance of the inter-regional relations seemed to wane after the Asian financial crisis (Dent 1999; Forster 1999; Richards and Kirkpatrick 1999). In addition, the relevance of ASEM was questioned after the attack on U.S. territory in 2001.