"It is all the more urgent to strengthen the political dimension of dialogue among cultures and civilizations," the declaration said.

With many ASEM members both in the East and West having ancient civilizations, culture diversity has become an area of importance for Asia-Europe communication and cooperation. The declaration said the meeting's participants emphasized the positive role of dialogue among different cultures and civilizations. The participants believe that such talks would play a special role in diminishing poverty, protecting the environment and improving sustainable economic growth and common prosperity, the declaration said.

The declaration also pointed out that education and exchanges among young people would be good channels to promote the understanding of different cultures and civilizations. In light of this, the parliamentarians encouraged ASEM to redouble its efforts to develop an "ambitious and concrete" action plan to create more exchange programs for youth and young professionals.

Nancy Shukri, a member of the Malaysian Parliament, told the conference on June 20 that dialogues on multi-civilizations could help people improve their understanding and communication to resolve disputes over different religions, faiths, ideologies, races and cultural values.

"It is urgent to expand dialogues and communication among multi-civilization and different ethnic groups," Shukri said.

Future hopes

Facing common challenges, ASEP participants also discussed other issues, including food safety, energy safety and counterterrorism. They agreed that ASEM's second decade would be an important one for deepening the meeting's process. They called for further improving dialogue and cooperation in political, economic, social and cultural areas to guarantee that people on both continents benefit from the cooperation.

In a speech on June 19, First Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Finland Seppo Kaariainen said the ASEM was "characterized by an optimistic spirit of cooperation." Mentioning common problems, such as the negative sides of globalization, climate change and environmental problems, he said, "We need to tackle these issues as an essential part of our work to strengthen the cooperation between Europe and Asia." Kaariainen added that the development of resources and the use of new logistical solutions could tie the two continents closer together.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Asia and Europe should promote their cooperation and relations by respecting each other, understanding each other, learning from each other and communicating based on equality. He hoped that the ASEP and ASEM could serve as platforms of practical cooperation between the two continents.

But not everyone has such a rosy view of the ASEM. Zhai Kun, Deputy Director of Institute of Asian and African Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, once wrote in an article in the International Herald Leader that Asia and Europe still had many problems to resolve, though their cooperation had greatly improved in recent years.

He pointed out three of ASEM's shortcomings: its lack of clear goals on political, economic and cultural exchanges, the imbalanced communication of the two sides, and the absence of an efficient mechanism that supervises the cooperative progress and implementation of certain ASEM and ASEP policies.