European and Asian leaders launch three days of summits in Brussels on Monday with trade and climate change high on the agenda but a row between Japan and China threatened to steal the show.
Heads of state and government from the 48-nation Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) will hold a two-day summit, followed by separate European Union talks Wednesday with South Korea and then China.
But all eyes will be on whether Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Naota Kan will meet face-to-face to ease tensions over a maritime incident near a disputed island chain.
Asia's two largest economies have been embroiled in a tense diplomatic standoff since Japan's arrest on September 8 of a Chinese trawler captain near the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Japan has released the captain, but tensions remain with Beijing freezing high-level talks.
In an apparent conciliatory move by Japan, Tokyo signalled Kan's intention to go to Brussels but reports downplayed the chances of a bilateral meeting with Wen.
Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara sought Sunday to put a lid on anti-Beijing sentiment in Japan, insisting that the two countries were "good neighbours."
For the European Union, the summits are a chance for the 27-nation bloc to tighten its links with Asia and reassert itself as a major world player, analysts say.
"None of Europe's key challenges can be tackled successfully without closer engagement with Asia," said Shada Islam, senior programme executive at the European Policy Centre think tank.
"The EU must use the meeting to give a signal that it is not becoming 'irrelevant' on the global stage as some in Asia claim," she said.
Economic issues will likely dominate the talks at the eighth meeting of ASEM nations, which represent 60 percent of the world population and global trade.
ASEM, which meets every two years, groups the EU, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, Japan, South Korea, India, Pakistan and Mongolia, and new members Australia, New Zealand and Russia.
Reform of the IMF will likely feature highly on the agenda after the EU signalled on Friday its willingness to cede some power at the international lender to emerging powers, which say Europe is over-represented.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy will use the summit to present his priorities for France's upcoming presidency of the G20 next month, including reform of the international monetary system.
On climate change, ASEM leaders are expected to express the "shared the goal of reaching urgently a fair, effective and comprehensive legally binding outcome," according to a draft statement obtained by AFP.
"Deep cuts in global emissions are required" to ensure the increase in global temperature remain below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit), the text says.
The ASEM summit comes ahead of a final preparatory meeting in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin for UN climate talks opening in November in Cancun, Mexico.
Hopes are low that any binding deals on cutting greenhouse gas emissions can be reached at the Cancun talks amid lingering bitterness following a Copenhagen summit in December which failed to secure emissions-reduction commitments.
Major emerging nations such as China and India have resisted legally binding requirements to cut emissions, saying rich countries are historically responsible for global warming and must take the lead.
After ASEM, the EU will sign a major free trade deal with South Korea, the first with an Asian country, and move on to a summit with China that could reveal tensions over the nation's human rights record and its yuan currency.
Europe and the United States have accused China of deliberately keeping the yuan artificially to boost exports, causing a huge trade imbalance.
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