European leaders gathered in impoverished Laos Monday on a mission to reassure Asia they are finally getting a grip on the eurozone debt crisis during a major summit in the tiny landlocked nation.
Top European officials including French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti were spearheading efforts to boost much-needed trade with Asia's fast-growing economies.
Hollande said the main aim of his first trip to Asia since taking office in May was to bring the message that "Europe is still an economic power."
"I'm here to reassure Asian countries" but at the same time "to tell them that they also have a role to play in European and global growth," he said.
"Asians have gained a lot from our growth. Now it's time for them to boost our growth with their demand."
He criticized the inflexibility of the Chinese yuan and certain other Asian currencies, saying "we have to be competitive but that requires fair exchange rates."
For years Western outrage over Myanmar's human rights abuses - including the longtime detention of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners - was a major cause of friction between the two regions.
Unlike other participating nations, Myanmar was only allowed to send its foreign minister to previous Asia-Europe summits.
But after reforms including the release of political detainees and Suu Kyi's election to parliament, the West has begun easing sanctions to reward President Thein Sein, who is now on the summit guest list.
Optimism over the sweeping changes, however, has been dampened by deadly clashes between Buddhists and stateless Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague called on Myanmar to address "the unresolved problems of the status of the Rohingya people".
"I'll certainly raise that with the Burma leaders here when I have the opportunity to do so," he told reporters in the Laos capital Vientiane.
Dozens of people have been killed and more than 100,000 displaced since June by the unrest.
The violence is also "an issue of concern" for Southeast Asia, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told AFP.
"But the fact that we can meet here in the heart of Southeast Asia almost without having Myanmar as an issue center-stage as it has been in the past is a reflection of how far Myanmar has traveled in terms of its democratic transition," he said.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been accused by the West in the past of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses by the generals who ran Myanmar for decades.
Laos, a poor country of just 6 million people, is on the verge of joining the World Trade Organization as it opens up its fast-growing economy.