CHA-AM, Thailand Asian foreign ministers met at a seaside resort in Thailand on Wednesday to discuss economic ties but simmering regional tensions looked set to overshadow their talks.

Ministers from 17 Asian countries, including China, Japan and India, attended the talks in Cha-am, 200 km (125 miles) south of Bangkok, to find ways to work together to boost their economies rather than compete against each other.

But much of the attention focused on bilateral meetings around the main half-day gathering, as envoys from regional heavyweights China, Japan and South Korea and several other participants discussed a series of regional rows, Reuters reported.

A source at the Japanese Foreign Ministry said Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi would discuss with her Chinese counterpart, Tang Jiaxuan, strained ties between the two nations after Chinese police entered a Japanese consulate in the northern city of Shenyang last month to haul out five North Korean asylum seekers.

"This will be the first time both sides will talk about the issue face-to-face," the source said, adding Tokyo was also trying to secure meetings with nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to discuss the conflict over disputed kashmir.

Pakistan said it had not ruled out talks with India.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has dubbed his brainchild the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), said the meeting had been given no agenda to allow a free flow of ideas.

"I expect all Asian countries will engage each other more," Thaksin told reporters before the meeting.

Thai officials had said the 10 members of the Association of South East Asian nations (ASEAN) were in favor of Thaksin's initiative but Thailand's neighbor Myanmar declined the invitation after skirmishes between ethnic minority forces on the Thai-Myanmar border soured relations between the two countries.

Other participants are Qatar, Bahrain and Bangladesh.

The meeting, which has received little media attention outside Thailand, kicked off on Tuesday with a dinner reception at Thaksin's resort mansion at Hua Hin Beach.

Thailand hopes the ACD will act as a Pan-Asian counterweight to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN) and could evolve to be a "missing link" between South and East Asia.

But commentators see the group as just another repetitive talk shop similar to other regional groupings.

"I don't see anything on the agenda that will make the ACD different from other regional blocs," said Surachai Sirikrai, political science professor at Bangkok's Thammasat University. "If we don't see anything substantial over the next three years after the first meeting, I can't call it a success.