Chiangi is right. On AAdvantage you can only upgrade FROM/TO North America-Asia/Pacific and not WITHIN Asia. Besides you'll have to request an award certificate first, and then produce that along with your FULL ECONOMY CLASS ticket at any American Airlines ticket counter to do an upgrade.

So if you're only doing an Asian upgrade, you can only upgrade with EITHER Asiamiles or Swissair/Sabena's QUALIFLYER programme. These two programmes can upgrade almost every kind of economy class ticket.