[crooked-v]

Also people of Indian descent, for whom it can sometimes be pretty annoying to get dumped into the 'Asian' bucket.

[OJFord]

That was my first thought. Probably (maybe wrong, just IME) most 'people from the Western portion of continental Asia' don't see themselves (I suppose we say 'self-identify' now) as 'Asian'.

Similarly to we Britons speaking of 'Europe' and particularly 'Europeans' with the 'continental' implied - and even that phrase not really making sense, not meaning the same as 'mainland'!