Letter to the editor
I found the over anti-American tone of the article by Dr Leo Schmit in the last issue of your paper ['Reflections from the ASEM Bowl in China', IIASN 20, p.4, ed.] highly inappropriate and alarming. Using the generic bogey of American enomomic imperialism instead of looking for serous and specific objectives of exchange between Asia and Europe drags the idea of greater understanding between academics of the two continents to a tactical ploy and vindicates those in Asia who see the future of international relations in purely Machiavellian terms. It is short-sighted to believe that belatedly borrowing the Chinese Communist Party's united front discourse against American hegemony can be the basis of better Asian-European relations. *
PAL NYIRI
Senior Research Fellow,
University of Oxford
E-mail: nyirip@mail.matav.hu.