Abstract
I would like to thank the editors of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Bill and Nancy Doub, and especially Mark Selden, for arranging the symposium “Asia, Asian Studies, and the National Security State,” which appeared in the previous issue of the Bulletin, vol. 29, no 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1997). I also thank the contributors to the symposium, whose variant reactions to my essay advanced the debate on the origin and current condition of Asian studies, and its relation to the state and the foundations that have supported it (or not).