Your point about the blindness of the Russian eagle’s Asiatic head is well taken (“Blind-Sided in Asia,” July 11, 2009). The country is the world’s biggest gas exporter and the second-biggest oil exporter, and yet it sends a puny three percent of its energy exports to energy-hungry Asia. Amazing, of course. But you say not a word about Asia’s blindness, too. It takes two to trade, after all. You do mention a deep Sino-Soviet rift of old, but you also claim that it has been repaired already. I very much doubt it, though. Both Russia and China are still run by former apparatchiks. It will take an entire generation to defeat the old distrust, and for those three percent of energy exports to start swelling. In the meanwhile, both trade partners will remain curiously blind to each other.