Edward Luce wrote (“The world from Washington”, Life & Arts, May 14) that the 50th anniversary in February of Richard Nixon’s trip to China “passed in silence”. This is not entirely true. On February 17, the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Europe Center (Bologna) organised a fascinating webinar entitled, “The week that changed the world: The 50th anniversary of Nixon’s trip to China”.

The webinar brought together American, Russian, European and Asian specialists and is freely available to watch on YouTube.

There are clearly lessons still to be learnt from those momentous times.

Martin Westlake
Visiting Professor
Department of European Political and Administrative Studies
College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium