It is both a yes and no to what we mean when we say Asian. The press being PC may use it to mask Muslim when writing about crime, BUT the British generally use it for ‘lumping in’ people from Asia, both the Indo-Pakistani peoples of S Asia, and Asia generally. The British will use it therefore to mean both a person from India but also Hong Kong.
This idea we use it only to secretly mean Muslim is simply not true. The press may do so, the British public dosent.
Thanks for the clarification. I do read the Economist but the US edition does not have the same British scope as I am sure the UK edition(s) do. Still, our concern / my concern is that we feel a natural filial concern about the British Isles from whence many of us have some ancestry AND the fact that much of the news from there seems to have the aspects of a non-integrating immigrant minority being treated with deference which we here in the US see as happening all too easily here.
I know you have been doing a yeoman's job in helping your fellow FReepers avoid the inevitable confusions and error and for that I thank you and apologize for those that are my doing. However, in closing I will say that our use of "Middle East" as a term covering the area from Turkey to India is at least equally accurate and, I believe, derives from British Empire usage, does it not?