About 350 alumni of the East-West Center from 23 countries attended the opening Monday of a three-day international conference in Tokyo organized by the Hawaii-based research and education institution.
In kicking off the East-West Center/East-West Center Association 2004 Tokyo International Conference, Charles E. Morrison, president of the East-West Center, stressed its uniqueness and importance in contributing to the solution of problems faced by the Asia-Pacific region.
Morrison said the EWC, through its "cooperative strategic training and research," is nurturing "human resources or people who understand regional problems and look at things in regional terms."
"Do you know of any other organization that exclusively trains young men and women to be knowledgeable about broad regional issues and to think of themselves as part of the nations of the regional community?" he asked.
The conference is being held at Nihon University's College of Economics under the theme of "New Challenge for Building Asia-Pacific Community."