Last week I was invited to participate in an international conference in Taipei that was hosted by several of Taiwan's private think-tanks and governmental ministries. For me, it was not only a great honor but also a sentimental journey, since it was during the winter of 1976-1977 in Taipei that I, at the age of 23, first studied Chinese abroad.
The two-full-day conference, titled "2018 Asia-Pacific Think-Tank Summit," was attended by presidents and senior scholars of research institutions from 18 countries/entities. It was a golden opportunity for me, and probably for many other participants as well, to rediscover Taiwan's strategic and geopolitical values.
One Japanese participant, a former Cabinet member, for example, stated in his keynote speech as follows: "Historically, the island chain starting from Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines and all the way to Indonesia has long been preventing aggression or maritime advances by the continental powers.