Taiwan is a major economy.

So, I think China desperately needs to legitimize some form of opposition.

The most important thing that certainly the United States and other Asian and Pacific actors have done is to urge that whatever happens, however the dispute is resolved, that it be resolved peacefully.

Another goal is to look to the resources we have and to see how we could do better to plan, in a sense, for the faculty and infrastructure that we will need to study Asia well into the 21st century.

East Asia has prospered since the end of the Vietnam War, and Northeast Asia has prospered since the end of the Korean War in a way that seems unimaginable when you think of the history of the first half of the century.

The Chinese government since 1979 has been very successful in economic development, and successful enough, simply by surviving, in the realm of political development.

There is no question that Taiwan is a state in any political science definition of a state.