I first visited Taiwan in the 1970s as a young officer serving in an American destroyer assigned to the Pacific Fleet. A small, dynamic nation at the northern edge of the strategically crucial South China Sea, the Republic of China (as Taiwan prefers to be known) was locked in a Cold War duel of geopolitics with its vastly larger cousin across the Taiwan Strait, the People's Republic of China.
I returned to Taiwan recently for meetings with senior officials — President Tsai Ing-wen, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and the national security advisor, David Lee — and enjoyed seeing the extraordinary progress.
At the time of my first visit, I had my doubts about how long the Taiwanese could hold out against the mainland Chinese. But I came away with a deep respect for the courage, ingenuity and independent spirit of Taiwan.