So, anything that avoids a conflict that could draw in, unhappily again, outside powers such as the United States or revisit, for example, Japan's interests in the Taiwan area would be the last thing that anyone would want.
The reform of state industry, and most directly related to that, the banking sector, is enormously daunting.
And look at the mess that Russia is; most Chinese don't want to follow that.
I don't believe that economic and cultural interaction automatically brings greater peace and understanding, although it may help in that regard.
So, I think China desperately needs to legitimize some form of opposition.
The PRC is the big brother in this relationship, and it has the capacity to be generous to Taiwan on this issue in a manner that might do much to defuse that issue internally in Taiwan.
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.
I would hope we would begin a series of projects that would do more to bring the different parts of the university together in the study of Asia, for example, in the study of the professions in Asia.
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.
One of the problems, as you know, is that the Chinese language is not as nuanced as others for dealing with the difference between state and country.
But our main agenda is really to try to integrate the study of Asia here at Harvard and to play as positive a role as we can in this institution.