By the time my plane touched down in Taiwan, The Economist had labeled the island “the most dangerous place on earth.” This was shortly after Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, had visited Taipei — an offense in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing that justified an unprecedented military show of force.  During the first three weeks of August, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft intruded across 'the center line' accepted by both sides into Taiwan's air defense zone, carried out six “live fire” exercises around the island, and for the first time fired missiles right over the island and into Japan’s exclusive economic zone. Many feared a Chinese version of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in the Ukraine was in the making.  I had traveled there as part of a delegation from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, with which the Asia Society has a joint Taiwan project examining microprocessors an