FROM the time the South China Sea tension began to heighten in 2008 (that was the year the much touted pivot of the United States from the Middle East to the Asia Pacific region was the main preoccupation in geopolitics), it has become my magnificent obsession to have a one-on-one with a highly placed Chinese leader. My humble effort at studying history truthfully has instilled in me a particularly strong conviction that China has never been an invading nation. And that in all cases in which that country has been involved in a war with another nation, the bone of contention was territorial boundary. This has been true with its wars with India, Vietnam, and Tibet, to name a few examples. However, this view of mine on China has invariably been contradicted by media accounts picturing China as the aggressor in the South China Sea conflict. Over time I inevitably nursed that obsession of talking to a Chinese leader by way of getting answers to my questions right out of the horse’s mouth, so to speak.