That was a thing.

I know.

It's like, literally.

And I saw an advert, um, about opportunities.

And actually, I think one of the things that appealed to me is it about going and having an office in New York.

I was like, "Yeah, that sounds very much like me.

Love that." Um, but it was cold calling.

... that are, I don't know, negotiators in negotiating whatever you're hiring for." And then sort of, I guess, DM them and sort of get them in front of you that way.

But how well does New Zealand understand the leaders in politics in our region?

Because in New Zealand we kind of view everything from Anglo perspective.

And that's the claim of this part, right? The claim of this book is that despite the dominance of Western perspectives on the study of international relations, we cannot neglect the fact that Asia-Pacific, as one of the most dynamic regions after the Second World War, is not only an economic dynamo, but there are ideas around that are coming out from this region that the world needs to account for.

And that's why we want to do it here.

We are not bereft of ideas.

So my view here is that leaders, despite them, many of our leaders here are from...

Middle-sized countries mean middle powers, not necessarily great powers as such.

To get a wide breadth of expertise, Alex Tan shoulder-tapped 40 specialists from around the world to examine the role of influential leaders from the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan's Shinzo Abe, Taiwan's Li Tinghui, and others.

Is it a vulnerable relationship? Can you give us a bit of information about how this all fits together, particularly with big brother China just across the strait?

Yeah, I don't think it's a vulnerable relationship, certainly at the trade, cultural, economic side of it, because we've always had that relationship.

And as I noted a while ago, in 2014, we signed the agreement, a free trade agreement.

It's called the Economic Framework Agreement between New Zealand and Taiwan.

So that has always been going on.

And also we have quite deep relationship between the two indigenous peoples of Taiwan and New Zealand.

Politically, it could be, we don't, New Zealand certainly recognizes the one China policy as such.

What was the response from China? And is that expected to create further problems, further ripples?