Taiwan's government used the anniversary of a small Taipei think tank to push its "peace through strength" message, a mild positive for Taipei's ties with Washington and Tokyo.

• Presidential Office secretary-general Pan Men-an brought President Lai Ching-te's greetings to the group's second-anniversary dinner.
• The event drew Taiwan's deputy foreign minister, AIT head Raymond Greene, Japan's top Taipei representative Katayama Kazuyuki, and a cross-party group of Japanese lawmakers.
• Taipei tied its security thinking to the late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe's free and open Indo-Pacific idea, now a decade old.
• The message was that Taiwan must defend itself against gray-zone pressure and disinformation even as more countries court it.
• The think tank's head, Akio Yaita, was beaten in Taichung in July by a Hong Kong suspect police arrested within hours, and he publicly thanked Taiwan's police chief.

Outlook: Expect Taipei to keep leaning on US and Japanese backing while pressing its own defense spending at home.