Larus Speaks at Polyglot Conference

Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Affairs Elizabeth Freund Larus, who is also adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Forum, offered the bi-lingual presentation “Public Speaking in a Foreign Language – Lessons from Learning to Speak Mandarin​【外語公開演講：從學習中文得到的啟發​】at the 2025 Polyglot Conference in Taipei, November 10-12, 2025. Larus engaged with conference participants in discussing challenges to articulating difficult constructs in a public setting.

Larus also traveled to southern Taiwan to meet members of the Kaohsiung American Chamber of Commerce, with whom she discussed changes in Taiwan’s political environment, the effect of U.S. tariffs on Taiwan’s economy and U.S.-Taiwan relations, and recent flare-ups in cross-Strait tensions. She is currently studying Taiwanese (Tai-gi), a language widely spoken in southern Taiwan.

Larus also flew to Kinmen, a Taiwan administered island only 16 miles off China’s southern coast that had been invaded and bombarded by China in previous attempts to occupy it, to conduct preliminary research on military resistance and civilian emergency preparedness. She will conduct further research on this topic in 2026.