Taiwan's relations with its Asian neighbours are nothing if not various. Trade with the mainland is vigorous; contract workers are recruited from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines; many tourists visit from Japan; and wives, if the need arises, can be secured from Vietnam.
India, by contrast, hardly figures in Taiwanese life, except when the Dalai Lama visits from his home in Dharamsala. Taipei's small number of Indian restaurants tend to be patronised largely by westerners, and no Indian I know is particularly adept in the use of chopsticks.
All this exemplifies one of Asia's most paradoxical characteristics - that the Chinese and Indian worlds, the continent's two most influential, have historically had little contact with one another. Buddhism was one link, but even that has shrunk into insignificance, as the number of Buddhists in India is now negligible.
As Vikram Seth wrote in From Heaven Lake back in 1983: 'Neither strong economic interest nor the natural affinities of a common culture tie India and China together. The fact that they are both part of the same landmass means next to nothing. There is no such thing as an Asian ethos or mode of thinking.'
The establishment last month, then, of a Taiwan-India Co-operation Council is all the more remarkable. It was reportedly created at Taiwan's initiative, out of concern that economic ties with the mainland were becoming too extensive: Taipei wanted to point businessmen towards another large Asian trading partner.
India has never figured very significantly in Taiwan's trade, though much of the island's exports of camphor to Hong Kong 100 years ago were destined for the subcontinent. But India's expertise in software development, and Taiwan's pre-eminence in computer hardware, make them arguably natural trading partners.