Taiwan and the Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Re-appraisal
-
This half-day symposium will bring together scholars and practitioners to reconsider Taiwan's prospects for entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership in light of the conclusion of negotiations in October 2015 and the election of a new president and legislature in Taiwan in January 2016. It will revisit the themes and conclusions of the Taiwan Democracy Project's 2013 annual conference.
9:00-9:15am: Introductions
9:15-11:00am. Panel 1: The Politics of Trade and Development in Taiwan
Stephen Tan, Vice President of the Cross-Strait Policy Association, Taipei
Kristy Hsu, Director, Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center, Chung Hua Institution for Economic Research, Taipei
Chung-ming Kuan, Chair Professor, Department of Finance and Director of CRETA at National Taiwan University, and former Minister of the National Development Council
Hung-mao Tien, President of the Institute for National Policy Research, and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan
11:00-11:15. Break
11:15-12:45. Panel 2: International Perspectives on the TPP: Implications for Regional Development and Geopolitics
Vinod Aggarwal, Professor of Political Science and Faculty Affiliate of the Center for East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley
Nicholas Hope, Director of the China Program at the Stanford Center for International Development
Thomas Gold, Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate of the Center for East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley
CISAC Central Conference Room
Conferences
Of Paradigms, Politics and Principles: The 2016 Taiwan Elections and Implications for China’s Security Strategy and Cross-Strait Relations
-
Sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project and the U.S. Asia Security Initiative at the Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC)
Abstract
During the recent meeting between PRC President Xi Jinping and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, the “1992 One China Consensus” served as a mutually acceptable paradigm for maintaining “peaceful and stable” conditions across the Taiwan Strait. For Xi Jinping, the warmth of the visit thinly veiled a message to Taiwan’s leaders and electorate, as well as to onlookers in Washington. Chinese officials and media clearly link the talks and confirmation of the 1992 Consensus to “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”—a concept that is increasingly unpalatable to many in Taiwan. Xi hopes to keep DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (and perhaps even future KMT leaders) in the 1992 Consensus “box” and to co-opt the U.S. in this effort, but perhaps underestimates the political transformation underway on Taiwan.
The Xi administration has also hardened its position regarding “core interests” such as Taiwan, embodied in a “bottom line principle” policy directive that eschews compromise. Although many commentators and most officials across the region have shied away from stating that the PRC and Taiwan are at the crossroads of crisis, the collision of political transformation on Taiwan and the PRC’s “bottom line principle” will challenge the fragile foundations of peaceful cross-Strait co-existence. Changes in the regional balance of military power brought about by a more muscular People’s Liberation Army compounds the potential for increased friction, providing Beijing with more credible options for coercion and deterrence.
This talk will consider the politics and principles involved in cross-Taiwan Strait relations in light of the upcoming 2016 Taiwan elections and the policies of the Xi Jinping administration; and will discuss some of the possible implications for China’s national security policy, regional stability, and the future of cross-Strait relations.
Bio
Image
2016 Taiwan Elections and Implications for Cross-Strait and Regional Security
Download pdf
Cortez Cooper
Senior International Policy Analyst
RAND Corporation
Seminars
Liberal Taiwan versus Illiberal South Korea: The Divergent Paths of Electoral Campaign Regulation
-
Abstract:
Both South Korea and Taiwan are considered consolidated democracies, but the two countries have developed very different sets of electoral campaign regulations. While both countries had highly restrictive election laws during their authoritarian eras, they have diverged after democratic transition. South Korea still restricts campaigning activities, including banning door-to-door canvassing, prohibiting pre-official period campaigning, and restricting the quantity and content of literature. Taiwan has removed most campaigning restrictions, except for finance regulations. This study explores the causes of these divergent trajectories through comparative historical process tracing, using both archival and secondary sources. The preliminary findings suggest that the incumbency advantage and the containment of the leftist or opposition parties were the primary causes of regulation under the soft and hard authoritarian regimes of South Korea and Taiwan. The key difference was that the main opposition party as well as the ruling party in South Korea enjoyed the incumbency advantage but that opposition forces in Taiwan did not. As a result, the opposition in Taiwan fought for liberalization of campaign regulations, but that in South Korea did not. Democratization in Taiwan was accompanied by successive liberalizations in campaign regulation, but in South Korea the incumbent legislators affiliated with the ruling and opposition parties were both interested in limiting campaigning opportunities for electoral challengers.
Bio:
Dr. Jong-sung You is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. His research interests include comparative politics and the political economy of inequality, corruption, social trust, and freedom of expression. He conducts both cross-national quantitative studies and qualitative case studies, focusing on Korea and East Asia. He recently published a book entitled Democracy, Inequality and Corruption: Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines Compared with Cambridge University Press. His publications have appeared at American Sociological Review, Political Psychology, Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Perspective, Trends and Prospects, and Korean Journal of International Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and taught at UC San Diego. Before pursuing an academic career, he fought for democracy and social justice in South Korea.
Jong-sung You
Senior Lecturer
College of Asia and the Pacific, Australia National University
Seminars
The Sunflower Movement and the Future of Taiwan's Political Culture
-
Abstract
Based on first-hand participant-observation, this talk will examine the culture, politics, and spatiality of the Sunflower Movement. Taiwan's most significant social movement in decades, the Sunflower Movement not only blocked the passage of a major trade deal with China, but reshaped popular discourse and redirected Taiwan's political and cultural trajectory. It re-energized student and civil society, precipitated the historic defeat of the KMT in the 2014 local elections, and prefigured the DPP's strong position coming into the 2016 presidential and legislative election season.
The primary spatial tactic of the Sunflowers-- occupation of a government building-- was so successful that a series of protests in the summer of 2015 by high school students was partly conceived and represented as a "second Sunflower Movement". These students, protesting "China-centric" curriculum changes, attempted to occupy the Ministry of Education building. Thwarted by police, these students settled for the front courtyard, where a Sunflower-style pattern of encampments and performances emerged. While this movement did not galvanize the wider public as dramatically as its predecessor, it did demonstrate the staying power of the Sunflower Movement and its occupation tactics for an even younger cohort of activists.
The Sunflower Movement showed that contingent, street-level, grassroots action can have a major impact on Taiwan's cross-Strait policies, and inspired and trained a new generation of youth activists. But with the likely 2016 presidential win of the DPP, which has attempted to draw support from student activists while presenting a less radical vision to mainstream voters, what's in store for the future of Taiwanese student and civic activism? And with strong evidence of growing Taiwanese national identification and pro-independence sentiment, particularly among youth, what's in store for the future of Taiwan's political culture?
Speaker Bio
Ian Rowen in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan during the Sunflower Student Movement protest.
Ian Rowen is PhD Candidate in Geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and recent Visiting Fellow at the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan, Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, and Fudan University. He participated in both the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements and has written about them for The Journal of Asian Studies, The Guardian, and The BBC (Chinese), among other outlets. He has also published about Asian politics and protest in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (forthcoming) and the Annals of Tourism Research. His PhD research, funded by the US National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Program, and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, has focused on the political geography of tourism and protest in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Ian Rowen
Doctoral Candidate
University of Colorado Dept of Geography
Seminars
The Possible Approaches for Defusing Tensions in the South China Sea: A Taiwanese Perspective
-
In this talk, Wellington Shih will provide a historical and legal overview of the Republic of China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. He will also review the latest developments in the ongoing dispute between the People’s Republic of China, the ROC on Taiwan, and other claimants in the region, including the Philippines, and discuss the South China Sea Peace Initiative proposed by the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou.
The Possible Approaches for Defusing Tensions in the South China Sea: A Taiwanese Perspective
Download pdf
Visiting scholar
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan)
Lectures
When can Asians celebrate a shared history?
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
Two key challenges facing Northeast Asia are how to tame the power of nationalism and create shared memories of history, Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin wrote in The Diplomat.
Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), urged action on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Northeast Asians should use the commemoration as an “opportune occasion to reflect on their unfortunate past to learn lessons,” only then can the region become more peaceful and prosperous.
Shin and Daniel Sneider, Shorenstein APARC’s associate director for research, lead the Divided Memories and Reconciliation research project which examines memories of the wartime experience in Northeast Asia and what steps can be taken to reconcile disputes over history.
One of their latest outcomes is the book Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies (April 2015), edited with University of Washington professor Daniel Chirot, that studies how wartime narratives are interpreted, memorialized and used in Europe and Asia.
The full article in The Diplomat can be accessed by clicking here.
Hero Image
Men dressed as Japanese imperial army soldiers march at the Yasukuni Shrine in August 2011, on the anniversary of the end of World War II.
Reuters/Issei Kato
All News button
1
President Ma delivers talk on Taiwan-US relations via videoconference
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
On Tuesday, June 2, 2015, CDDRL's Taiwan Democracy Project welcomed President Ma Ying-jeou of the Republic of China (Taiwan) as he addressed a crowd of over 200 in a talk commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the long history of the U.S.-R.O.C. relationship. The speech was accompanied by a panel Q&A discussion with Lanhee J. Chen, former chief policy advisor to U.S. Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney; Karl Eikenberry, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan; and Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council. The event was moderated by William J. Perry, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of Defense.
This special event was co-sponsored by CDDRL's Taiwan Democracy Project; the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, San Francisco; and the Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Click here to view photos from the event via our Facebook Album: http://on.fb.me/1QxpzQp
See below for press coverage of the event:
June 3, 2015
"Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou Holds Teleconference on 70th Anniversary of Second World War Victory"
Pacific News Center
"President Ma talks history in video conference"
Focus Taiwan News Channel
"Ma marks sacrifices of ROC armed forces during WWII"
Taiwan Today
Hero Image
All News button
1
Special Event: Videoconference with President Ma Ying-jeou of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
-
**LIVE WEBCAST WILL BE AVAILABLE HERE IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO THE EVENT.**
[[{"fid":"219129","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","pp_lightbox":false,"pp_description":false},"type":"media","attributes":{"width":"870","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]
On June 2, 2015, the Taiwan Democracy Project at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) will host a special panel session featuring the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Ma Ying-jeou. President Ma will speak via live video feed to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the long history of the U.S.-R.O.C. relationship. Following his prepared remarks, the president will engage in a question-and-answer session with the audience and a distinguished panel of leading Stanford faculty and fellows, chaired and moderated by the former Secretary of Defense of the United States, William J. Perry.
About the Speaker
Ma Ying-jeou has served as the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since May 2008. As president, Ma Ying-jeou has worked to address the repercussions of the global financial crisis, stepping up efforts to bring about a more diversified industrial structure and to jump-start new engines for economic growth in Taiwan. President Ma has also attached great importance to promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction, which has helped Taiwan’s energy efficiency to exceed two percent. In addition, his administration worked to craft a response to regional economic integration, successfully negotiating the landmark Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with the People's Republic of China in 2010. President Ma's creative diplomacy has brought a significant improvement in cross-Strait relations while putting an end to a long and vituperative standoff between the two sides in the diplomatic sphere.
About the Panelists
William J. Perry is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Hoover Institution, and serves as the director of the Preventive Defense Project at Stanford University. He was the Secretary of Defense for the United States from 1994-1997.
Lanhee J. Chen is the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, as well as Lecturer in Public Policy and Law at Stanford University. He served as the chief policy adviser to 2012 U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Karl Eikenberry is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and is a Lieutenant General, Retired, U.S. Army.
Thomas Fingar is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and as chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2005-2008.
Event Details
The live panel will take place in the Bechtel Conference Room of the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, at 616 Serra Street, from 5:45-7:00pm on June 2, 2015. An informal reception in the lobby of Encina Hall will follow.
This event is co-sponsored with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, San Francisco and the Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It is free and open to the public. RSVP is required.
President Ma Ying-jeou
Lanhee J. Chen
Thomas Fingar
William J. Perry
Panel Discussions
Why Taiwan's Defense Spending Has Fallen as China's Has Risen
-
ABSTRACT
Over the past 20 years, the military balance between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan has rapidly shifted. As China’s defense budget has grown annually at double-digit rates, Taiwan’s has shrunk. These trends are puzzling, because China’s rise as a military power poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s security. Existing theories suggest that states will choose one of three strategies when faced with an external threat: bargaining, arming, or allying. Yet for most of this period, Taiwan’s leaders have done none of these things. In this talk, I explain this apparent paradox as a consequence of Taiwan’s transition to democracy. Democracy has worked in three distinct ways to constrain rises in defense spending: by intensifying popular demands for non-defense spending, introducing additional veto players into the political system, and increasing the incentives of political elites to shift Taiwan’s security burden onto its primary ally, the United States. Together, these domestic political factors have driven a net decline in defense spending despite the rising threat posed by China’s rapid military modernization program. Put simply, in Taiwan the democratization effect has swamped the external threat effect.
SPEAKER BIO
Kharis Templeman is the Program Manager for the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, in the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University.
[[{"fid":"218942","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Taiwan Templeman talk","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Templeman talk","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Taiwan Defense Spending","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","pp_lightbox":false,"pp_description":false},"type":"media","attributes":{"alt":"Templeman talk","title":"Taiwan Defense Spending","height":960,"width":870,"class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]
Why Taiwan's Defense Spending Has Fallen
Download pdf
Seminars