On January 1, 2010, China and the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) finally, formally launched a China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that encompasses nearly two billion people engaged in trade worth some $200 billion. For China the agreement is a way of securing supplies of raw materials, while the ASEAN countries hope the agreement will open opportunities in China's huge domestic market. When CAFTA  was first signed in November 2002, Beijing promised that Southeast Asia would reap an “early harvest” of its benefits. Yet the Southeast Asian response to CAFTA in the agreement’s first year has been less than enthusiastic, especially in the Philippines and Indonesia. Is CAFTA a bonanza? A blunder? Something in between? Prof. Mendoza will assess the agreement, its implementation, and the implications for China’s role and image in Southeast Asia going forward.

Amado M. Mendoza, Jr. is a leading policy scholar in the Philippines, where he also serves as the treasurer of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR) Asia, Inc., an NGO dedicated to the promotion of socio-economic and cultural rights. He is the Philippines’ lead contributor to the soon-to-be-released 2010 Global Integrity Report on governance and corruption. Other subjects of his current research include Asian regional integration; Asian summitry and economic crisis management; Philippine economic diplomacy; and China-Taiwan relations within a regional context. In addition to his academic career, he has a background in journalism, banking, and development.

In this special seminar event, Dr. Szu-yin Ho will examine the current Taiwan-China relations within the framework of international relations theory. He will elaborate how both sides of the Taiwan Strait perceive this relationship, what the implications for the building of new institutions are after President Ma Ying-jeou took office, and what kind of signals these new institutions have delivered. Dr. Ho will also give his concerns and predictions about the future relationship across the Taiwan Strait. In this special seminar, Professor Wei-chin Lee from Wake Forest University will comment on Dr. Ho's speech.

Szu-yin Ho is Professor of Political Science at the National Chengchi University. He received his BA degree (1978) in English Literature from National Taiwan University, MA (1983) and Ph.D. (1986) in Political Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara. After receiving doctoral degree, Professor Ho first joined the Academia Sinica, then moved to the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. He later served as the Deputy Director of the Institute from 1994 to 1999 and the Director from 1999-2003. From 2003 to 2008 he served as the Director of International Affairs of the KMT, Taiwan's current ruling party. After the presidential election in 2008, he moved to become the Deputy Secretary-General of the National Security Council in the Presidential Office, overseeing the country's foreign affairs. After two years of service in government, Mr. Ho went back to academia. Professor Ho specializes on international relations, comparative political economy, sampling survey, and Chinese politics. He had published books and articles, in both Chinese and English, along these lines of research.

Wei-chin Lee received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Oregon. He is Professor of Political Science at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He has published several books, including the latest edited volume on Taiwan's Politics in the 21th Century (2010). His articles have appeared in various scholarly journals. His teaching and research interests include foreign policy and domestic politics of China and Taiwan, US policy toward East Asia, international security, and international institutions. He is currently serving as an advisor to the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America.

This is a special event cosponsored by CDDRL and Taiwan Benevolent Association of  America.

Asian Biotech:  Ethics and Communities of Fate is the title of a new book that Prof. Ong has co-edited with Nancy N. Chen.  It offers the first overview of Asia’s emerging initiatives in the biosciences.  Its case studies include blood collection in Singapore and China; stem-cell research in Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan; genetically modified foods in China; and clinical trials in India.  Such projects vary by country, as do the policies that are associated with them.  Discernible nevertheless is a significant trend toward state entrepreneurialism in Asian biotechnology.  Prof. Ong will also explore how political thinking and ethical reasoning are converging around the biosciences in Asia.  Copies of Asian Biotech will be available for signing and purchase at the talk.

Aihwa Ong studies how the interactions of capitalism, technology, politics, and ethics crystallize global situations, frame spaces of problematization, and generate situated solutions.  With these matters in mind, she has done field research in Southeast Asia, Southern China, and California.  A forthcoming volume is Worlding Cities:  Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global.  Prior publications include Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline (2nd ed., 2010); Privatizing China:  Socialism from Afar (co-edited, 2008); Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems (co-edited, 2005); Flexible Citizenship:  The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (1999); Neoliberalism as Exception:  Mutations in Citizenshipand Sovereignty (2006); and Buddha is Hiding:  Refugees, Citizenship, the New America (2003).  Prof. Ong has received many awards and has lectured at universities around the world.  She chairs of the US National Committee for the Pacific Science Association.  Her 1982 PhD is from Columbia University.

With a territory consisting of 36,000 square kilometres and a population of 23 million, the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, Penghu, Jinmen and Mazu had, in 1970, the year prior to its withdrawal from the United Nations (UN), a population larger than two thirds of the countries in the world. In 1996, its population exceeded that of three quarters of the member nations of UN. However, the question of Taiwan being a nation in the international order is, strangely, still debated. To enquire into this delicate issue, Dr. Man-houng Lin will address to what extent the statehood of the ROC on Taiwan has or has not been secured by the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan, singed and turned effective in 1952, and often referred to as the “Taipei Treaty.” (Taibei heyue) She will also illustrate that not only the People’s Republic of China, but also the Taiwanese in general have been unclear about Taiwan’s status as a sovereign state on the world stage. Meanwhile, in this special seminar Dr. Lin will further depict the background of the Taipei Treaty in terms of the long-term history of the Asian Pacific region. She will show how the Cold War made the Taipei Treaty, and ironically, how the ideological attachment of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland has also blurred this treaty. 

Man-houng Lin received her Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University. She has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica since 1990, and Professor at the Department of History, National Taiwan Normal University since 1991. Her research interests include treaty ports and modern China, native opium of late Qing China, currency crisis and early nineteenth-century China, and Taiwanese merchants' overseas economic networks during the Japanese colonial period. She has published 5 books and about 70 articles in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean. From May 2008 to December 2010, Dr. Lin was President of the Academia Historica, the Republic of China (Taiwan).