A nation must think before it acts.
VENUE:City University of New York
In January 2016, voters in Taiwan elected Tsai Ing-wen—the second president from the Democratic Progressive Party and Taiwan’s first woman president—and for the first time gave the DPP a majority in Taiwan’s legislature. Tsai came to office in May 2016 with an ambitious agenda of economic revitalization, social and economic justice, stability in cross-Strait relations and progress in relations with the U.S., Japan and others. Issues such as same-sex marriage, pension reform for employees of state institutions, and transitional justice (to address issues from the period of Kuomintang authoritarian rule before Taiwan’s democratization) were among the controversial issues facing the DPP-led government. New pressures from Beijing to squeeze Taiwan’s international space (which limited Taiwan’s participation in UN-affiliated international organizations and reduced Taiwan’s number of diplomatic partners), uncertainty about U.S. policy under Donald Trump, and challenging prospects for Taiwan’s greater access to a liberal international trade and investment regime (especially with U.S. opting out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership) made for a challenging environment in external relations as well.
Local elections will be held in November 2018. Four years ago, sweeping losses by the then-ruling Kuomintang Party portended the DPP’s victory in 2016. This year’s vote for city and county level officials will again be closely watched as a possible harbinger of Tsai’s and DPP’s prospects for retaining the presidency and the national legislature in 2020.
The Foreign Policy Research Institute will hold a panel discussion to assess these and other issues in Taiwan politics and external relations, featuring:
Jacques deLisle is Director of FPRI’s Asia Program, Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science, Director of the Center for East Asian Studies and Deputy Directory of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in Chinese politics and legal reform, U.S-China relations, cross-strait relations, and China’s engagement with the international legal order. He has numerous publications in FPRI's journal Orbis, and regularly publishes commentaries on Asian affairs as FPRI E-notes and in other media. His articles also have appeared in Journal of Contemporary China, Asia Policy, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law, American Society of International Law Proceedings, among others. He is the co-editor of China’s Global Engagement, New Media, the Internet and a Changing China, Political Changes in Taiwan under Ma Ying-jeou and China’s Challenges.
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
New York. NY. US. 10016
City University of New York
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
365 5th Avenue
New York, NY, US, 10016