On October 17-18, 2014 the Taiwan Democracy Project at CDDRL, with the generous support of the Taipei Economic and Culture Office, hosted its annual conference at Stanford University to examine the politics of polarization in Taiwan.
This conference brought together specialists from Taiwan, the U.S., and elsewhere in Asia to examine the sources and implications of this political polarization in comparative perspective. It will include a special case study of the Trade in Services Agreement with China that triggered this past year’s protests, as well as a more general overview of the politics of trade liberalization in Taiwan, prospects for Taiwan’s integration into the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other regional trade agreements, and a consideration of the implications for Taiwan’s long-term democratic future.
Chung-shu Wu (吳中書) is the President of the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, a position he has held since July 2011. He is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Economics and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Economics at National Taiwan University. He serves in several other leadership roles, as well, including the Administrative Chairman of the Taiwan Economics Association and the Chairman of the Chung-Hua Association for Financial and Economic Strategies. Dr. Wu has extensive experience in both the policy and academic worlds. He was previously the Chief Economist of Chinatrust Commercial Bank, the Dean of the Department of Finance in the College of Management at National Dong Hwa University, a member of Taiwan’s National Science Council (NSC), a member of the Financial Stability Committee of the Central Bank, and an advisory committee consultant for the Council for Economic Planning and Development in the Executive Yuan. Dr. Wu holds a B.A. in economics from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University (1984). His research expertise is in monetary economics, international finance, and economic forecasting.