Stanford University

Assessing the First Two Years of the Ma Ying-jeou Presidency: A Conversation with Dr. Su Chi

-

In this conversation, former Secretary General of National Security Council, Republic of China (Taiwan), Su Chi, and Director of CDDRL, Larry Diamond, will engage in a conversation about the first two years of President Ma Ying-jeou's administration.  The topics to be explored will include President Ma’s performance in domestic, international and cross-strait policy; the trajectory of the complicated triangular relationship among Taiwan, China, and the United States; domestic political trends in Taiwan; and the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Party’s future political prospects as Taiwan looks toward special municipal elections at the end of this year and then a presidential election in March of 2012.

Serving as Secretary General of National Security Council between May 2008 and February 2010, Dr. Su Chi was widely considered one of President Ma’s closest and most trusted advisers since the KMT returned to power in 2008.  A prominent political scientist, Dr. Su began his government career in 1989 as Secretary General of the President’s Office. In 1993-94, he was appointed Commissioner of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission,  Executive Yuan. In 1993-96, he was Vice Chairman of the ministerial-level Mainland Affairs Council, Executive Yuan. He was then appointed Director-General of the Government Information Office in 1996-97. Between 1997 and 1999, Dr. Su was Deputy Secretary-General to President Lee Teng-hui. In 1999-2000, he served as the Chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council. Between 2005 and 2008, he was a KMT Legislator.

Dr. Su Chi obtained his MA and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, MA in International Studies from the Johns Hopkins University, and BA in National Chengchi University (Taiwan).

 

 

Oksenberg Conference Room

Su Chi Former secretary general of the National Security Council, Republic of China (Taiwan) Speaker

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
0
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Larry Diamond Director Speaker Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Seminars

Rebecca MacKinnon on the relationship between internet freedom and democratization in China

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Rebecca MacKinnon is Visiting Fellow at Princeton's Center for Information Technology.

Rebecca's presentation explored two key arguments: first, that China should challenge our assumptions about the inherent relationship between the internet and democratization; and second that existing democracies are currently legislating in ways that may jeopardize the empowering potential of the internet.

The emergence of the internet in China has enabled many people to engage in a more varied public discourse than ever before. The government has also begun to actively engage with its Netizens; for example, Wen Jiabao recently instigated an annual live web chat in which he takes questions on a wide range of social and political issues.

But we should not equate this more open discourse with a move towards democracy, for at least two reasons:

The government still largely controls the conversation: While Wen Jiabao may have been happy to engage in online debate, negative commentary by a prominent blogger (pointing out that this engagement is meaningless the absence of political structures) was swiftly removed. By putting the onus on providers such as blog platforms, China is successfully keeping more controversial content from ever appearing online. Attempts to openly criticize the government or to politically organize are still regularly met with arrest and imprisonment. And the government has adopted a much more sophisticated strategy for media coverage in recent years. Recognizing that press blackouts on controversial events are no longer viable in the age of the camera phone, it now allows these to be reported, saturating the public with its approved version of events, whilst squeezing out individual accounts by citizens.

The government is using the internet to argue that does not need democratic structures to engage its people: Far from signally the death of the Communist Party (as Rebecca and her CNN colleagues had predicted in the 90s), the internet may actually be prolonging its survival because it allows the regime to claim it can engage with its people without political structures. Many educated people in China buy into the idea that they can now be heard, and without a commitment to invest time and resources in circumventing censorship, they remain unaware of some of the most serious abuses. The internet may certainly serve a role in promoting deliberation, but China demonstrates that this deliberation can exist in an authoritarian context.

Meanwhile, in existing democracies, efforts to solve issues related to security and protection are causing governments to legislate in ways that move them closer to illiberal models of surveillance and censorship. In South Korea, the government has instigated a law requiring users of certain sites to create accounts that include their national ID number. This makes it extremely easy for authorities to identify authors who previously could have remained anonymous, and has already led to several arrests. In the UK, the Digital Economy Bill, aimed at preventing copyright infringements, will force ISPs to monitor customers' use of their networks and report suspicious activity to copyright groups. Concerns for child safety online have recently led some UK campaign groups to lend support to China's idea to pre-install all new PCs with censorship software.  These examples highlight the need for a renewed debate about the right balance between security and liberty online. As we come to rely on the internet more and more for understanding the world around us, governments need to think holistically about how their policies will shape its use and impact.

All News button
1

Smart Green Cities: New Technologies, New Strategies, New Practices

Focus

In 2008, for the first time a majority of the world's population lived in cities. Rapidly rising standards of living and migration are contributing to an unprecedented worldwide surge in urbanization--in China alone, if trends continue, by 2025 more than 220 cities will each have more than one million inhabitants. The explosive growth of cities around the Pacific has widespread implications for energy use and has led to the demand for cities to become both smart and green.

But while billions of dollars of investments are pouring into urban energy solutions, and around the Pacific "low-carbon cities" and "eco-cities" are moving center stage, there are enormous challenges (and opportunities) facing the effective application of information technologies (IT), other innovative technologies and industrial growth.

The intersection of IT and environmental sustainability on the urban scale will require a complex integration of expertise, tools, and know-how from multiple disciplines--from building design and real estate development, to mobility and water systems, IT hardware and software, and energy providers. Although innovations in strategies and implementation are evolving quickly in pockets of excellence around the globe, early results have been highly uneven. Frameworks for understanding and analysis are still fragmented, innovative design and implementation rapidly changing, and best practices have yet to be defined.

Purpose
Led by SPRIE at Stanford University, this conference aims to gather an elite group of experts, decision makers, and thought leaders from across disciplines and geographical boundaries to focus on smart green cities around the Pacific. Participants will:

  • Pursue a deeper understanding of the complex interactions among the key drivers that impact the extent that cities are green and smart
  • Focus on core challenges of capitalizing on opportunities and overcoming obstacles--technological, economic, behavioral or political
  • Explore what innovations in strategy or practice are leading to positive outcomes, including human livability, financial viability, economic vitality, and environmental sustainability
  • Discuss implications for the evolution of markets and development of industries 
  • Lay the groundwork for future actions, such as industry strategies, research agendas, and policy recommendations

Participants
"Smart Green Cities" will invite a select group of government, business, and academic leaders from the United States and Asia for two days of expert presentations and fruitful discussion at Stanford University. The summit will enable participants to better lead to improved strategy, action, and outcomes for building the next generation of smart green cities.

Agenda
Agenda is preliminary and not all speakers are confirmed. Please download below

 

Sponsors
Many thanks to our sponsors for making this event possible. 

itri logo

 

cisco web

 

sie logo web

Download pdf
Download pdf

Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building
366 Galvez Street
Stanford, CA

Conferences

Strict Liability for Medical Malpractice? The Impact of Increasing Malpractice Liability on Obstetrician Behavior in Taiwan

-

The extent and existence of "defensive medicine" -- excessive medical care to defend a physician against malpractice claims -- is a perennial subject of both policy and academic debate.  For example, malpractice liability and associated defensive medicine are among the most-cited reasons for escalating health-care spending in the United States.

In this colloquium, Dr. Brian Chen will present results from his research investigating the extent of defensive medicine in Taiwan. He studies the impact of a series of court rulings in Taiwan that increased physicians’ liability risks, and a subsequent amendment to the law that reversed the courts’ rulings, on physicians’ test-ordering behavior and propensity to perform Caesarean sections.  He finds that physicians faced with higher malpractice pressure increased laboratory tests as expected, but unexpectedly reduced Caesarean sections.  (The reduction in Caesarean deliveries may be due to the fact that liability risks were more closely aligned with physicians’ standard of care after the court rulings.) After the law was amended to negate the court decisions, physicians reversed their previous behavior by reducing laboratory tests and increasing Caesarean deliveries.

This pattern of behavior is highly suggestive of the existence of defensive medicine among physicians in Taiwan. In other words, by studying physicians' response to legal changes in Taiwan, we find that greater malpractice liability may, under certain circumstances, prompt physicians to perform more services without necessarily improving patient health.

Dr. Brian Chen recently completed his Ph.D. in Business Administration in the Business and Public Policy Group at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. He received a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1997, and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1992.

Philippines Conference Room

Brian Chen Shorenstein-Spogli Fellow in Comparative Health Policy Speaker
Seminars

At the Crossroads of Modernization: China and Russia

-

AGENDA

 

8:50-9:00 Welcome Remarks by Christer Prusiainen and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss

9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. "Political Transformation in Russia"

Chair: Linda Jakobson, Senior Fellow, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

Paper Presenter: Christer Pursiainen, the Council on Baltic States

Discussant: Dr. Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Deputy Director, CDDRL, Stanford University

10:00-11:00 a.m. "Political Transformation in China"

Chair: Linda Jakobson, Senior Fellow, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

Paper Presenter: Minxin Pei, Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College

Discussant: Kevin O'Brien, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkley

11:00-11:15 a.m. Coffee Break

11:15 a.m. -12:15 p.m. "Chinese Foreign Policy in the New Era"

Chair: Christer Pursiainen, the Council on Baltic States

Paper Presenter: Sergei Medvedev, Professor, Moscow Higher School of Economics

Discussant: Steven Fish, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

12:15-13:15 p.m.  Lunch (Outside the Conference Room)

13:15-14:15: "Russia Foreign Policy in the New Era"

Chair: Christer Pursiainen, the Council on Baltic States

Paper Presenter: Linda Jakobson, Senior Fellow, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

Discussant: Tom Fingar, Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

14:15-15:15 p.m. "Social Stratification in China since Reform"

Chair: Minxin Pei, Professor Claremont McKenna College

Paper Presenter: Dr. Li Chunling, Professor, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Discussant: Andrew Walder, Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor of Sociology, Stanford University

15:15-15:30 p.m. Coffee Break

15:30-16:30 p.m. "Social Stratification in Russia"

Chair: Minxin Pei, Professor, Claremont McKenna College

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Kathryn Stoner-Weiss Senior Research Scholar, Deputy Director Panelist CDDRL
Minxin Pei Professor of Government Panelist Claremont McKenna College
Sergei Medvedev Professor Panelist Moscow High School of Economics
Linda Jakobson Senior Fellow Panelist Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Li Chunling Professor, Institute of Sociology Panelist Chinese Academy of Social Science
Markku Kivinen Professor of Sociology and Director of the Aleksanteri Institute Panelist University of Helsinki
Christer Pursiainen Panelist
Igor Tomashov Panelist
Workshops

Taiwan's Changing Political Landscape and Prospects for the 2012 Presidential Election

-

The question of whether President Ma Ying-jeou will be reelected has already become a hot issue in Taiwan, two years in advance of the next presidential election.  In this special seminar, Professor Ying-lung You, a political scientist and one of the most prominent political strategists in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), will analyze the current political and electoral landscape of Taiwan and the possible future trends. Whereas some may argue that the question of Ma’s reelection is a question mark only for those who oppose him, Professor You argues that the reality is rather different. This is particularly so after the ruling KMT party has encountered five consecutive setbacks in the recent elections. In this seminar, Professor You will provide firsthand information about the recent election campaigns in Taiwan. By carefully examining Taiwan’s shifting political landscape, he will give us his prediction about the prospects of both the DPP and the KMT in the 2012 presidential election.

Dr. Ying-lung You received his B.A. and M.A. from National Taiwan University, and his Ph.D. in political science from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 1995-96, he was executive director of Election Strategy and Campaigning for the DPP. In 1999, he directed election strategy and public opinion polls in the campaign headquarters of then former Taipei City major Chen Shui-Bian, who later won the presidential election in March 2000. In 2000-01, he served as vice-chairman of the Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission of the Executive Yuan. In 2002-03, he served as Deputy Secretary General for the DPP and in 2003-05 as Vice President of the Katagalan Institute. From 2005 to 2008, he served as the vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Commission of the Executive Yuan and concurrently served as vice Chairman and secretary-general of the Strait Exchanges Foundation, through which positions he was mainly responsible for Taiwan’s Cross-Strait policy making under the DPP administration. His research interests are public opinion, voting behavior, democratization, constitutional choices, and cross-strait relations.  He is the author/editor of 4 books and more than 20 scholarly articles.

Philippines Conference Room

Ying-lung You Professor of Political Science Speaker Soochow University
Seminars

The Application of Article 121 of the Law of the Sea Convention to the Disputed Offshore Islands in East Asia

Ethan Zuckerman on blogs and twitter enabling global attention for 'citizen media'

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Global Voices was inspired by an incident in 2004, when a friend reading a New York Times article about Cameroon's elections posed the question: is there anyone in Cameroon blogging about this? Along with his colleague, former CNN Beijing journalist Rebecca MacKinnon, Ethan convened a group of bloggers from the developing world at Harvard. What came out strongly from these discussions was a desire for participants to be able to read each others' blogs. What started as Rebecca and Ethan each summarizing a couple of hundred blogs daily has grown into the Global Voices website, which uses a network of 400 editors to filter, translate and provide context to global blogs, making them accessible to readers around the world.

Since 2004, there have been some major changes to the context in which Global Voices operates. The organization has tried to respond to each of these:

  • There has been massive expansion in internet access across the developing world, but rarely beyond the middle class and educated. Rising Voices allows media organizations from developing countries to apply for small grants to help them use digital media in their communities. A number of great success stories coming out of this initiative have demonstrated that it is possible to get traction for citizen media, even in very low resource communities.
  • The digital space has emerged as a political space. This has prompted far greater levels of censorship. Global Voices Advocacy works to highlight cases of individuals arrested for involvement in citizen journalism and attempts to keep these stories live. It also works to document censorship of publishing platforms and to provide spaces where people can blog anonymously.
  • In 2004, almost all blogging was in English. Now the majority of people are blogging in their own languages, about local issues. Translation therefore becomes a greater challenge. ProjectLinguauses volunteer translators to amplifyGlobal Voicesin many languages other than English.

Ethan suggested three possible theories about what we are seeing in the growth of social media:

  • Social media will be the natural organizing tool for a new generation.
  • Social media is an asymmetric tool - it is what you use when the tools of more effective mainstream media are not available to you.
  • Social media is a story in itself - it can draw attention to a story that might otherwise not be picked up.

Crisis situations such as the protests in Iran and the Haitian earthquake have started to legitimize the use of social media by mainstream media outlets, blurring the boundaries between professional and citizen reporting. And some of the key challenges associated with access and language barriers are beginning to be addressed. But the problem of global attention span will be hardest to solve. So many situations never receive coverage and for those that do, the media cycle rarely allows them to stay in the spotlight beyond a few weeks. We have developed long standing bad habits in our understanding of what constitutes news. Social media has dramatically changed who is able to speak; but will it change how we choose to listen? This remains a major challenge.

All News button
1
Subscribe to Northeast Asia