Stanford University

Stanford conference to examine economic and trading pact in East Asia

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On October 11-12, the Taiwan Democracy Project at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is holding its eighth annual conference on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Taiwan’s future development strategy at Stanford University. Hosted in cooperation with the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the two-day conference will bring together scholars and policy-makers from around the world to examine the free trade agreement that has the potential to reshape economic relations in the region for the coming decades.

Under current negotiation by 12 Pacific Rim countries, the TPP is a free trade agreement that would enhance trade, investments, innovation and economic development among the TPP countries. Speakers and conference participants will examine the evolution of the TPP with the addition of new countries and its potential new economic and strategic framework for the region. With strong implications for the balance of power in East Asia, the conference will also address the perspective of other key countries in the region including: Japan, Korea, Singapore and the People’s Republic of China.

Speakers will include Vinod Aggarwal, professor of political science and director of the Berkeley Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center at the University of California. Aggarwal will present a broad overview of trends in regional trade and trading partnerships as part of the opening panel entitled, “How the Economic andTrading Environment of East Asia is Evolving.”

Hung-Mao Tien, the president and board chairman of the Institute for National Policy Research, a private think-tank based in Taipei, will chair a panel on Taiwan’s development for the next phase of the negotiations. Tien previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan), the representative ambassador to the United Kingdom and presidential advisor to former President Lee Teng-hui.

The conference will conclude with a two-part panel on Taiwan’s future strategy and the future of the TPP that will include Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington D.C. 

Conference papers are available for review here. 

All sessions will be held at Stanford University's Bechtel Conference Center in Encina Hall (616 Serra Street) and are free and open to the public. Space is limited so please RSVP here to attend. The latest agenda can be found here. 

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Democratic Governance in China

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Professor Yu Keping will systematically survey the dominant processes and key issues of China’s governance changes over the last 30 years since reform. His talk will summarize the major achievements and the ongoing problems of this 30 year long process. It will offer a brief analysis of the underlying reasons for these reforms and the main characteristics of China’s governance model. After enumerating an array of factual evidence, Yu will show that the drive behind China’s governance reforms stems from unitary governance to pluralist governance, centralization to decentralization, rule of man to rule of law, regulatory government to service oriented government, and from internal party democracy to the people’s democracy.

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Dr. YU Keping is the Deputy President of the Central Compilation & Translation Bureau (CCTB), and the founding Director of the China Center for Global Governance and Development (CCGGD). He also serves as Prof. and Director of the Center for Chinese Government Innovations at Peking University, and Prof. and Director of the Institute of Political Development at Tsinghua University. He was a visiting professor or senior fellow at many top universities, including Harvard University, Duke University in the US and Free University in Berlin. His fields of expertise include political philosophy, comparative politics, globalization, civil society, governance and politics in China. Among his many books are Governance and Rule of Law in China (ed., Brill, 2012) and Democracy Is A Good Thing (Brookings, 2010).  As a leading intellectual in China, Professor Yu was selected as one of the “30 most influential figures in the past 30 years since the reform in China” in 2008 and ranked 19 in “2011 Global Top 100 Thinkers” by Foreign Policy in the US.

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YU Keping Director of the Center for Chinese Government Innovations Speaker Peking University
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Taiwan's Future Development Strategy

Abstract:

On October 11 and 12th, the Democracy in Taiwan Project at the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, in cooperation with the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, will hold its 8th annual conference, on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a free trade agreement currently being negotiated by at least nine Pacific Rim countries that has the potential to re-shape economic relations in the region for the coming decades. This conference will bring together policymakers and scholars from Taiwan with leading specialists from other Asian countries and the U.S. to examine the evolution, geopolitics and future of the TPP, and also to consider how Taiwan is responding to the challenge of freer trade and what its strategy for deepening its trade relations and maintaining its economic development should be.

 

Among the issues to be addressed are:

  • How the economic and trading environment of East Asia is evolving, and what Taiwan’s future place will be in that regional environment.
  • The development of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a potentially far-reaching new economic and strategic framework for the region, including the origins and evolution of the TPP, US participation and China’s response, and the implications for the balance of power in East Asia.
  • Taiwan’s response to the challenge of freer trade to date, including the impact on US-Taiwan relations and domestic constituencies for free trade in Taiwan.
  • The perspectives of other key countries in the region toward the TPP, including Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the People’s Republic of China.

This event is co-sponsored by The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center

 

Conference Resources

 

Agenda

Speaker Bios

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Conference Papers

Conference Report (full report, abridged report)

 

 

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Contrasts Across the Strait: International Human Rights Norms in Taiwan and China

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Abstract:

In less than three decades, Taiwan has transformed from a repressive, authoritarian state into a vibrant democracy. Changes to the legal system, and particularly the criminal justice system, have played a central role in this story. Reform-minded politicians, lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and scholars have been crucial advocates for strengthening human rights protections, as has Taiwan’s Constitutional Court. Since the end of martial law, the Court has vigorously given heft to rights enshrined in the Republic of China’s constitution. Now that Taiwan has adopted the contents of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as domestic law, it is an opportune moment to reflect on Taiwan’s journey towards embracing international human rights norms and to confront remaining challenges. The situation across the strait is markedly different. Today, Taiwan’s Constitutional Court has no counterpart on the Mainland and analogues to Taiwan’s former police-controlled punishments remain in full effect. As calls for reform on the Mainland become increasingly vocal, how might Taiwan’s experience inform efforts to increase human rights protections in the People’s Republic of China? 

Speaker Bio:

margaret lewis1
Maggie Lewis joined Seton Hall Law School as an Associate Professor in 2009. She is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and an Affiliated Scholar of NYU School of Law’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute. Her recent publications have appeared in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, NYU Journal of International Law and Politics, Columbia Journal of Asian Law, and Virginia Journal of International Law. She is also the co-author of the book Challenge to China: How Taiwan Abolished Its Version of Re-Education Through Labor with Jerome A. Cohen. 

Most recently before joining Seton Hall, Professor Lewis served as a Senior Research Fellow at NYU School of Law’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute where she worked on criminal justice reforms in China. Following graduation from law school, she worked as an associate at the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York City. She then served as a law clerk for the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Diego. After clerking, she returned to NYU School of Law and was awarded a Furman Fellowship.

Professor Lewis received her J.D., magna cum laude, from NYU School of Law, where she was inducted into the Order of the Coif and was a member of Law Review. She received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Columbia University. In addition, she has studied at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China, and Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany. 

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Margaret Lewis Associate Professor Speaker Seton Hall Law School
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Putin's Russia: The Challenges Of Engagement

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John Sloan was appointed Canada’s ambassador to the Russian Federation, Armenia and Uzbekistan in August 2010.

From September 2006 until August 2010 he was Director General for Economic Policy in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In this capacity he was responsible for the coordination and delivery of Canadian objectives in the G8, G20 and APEC Summits, the OECD, for development policy and institutions and for the Department’s economic capacity building. He was Canada’s Senior Official (SOM) to the APEC process and Canada’s representative to the OECD Executive Committee in Special Session (ECSS). He was also Chair of the G8 Accountability Working Group which produced the G8 Accountability Report for the 2010 Muskoka Summit.

From July 2000 until September 2006 John Sloan worked at the Financial Services Authority in London, UK, the UK financial services regulator, where he was Special Advisor/Manager, Global Team. He was particularly involved in the work of the Financial Stability Forum and the Joint Forum and chaired the Joint Forum working group which produced the High-level Principles for Business Continuity for regulators and market participants, which were formally published in September 2006.

He has served as Canada’s Finance Counsellor in Tokyo and London. Other foreign postings include Geneva, Beijing and a first assignment in Tokyo, including two years at the FSI Japanese language school. Ottawa assignments include Senior Departmental Assistant to the Minister of International Trade and a secondment to the Department of Finance where he coordinated Canada’s Paris Club strategy.

John Sloan has a BA from Stanford University in Chinese Studies, and M.Sc. from the London School of Economics in International Relations and an MBA from Business School Lausanne. In 2000 he taught a course on contemporary Canada at Keio University, Tokyo.

John Sloan is the author of The Surprising Wines of Switzerland, published by Bergli Books, Basel. He also co-editedLa nouvelle Europe de l'Est, du plan au marché, published by Editions Bruylant, Brussels. An article he co-authored, The Structure of International Market Regulation, appeared in Financial Markets and Exchanges Law, published by Oxford University Press in March 2007.

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His Excellency Mr. John Sloan Canadian Ambassador to the Russian Federation Speaker
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