Stanford University

Maritime Issues in East Asia: Finding Peaceful Solutions

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This seminar will discuss the current issues surrounding the sovereignty of the Diaoyutai Islets and the East China Sea peace initiative of the government of the Republic of China, Taiwan, through which ROC president Ma ying-jeou is calling for dialogue to resolve disputes over the archipelago.

Prof. Edward I–Hsin Chen, who earned his Ph.D. from Department of Political Science at Columbia University in 1986, is currently teaching in the Graduate Institute of Americas (GIA) at Tamkang University. He was a Legislator from 1996 to 1999, an Assemblyman in 2005, and the director of the institute from 2001 to 2005. He specializes in IR theories, IPE theories, and decision-making theories of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan. 

His recent English articles include U.S. Role in Future Taipei-Beijing Relation, in King-yuh Chang, ed., Political Economic Security in Asia-Pacific (Taipei: Foundation on International & Cross-Strait Studies, 2004); A Retrospective and Prospective Overview of U.S.-PRC-ROC Relations, in Views & Policies: Taiwan Forum, Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2005 (A Journal of Cross-Strait Interflow Prospect Foundation in Taipei); The Decision-Making Process of the Clinton Administration in the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-96, in King-yuh Chang, ed., The 1996 Strait Crisis Decisions, Lessons & Prospects (Taipei: Foundation on International & Cross-Strait Studies, 2006); From Balance to Imbalance: The U.S. Cross-Strait Policy in the First Term of the Bush Administration, in Quansheng Zhao and Tai Wan-chin, ed.,Globalization and East Asia (Taipei: Taiwan Elite, 2007); The Role of the United States in Cross-Strait Negotiations: A Taiwanese Perspective, in Jacob Bercovitch, Kwei-bo Huang and Chung-chian Teng, eds.,Conflict Management, Security and Intervention in East Asia. (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 193-216; and The Security Dilemma in U.S.-Taiwan Informal Alliance Politics, Issues & Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1, March 2012, 1-50

Dr. Yann-huei Song is currently a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies, and joint research fellow at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Area Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, the Republic of China. 

Professor Song received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Kent State University, Ohio, and L.L.M. as well as J.S.D. from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, the United States. He has broad academic interests covering ocean law and policy studies, international fisheries law, international environmental law, maritime security, and the South China Sea issues. He has been actively participating in the Informal Workshop on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea (the SCS Workshop) that is organized by the government of the Republic of Indonesia. 

Professor Song is the convener of Academia Sinica's South China Sea Interdisciplinary Study Group and the convener of the Sino-American Research Programme at the Institute of European American Studies. He is a member of the editorial boards of Ocean Development and International Law and Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs. He has frequently been asked to provide advisory opinions by a number of government agencies in Taiwan on the policy issues related to the East and South China Seas.

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Edward I-Hsin Chen Professor of Political Science Speaker Graduate Institute of Americas, Tamkang University
Yann-huei Song Research Fellow Speaker Institute of European and American Studies, FSI
Seminars

Maritime Issues in Asia, Finding Peaceful Solutions

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Prof. Edward I–Hsin Chen, who earned his Ph.D. from Department of Political Science at Columbia University in 1986, is currently teaching in the Graduate Institute of Americas (GIA) at Tamkang University. He was a Legislator from 1996 to1999, an Assemblyman in 2005, and the director of the institute from 2001 to 2005. He specializes in IR theories, IPE theories, and decision-making theories of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan. His recent English articles include “U.S. Role in Future Taipei-Beijing Relations” in King-yuh Chang, ed., Political Economic Security in Asia-Pacific (Taipei: Foundation on International & Cross-Strait Studies, 2004); “A Retrospective and Prospective Overview of U.S.-PRC-ROC Relations,” in Views & Policies: Taiwan Forum, Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2005 (A Journal of Cross-Strait Interflow Prospect Foundation in Taipei); “The Decision-Making Process of the Clinton Administration in the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-96,” in King-yuh Chang, ed., The 1996 Strait Crisis Decisions, Lessons & Prospects (Taipei: Foundation on International & Cross-Strait Studies, 2006); “From Balance to Imbalance: The U.S. Cross-Strait Policy in the First Term of the Bush Administration,” in Quansheng Zhao and Tai Wan-chin, ed., Globalization and East Asia (Taipei: Taiwan Elite, 2007); “The Role of the United States in Cross-Strait Negotiations: A Taiwanese Perspective,” in Jacob Bercovitch, Kwei-bo Huang and Chung-chian Teng, eds., Conflict Management, Security and Intervention in East Asia. (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 193-216; and “The Security Dilemma in U.S.-Taiwan Informal Alliance Politics, Issues & Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1, March 2012, 1-50.

 

Prof. Yann-huei Song is currently a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies, and joint research fellow at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Area Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, the Republic of China. 

Professor Song received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Kent State University, Ohio, and L.L.M. as well as J.S.D. from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, the United States. 

He has broad academic interests covering ocean law and policy studies, international fisheries law, international environmental law, maritime security, and the South China Sea issues. He has been actively participating in the Informal Workshop on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea (the SCS Workshop) that is organized by the government of the Republic of Indonesia. 

Professor Song is the convener of Academia Sinica’s South China Sea Interdisciplinary Study Group and the convener of the Sino-American Research Programme at the Institute of European American Studies. He is a member of the editorial boards of Ocean Development and International Law and Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs. He has frequently been asked to provide advisory opinions by a number of government agencies in Taiwan on the policy issues related to the East and South China Seas.

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Edward I-Hsin Chen Professor, Graduate Institute of Americas (GIA) Speaker Tamkang University
Yann-huei Song Research Fellow, Institute of European amd American Studies Speaker Taipei, Taiwan
Seminars

From Planned Economy to Market Economy: Taiwan's Economic Transformation

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Abstract:

This talk will unveil the story of Taiwan’s economic transformation between 1949 and 1960, as Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist leaders turned away from a command economy to build a market economy more productive than any in Chinese history.

The talk gives special attention to how a small group ofpolitical and economic leaders began to formulate and later implement a bold new economic vision for Taiwan. In the process, they embraced institutional and organizational innovations that led to a dismantling of Taiwan's earlier centralized command economy and the growth of a new market system.

Much information in this research was obtained from historical papers that were recently made available at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University: the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek, Kuomintang party archives, and personal papers of Kuomintang leaders. It also makes use of first-hand oral interviews with former Nationalist officials and economists.

 

Speaker Bio:

Tai-chun Kuo is Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. She was a Visiting Lecturer at the Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University (2003) and Associate Professor at the Graduate Institute of American Studies, Tamkang University (Taiwan, 1997-2000). Prior to these positions, she served as Press Secretary to the President of the Republic of China (1990-1995), Deputy Director-General of the First Bureau of the Presidential Office (1989-1997), and Director of the ROC Government Information Office in Boston (1987-1988).

Outside of her own research, since 2003 she has assisted the Hoover Institution Archives in developing its Modern China Archives and Special Collections, including Kuomintang (Nationalist) party archives, diaries of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, personal papers of T. V. Soong, H. H. K’ung, and other leading Chinese individuals.

Her major publications include Taiwan's Economic Transformation: Leadership, Property Rights, and Institutional Change; T. V. Soong in Modern Chinese History, China’s Quest for Unification, National Security, and Modernization; Breaking with the Past: China’s First Market Economy; Watching Communist China, 1949-79: A Methodological Review of China Studies in the United States of America and Taiwan; and The Power and Personality of Mao Tse-tung, among others.

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Tai-chun Kuo Research Fellow Speaker the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Seminars

Governing Security: The Hidden Origins of American Security Agencies

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Description from Stanford University Press:

The impact of public law depends on how politicians secure control of public organizations, and how these organizations in turn are used to define national security. Governing Security explores this dynamic by investigating the surprising history of two major federal agencies that touch the lives of Americans every day: the Roosevelt-era Federal Security Agency (which became today's Department of Health and Human Services) and the more recently created Department of Homeland Security.

Through the stories of both organizations, Cuéllar offers a compelling account of crucial developments affecting the basic architecture of our nation. He shows how Americans end up choosing security goals not through an elaborate technical process, but in lively and overlapping settings involving conflict over agency autonomy, presidential power, and priorities for domestic and international risk regulation. Ultimately, as Cuéllar shows, the ongoing fights about the scope of national security reshape the very structure of government, particularly during—or in anticipation of—a national crisis.

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Five foreign policy questions for Obama and Romney

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President Obama and Mitt Romney meet for their third debate to discuss foreign policy on Monday, when moderator Bob Schieffer is sure to ask them about last month's terrorist attack in Libya and the nuclear capabilities of Iran.

In anticipation of the final match between the presidential candidates, researchers from five centers at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies ask the additional questions they want answered and explain what voters should keep in mind.

What can we learn from the Arab Spring about how to balance our values and our interests when people in authoritarian regimes rise up to demand freedom?  

What to listen for: First, the candidates should address whether they believe the U.S. has a moral obligation to support other peoples’ aspirations for freedom and democracy. Second, they need to say how we should respond when longtime allies like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak confront movements for democratic change.

And that leads to more specific questions pertaining to Arab states that the candidates need to answer: What price have we paid in terms of our moral standing in the region by tacitly accepting the savage repression by the monarchy in Bahrain of that country's movement for democracy and human rights?  How much would they risk in terms of our strategic relationship with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia by denouncing and seeking to restrain this repression? What human rights and humanitarian obligations do we have in the Syrian crisis?  And do we have a national interest in taking more concrete steps to assist the Syrian resistance?  On the other hand, how can we assist the resistance in a way that does not empower Islamist extremists or draw us into another regional war?  

Look for how the candidates will wrestle with difficult trade-offs, and whether either will rise above the partisan debate to recognize the enduring bipartisan commitment in the Congress to supporting democratic development abroad.  And watch for some sign of where they stand on the spectrum between “idealism” and “realism” in American foreign policy.  Will they see that pressing Arab states to move in the direction of democracy, and supporting other efforts around the world to build and sustain democracy, is positioning the United States on “the right side of history”?

~Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

What do you consider to be the greatest threats our country faces, and how would you address them in an environment of profound partisan divisions and tightly constrained budgets? 

What to listen for: History teaches that some of the most effective presidential administrations understand America's external challenges but also recognize the interdependence between America's place in the world and its domestic situation.

Accordingly, Americans should expect their president to be deeply knowledgeable about the United States and its larger global context, but also possessed of the vision and determination to build the country's domestic strength.

The president should understand the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorist organizations. The president should be ready to lead in managing the complex risks Americans face from potential pandemics, global warming, possible cyber attacks on a vulnerable infrastructure, and failing states.

Just as important, the president needs to be capable of leading an often-polarized legislative process and effectively addressing fiscal challenges such as the looming sequestration of budgets for the Department of Defense and other key agencies. The president needs to recognize that America's place in the world is at risk when the vast bulk of middle class students are performing at levels comparable to students in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria, and needs to be capable of engaging American citizens fully in addressing these shared domestic and international challenges.

~Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Should our government help American farmers cope with climate impacts on food production, and should this assistance be extended to other countries – particularly poor countries – whose food production is also threatened by climate variability and climate change?

What to listen for: Most representatives in Congress would like to eliminate government handouts, and many would also like to turn away from any discussion of climate change. Yet this year, U.S. taxpayers are set to pay up to $20 billion to farmers for crop insurance after extreme drought and heat conditions damaged yields in the Midwest.

With the 2012 farm bill stalled in Congress, the candidates need to be clear about whether they support government subsidized crop insurance for American farmers. They should also articulate their views on climate threats to food production in the U.S. and abroad.

Without a substantial crop insurance program, American farmers will face serious risks of income losses and loan defaults. And without foreign assistance for climate adaptation, the number of people going hungry could well exceed 15 percent of the world's population. 

~Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment

What is your vision for the United States’ future relationship with Europe? 

What to listen for: Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, it was the United States and Europe that ensured world peace. But in recent years, it seems that “Europe” and “European” have become pejoratives in American political discourse. There’s been an uneasiness over whether we’re still friends and whether we still need each other. But of course we do.

Europe and the European Union share with the United States of America the most fundamental values, such as individual freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to live and work where you choose. There’s a shared respect of basic human rights. There are big differences with the Chinese, and big differences with the Russians. When you look around, it’s really the U.S. and Europe together with robust democracies such as Canada and Australia that have the strongest sense of shared values.

So the candidates should talk about what they would do as president to make sure those values are preserved and protected and how they would make the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe more effective and substantive as the world is confronting so many challenges like international terrorism, cyber security threats, human rights abuses, underdevelopment and bad governance.

~Amir Eshel, director of The Europe Center

Historical and territorial issues are bedeviling relations in East Asia, particularly among Japan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries. What should the United States do to try to reduce tensions and resolve these issues?

What to listen for: Far from easing as time passes, unresolved historical, territorial, and maritime issues in East Asia have worsened over the past few years. There have been naval clashes, major demonstrations, assaults on individuals, economic boycotts, and harsh diplomatic exchanges. If the present trend continues, military clashes – possibly involving American allies – are possible.

All of the issues are rooted in history. Many stem from Imperial Japan’s aggression a century ago, and some derive from China’s more assertive behavior toward its neighbors as it continues its dramatic economic and military growth. But almost all of problems are related in some way or another to decisions that the United States took—or did not take—in its leadership of the postwar settlement with Japan.

The United States’ response to the worsening situation so far has been to declare a strategic “rebalancing” toward East Asia, aimed largely at maintaining its military presence in the region during a time of increasing fiscal constraint at home. Meanwhile, the historic roots of the controversies go unaddressed.

The United States should no longer assume that the regional tensions will ease by themselves and rely on its military presence to manage the situation. It should conduct a major policy review, aimed at using its influence creatively and to the maximum to resolve the historical issues that threaten peace in the present day.

~David Straub, associate director of the Korea Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorentein Asia-Pacific Research Center

 

Compiled by Adam Gorlick.

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President Obama and Mitt Romney speak during the second presidential debate on Oct. 16, 2012. Their third and final debate will focus on foreign policy.
Reuters
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