In what is becoming an annual tradition, our program is hosting a videoconference with President Ma Ying-jeou tomorrow, June 2nd, 2015. This year we'll be live, with a panel of Stanford faculty and fellows to engage with President Ma via the video link. We'll be joined by the Taiwanese ambassador, Shen Lyu-shun, and a delegation from Washington D.C. The speech and the following Q&A will be broadcast at several other locations around the country as well. Details and the link to the official event page are below. 

杯弓蛇影. A short note on the timing of this event: I've seen claims in the Taiwanese media and heard privately of suspicions that President Ma's speech at Stanford was planned to coincide with Tsai Ing-wen's trip to the United States, perhaps as a way to overshadow her visit. I understand that it is tempting to see some kind of nefarious influence at work in the timing here. But the real reason is a lot more mundane: June 2nd was when we could get a conference room large and tech'ed-up enough for this event, and that still worked for all the participants. The date was set long before Dr. Tsai's itinerary was finalized and publicly announced, and it certainly wasn't pre-determined in Taipei. Given the conspiracy theory fever that grips much political reporting in Taiwan, it was probably inevitable that somebody would conclude otherwise. But in this case, they're just wrong.

I'm speaking on trends in Taiwan's defense spending on May 19th as part of the Taiwan Democracy Project Speaker Series. The official event page is here. The talk is motivated by the trends in the figures above: Taiwan's defense spending has dropped as China's has risen. To IR theorists, that should look weird. To policy wonks, it should be alarming. In the talk I will try to explain why it's happened.

Doing some catching up here...on April 19th we hosted Julia Huang for a talk on the Buddhist charity organization Tzu-chi (慈濟). Dr. Huang is currently a visiting scholar at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University, and a Professor of Anthropology at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.

She has published articles in the Journal of Asian Studies, Ethnology, Positions, Nova Religio, the Eastern Buddhist, and the European Journal for East Asian Studies. Her book, Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement (Harvard University Press, 2009) is an ethnography of a lay Buddhist movement that began as a tiny group in Taiwan and grew into an organization with ten million members worldwide. Huang has recently completed a book manuscript, The Social Life of Goodness: Religious Philanthropy in Chinese Societies (with Robert P. Weller and Keping Wu). She is currently working on a project on the Buddhist influences on cadaver donations for medical education in Taiwan.

On March 9, the Taiwan Democracy Project hosted Lu-huei Chen, research professor and former director of the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University, Taipei. His talk was entitled "Electoral Politics and Cross-Strait Relations." The official event page is here.

Professor Chen is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Election Study Center and Professor of Political Science at National Chengchi University in Taiwan.  He is currently a visiting scholar of Top University Strategic Alliance (TUSA) at MIT. Professor Chen received his Ph. D. in political science from Michigan State University. His research focuses on political behavior, political socialization, research methods, and cross-Strait relations.  He has published articles in Issues and Studies, Journal of Electoral Studies (in Chinese), Social Science Quarterly, and Taiwan Political Science Review (in Chinese). He is the editor of Continuity and Change in Taiwan's 2012 Presidential and Legislative Election (in Chinese, 2013), Public Opinion Polls (in Chinese, 2013), and co-edited The 2008 Presidential Election: A Critical Election on Second Turnover (in Chinese, with Chi Huang and Ching-hsin Yu, 2009).

The Taiwan Democracy Project Internship Program provides one Stanford undergraduate with funding up to $7,500 for an unpaid summer policy or research internship in Taiwan. Since a majority of internships in the fields of policy and government are unpaid, the program seeks to encourage students to pursue unpaid internships in Taiwan by making these opportunities more accessible.

Proposed internships should relate in some way to the mission of the Taiwan Democracy Project: to examine political and social change and the challenges confronting Taiwan’s continued democratic development, including the issue of cross-Strait relations. 

All Stanford undergraduate students in any course of study who have independently arranged a summer internship in Taiwan are eligible to apply. We welcome students from a diversity of years, majors, and backgrounds.  The internship cannot be used for formal language study; some facility in Mandarin Chinese is recommended but not required. For internships requiring applicants to speak or read some Chinese, applicants should demonstrate that their language skills are adequate for the proposed position. 

The successful applicant will spend a summer in Taiwan at a government agency, NGO, academic research center, or other organization whose work relates to some aspect of democracy as it is practiced in Taiwan. Previous interns have found positions at a government-sponsored research foundation, a political party organization, and the headquarters of a major television network.

To qualify for funding, the proposed internship should be full-time (at least 35 hours per week), unpaid, and at least 9 weeks long. Applicants will be responsible for arranging their own travel and lodging.

To apply, submit the following materials via the Global Student Fellows website:

• A statement of purpose, including a description of (1) the applicant’s relevant background and interest in Taiwanese politics and society, and (2) the host organization and the proposed internship duties and opportunities;
• A tentative budget, including travel and lodging expenses;
• A resume;
• A confirmation of the internship opportunity from the host agency or organization;
• Two letters of recommendation, at least one from a Stanford faculty member.

Questions about the internship or application process should be directed to Kharis Templeman. The deadline to receive all application materials is Friday, April 3, 2015.

On February 20, the Taiwan Democracy Project will host Ashley Esarey, a research associate at the China Institute at the University of Alberta. His talk is entitled, "Communication Power and Taiwan's Democratization." The full abstract is below. The talk is free and open to the public; you are encouraged to RSVP at the event page here.

Professor Esarey received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and was awarded the An Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship by Harvard University. He has held academic appointments at Middlebury College, Whitman College, and the University of Alberta, where he is an instructor in the departments of East Asian Studies and Political Science. Esarey has written on democratization and authoritarian resilience, digital media and politics, and information control and propaganda. His recent publications include My Fight for a New Taiwan: One Woman’s Journey from Prison to Power (with Lu Hsiu-lien 呂秀蓮) and The Internet in China: Cultural, Political, and Social Dimensions (with Randolph Kluver).

Communication Power and Taiwan's Democratization

In 2010-2011, the "Arab Spring" brought unexpected revolutions to many Middle Eastern and North African countries. Why did these seemingly invincible regimes fall, while China remained durably authoritarian? Many observers credited global media for the political transformations. While the hopes of Arab Spring democracy have proven to be fragile or short-lived, we can effectively explore the relationship between political communication and regime stability by turning our attention to Taiwan’s remarkable democratization, which remains under-appreciated by the international community.

This talk considers political communication in Taiwan from the martial law era to the heady days of democratic activism beginning in the late 1970s and lasting till the 1990s. Professor Esarey argues that the Chiang Ching-kuo administration’s diminishing capacity to control a small but influential opposition (dangwai) media, and even mainstream newspapers, gradually permitted reformers to reframe debates, reset the political agenda, and challenge state narratives and legitimacy claims. 

When viewed in comparative perspective, Taiwan’s successful democratization suggests that seeking regime change is impracticable, and even perilous, without considerable and sustainable media freedom as well as opportunities for the public to advocate, evaluate, and internalize alternative political views. A balance of “communication power” between state and societal actors facilitates a negotiated and peaceful transition from authoritarianism.

 

On January 16, the Taiwan Democracy Project will host Joseph Wong, Canada Research Chair in Democratization, Health, and Development at the University of Toronto. His talk is based on a paper published last year in the journal Perspectives on Politics, and is entitled, "Pathways to Democracy: Taiwan's Lessons for China." The full abstract is below. The talk is free and open to the public; you are encouraged to RSVP at the event page, here.

Professor Wong was the director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School at the University of Toronto from 2005 to 2014. In addition to his other work, he has published four books: Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea (2004), and Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia's Developmental State (2011), as well as two edited volumes: Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose, co-edited with Edward Friedman (2008), and Innovating for the Global Economy: Towards a New Innovation Agenda, co-edited with Dilip Soman and Janice Stein (2014). He is currently working on a book monograph with Dan Slater on Asia's development and democracy. Professor Wong received his Hons. B.A. from McGill University in 1995 and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2001.

On December 2, the Taiwan Democracy Project will hold a special roundtable session to discuss the results of Taiwan's local elections on November 29. The event is free and open to the public, and lunch will be provided. You are encouraged to RSVP at the official event page.

Panel speakers will include Dennis Weng, visiting assistant professor of political science at Wesleyan University; Thomas Fingar, a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center in the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University; Winnie Lin, a Stanford undergraduate; and me.  Some context on the elections follows.

On November 29, Taiwan will hold comprehensive local elections which will decide a huge number of offices, from the Taipei mayor all the way down to village and ward chiefs. These elections are also being called the "9-in-1" (九合一) elections, because they combine elections to nine separate offices. By the time Taiwan's transition to democracy finished in 1996, elections to directly administered municipalities, counties and cities, townships, village chiefs, and ward chiefs were all held at separate times. Along with separate national elections for the National Assembly (beginning in 1991), the Legislative Yuan (1992), and the presidency (1996), that meant Taiwanese voters were going to the polls about once a year. That's a lot. 

In recent years, on the other hand, the trend has been toward consolidation. A set of amendments in 2005 changed the legislative term length from three to four years to coincide with the presidential term, and starting in 2012 both elections were held on the same day, creating a single national election every four years. The National Assembly was abolished in the same reform. Then county and county-level city terms were temporarily extended to align with the election cycle of the special municipalities of Taipei and Kaohsiung, for the first time creating a single local election day: 

The races to be decided in the 2014 election:

• (1) Mayors and (2) city councilors in centrally-administered municipalities (直轄市市長，市議員) for Taipei, Kaohsiung, New Taipei City, Taichung, and Taoyuan);
• (3) Executives and (4) councilors in counties and county-level municipalities (縣／省轄市長，縣／市議員);
• (5) Township and town heads and (6) councilors (鄉／鎮長，鄉／鎮議員); 
• (7) Village and ward heads (村／里長).

In addition, about 25 township-level jurisdictions with significant "mountain aborigine" populations hold special status as "self-governing" areas (自治區). In a nod to the special status of aborigines in Taiwan, local government laws require that the township heads in these areas be aborigine. This became a point of some contestation after several counties (Taipei County, Taichung City and County, and Kaohsiung City and County) were merged and raised to centrally-administered municipality status in 2009. As part of this reform, townships and towns in these areas became districts (區), which have appointed, not elected, leaders. As a consequence, several self-governing townships lost the right to elect their leaders--Wulai Township, a popular tourist destination a short trip south of Taipei, was one. 

In December 2013 the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to restore the right to elect the leaders and councilors of these former townships. As a consequence, two more elections were added:     

• (8) Self-governing district heads and (9) representatives (自治區長，區代表).   

So that's how they got to "9-in-1".

On November 10, the Taiwan Democracy Project will host Dan Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) for a talk on the latest developments in cross-Strait politics. Mr. Blumenthal is director of Asian Studies at AEI, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. His talk is provocatively entitled, "Time for Xi Jinping to Follow Chiang Ching-kuo's Path?" The full abstract is below. The talk is free and open to the public; you are encouraged to RSVP at the event page, here.

In addition to his duties at AEI, Mr. Blumenthal is also the John A. van Beuren Chair Distinguished Visiting Professor at the U.S. Naval War College. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over a decade.  From 2001 to 2004, he served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the Department of Defense.  Additionally, he served as a commissioner on the congressionally-mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission since 2006-2012, and held the position of vice chairman in 2007. He has also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the congressional U.S.-China Working Group. Blumenthal is the co-author of An Awkward Embrace: The United States and China in the 21st Century (AEI Press, 2012), and coeditor of Strategy in Asia: The Past, Present, and Future of Regional Security (Stanford University Press, 2014).

On October 17-18, 2014, the Taiwan Democracy Project will put on our annual conference on Taiwan's democracy. This year's theme is the politics of polarization. The conference is free and open to the public; you are encouraged to register at the official event page, here. The formal announcement is below.