[This talk was cancelled and will be rescheduled at a later date.]

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to The World’s Most Dangerous Place? Assessing the Prospects for War and Peace in the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, May 4, 2023 at 12:00 PM PT. 
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In recent years, numerous analysts have warned of an increasing risk of war in the Taiwan Strait. Others, however, have argued that military conflict remains unlikely, and that the risk of war should not be over-hyped. Drawing from his recent book, Scott Kastner outlines a framework through which to assess the prospects for military conflict between China and Taiwan. Drawing on international relations theory, Kastner outlines several causal pathways through which a Taiwan Strait conflict could occur, and assesses how broad trends in China-Taiwan-US relations are affecting the likelihood of these different scenarios. He concludes with policy suggestions for how actors in Beijing, Taipei and Washington could mitigate the risks of a war in the Taiwan Strait.

This talk will draw from Prof. Kastner's new book, entitled War and Peace in the Taiwan Strait, available from Columbia University Press, November 2022. 

Speaker Bio
Scott L. Kastner is a professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. He graduated from Cornell University and received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. His books include Political Conflict and Economic Interdependence across the Taiwan Strait and Beyond (Stanford University Press, 2009); China’s Strategic Multilateralism: Investing in Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2019; with Margaret Pearson and Chad Rector); and War and Peace in the Taiwan Strait (Columbia University Press, 2022).

Join the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, together with the Program on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region at the Hoover Institution, on Wednesday, March 8, from Noon–1 PM Pacific, for Semiconductors and Geo-technology: ‘Know-how’ is Power, a discussion with Dr. Chun-Yi Lee, Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, and Director of the Taiwan Studies Program, at the University of Nottingham. The session will be moderated by Charles Mok, visiting scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi).

Geopolitics is conventionally understood as a struggle for power. The focus of geopolitical analysis is typically on states; power is understood in terms of states’ economic and military strength. In the era of globalisation, production relies on complex supply chains. While this paper focuses on the production of a hi-tech product—semiconductors—it argues more generally that technology production and supply chain ‘know how’ is implicated in geopolitical power. Through an elaboration of the concept of ‘geo-technology’, this paper argues that a consideration of technology production capacity (or ‘know-how’) can enrich conventional understandings of geopolitics.

The US, Taiwan and China play different roles in the global semiconductor manufacturing supply chain. The leading semiconductor designers are based in the US, while the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produces most of the world’s high-end chips. China, on the other hand, is an economic and manufacturing powerhouse, but remains at the low end of the manufacturing supply chain. This paper argues that the US and Taiwan have significant leverage in the production of semiconductors, granting them geopolitical power. It therefore asks if Taiwan, and the US, can use their technological 'know-how’ to gain further leverage in the geopolitical tug of war with China. Data of this paper will come from semi-constructed interviews in Taiwan and Japan, approximately twenty elite interviews from technology policy analysts, policy makers and high-skilled engineers, along with relevant policy analyses. The paper aims to explore the link between human talents in the semiconductor supply chain and geopolitics.

This session is part of the Winter Seminar Series, a series spanning January through March, hosted at the Cyber Policy Center with the Program on Democracy and the Internet. Sessions are in-person and virtual, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance. Registration is required. 

About the Speaker
Dr. Chun-Yi Lee is Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, and Director of the Taiwan Studies Program, at the University of Nottingham. Her first book, Taiwanese Business or Chinese Security Asset?, was published by Routledge in 2011. She is currently working on her second monograph, on semiconductor manufacturing and geopolitics. She is editor in chief of the on-line academic magazine, Taiwan Insight, and co-editor of the ‘Taiwan and World Affairs’ book series with Palgrave.

The Wilson Center in Washington, DC has posted a call for applications from Taiwan citizens who are interested in spending 1-2 months in residence to conduct research during the summer of 2023. The position is open to citizens or permanent residents of Taiwan. The application deadline is April 1, 2023. Details below. 

Call for Applications
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is accepting applications from Taiwanese researchers for its Wilson Center Taiwan Scholar Program. The residential fellowship program will allow the scholar to spend one to two months during the summer at the Wilson Center in Washington DC, where they will pursue policy-oriented research designed to bridge the gap between the academic and policy communities. Following their residency in Washington, the Taiwan Scholar is expected to produce a policy brief and give a public presentation based on the findings at the Center.

Taiwan plays a key role in promoting democracy and ensuring free markets in East Asia and beyond. It remains a critical political, economic, and security partner for the United States in the region, and deepening U.S. understanding of Taiwan is essential at a time of significant change on both sides of the Pacific. The fellowship is open to Taiwanese scholars committed to research on contemporary Taiwanese issues that address questions related to political stability, economic growth, and regional security.
The Taiwan Scholar Program is made possible from the generous support of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States.

Eligibility 
The fellowship is open to citizens or legal permanent residents of Taiwan. Candidates include academics, current as well as former government officials, and journalists who are currently pursuing research on key public policy issues concerning U.S.-Taiwan relations. Preferences will be given to applicants who have published scholarly books or substantial articles in academic or policy-related journals or newspapers. Applicants must be fluent in both written and spoken English.  Scholars must be able to hold a valid passport and a Wilson Center sponsored J-1 visa and are required to have health insurance.

Selection Process
This residential scholarship is for one to two months between July and August 2023. Applicants should specify the exact time for which they seek the appointment at least three months before they would like to be based in Washington. Under normal circumstances, applicants will be informed of the disposition of their application within 90 days of the Center receiving the completed application and supporting letters of recommendation.

The Application
All applications must be completed online – the Wilson Center will not accept materials submitted via email or by other means. A complete application must be submitted in English, and will include the following:

• the Fellowship Application Form, submitted online;
• A description of the proposed research project (maximum of five pages) outlining its policy relevance and scholarly contribution. This should include discussion of the project’s originality, as well as the methods and sources to be used, and the importance of Washington-area resources. The project must be relevant to policy issues concerning US-Taiwan relations;
• a detailed CV;
• two letters of reference, to be emailed separately.

Thank you for your interest.
For more information or if you have questions, email: [email protected].
Application Deadline is April 01, 2023

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to a talk by Caitlin Talmadge, associate professor of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, entitled Then What? Assessing the Military Implications of Chinese Control of Taiwan on Friday, March 3, 2023 from 12:00 - 1:15 pm PT. To attend, register at the event page. 

Talk Abstract
​The military implications of Chinese control of Taiwan are understudied. Chinese control of Taiwan would likely improve the military balance in China's favor because of unification's positive impact on Chinese submarine warfare and ocean surveillance capabilities. Basing Chinese submarine warfare assets on Taiwan would increase the vulnerability of U.S. surface forces to attack during a crisis, reduce the attrition rate of Chinese submarines during a war, and likely increase the number of submarine attack opportunities against U.S. surface combatants. Furthermore, placing hydrophone arrays off Taiwan's coasts for ocean surveillance would forge a critical missing link in China's kill chain for long-range attacks. This outcome could push the United States toward anti-satellite warfare that it might otherwise avoid, or it could force the U.S. Navy into narrower parts of the Philippine Sea. Finally, over the long term, if China were to develop a large fleet of truly quiet nuclear attack submarines and ballistic missile submarines, basing them on Taiwan would provide it with additional advantages. Specifically, such basing would enable China to both threaten Northeast Asian sea lanes of communication and strengthen its sea-based nuclear deterrent in ways that it is otherwise unlikely to be able to do. These findings have important implications for U.S. operational planning, policy, and grand strategy.

Speaker Bio
Caitlin Talmadge is associate professor of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, as well as Senior Non-Resident Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Research Affiliate in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During fall 2022 she also holds the Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the United States Library of Congress.
 
Professor Talmadge’s research and teaching focus on deterrence and escalation, U.S. military operations and strategy, and security issues in Asia and the Persian Gulf. She is author of The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Cornell, 2015), which Foreign Affairs named the Best Book in Security for 2016 and which won the 2017 Best Book Award from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association. In addition, she is co-author of U.S. Defense Politics: The Origins of Security Policy (fourth edition, Routledge, 2021), and she is currently writing a book with Professor Brendan Green on nuclear escalation risk in the emerging deterrence environment.

​On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution
invites you to US Cities and States in Taiwan’s Quest for International Space on Tuesday, February 7, 2023 from 4:00 pm - 5:15 pm PT. Register at the event page. 

Talk Abstract
While Taiwan’s struggles to retain its shrinking list of diplomatic allies are well documented, its attempts to strengthen its international position via paradiplomacy—formal diplomacy with states, cities, and other subnational governments—have received less attention. Taiwanese officials are adept at forging such paradiplomatic agreements, and Taiwan represents a disproportionately large share of instances of paradiplomacy involving US cities and states. This talk describes the primary forms that US-Taiwan subnational diplomacy has taken since the 1970s, the reasons why cities and states engage with Taiwan, and the ways in which US-Taiwan subnational diplomacy is being challenged by pressure from the PRC.

Speaker Bio
Sara Newland is assistant professor of government at Smith College. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She conducts research on local governance in mainland China and Taiwan and on subnational diplomacy between the US, China, and Taiwan. Her work has been published in Governance, Pacific Review, China Quarterly, and the Journal of Political Science Education. She is a fellow in the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on US-China Relations and a member of the US-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group.

Oregon State University School of History, Philosophy, and Religion has posted a call for applications for the Chiu Foundation Fellowship in Taiwan Studies. Past holders of this postdoctoral position include Tadashi Ishikawa and Michael Shiyung Liu. Through a separate application process, the Chiu Foundation also has sponsored small grants for research in Taiwan, and support for research on Taiwan history  through the Wilson Center. The application deadline for the Oregon State postdoc is February 20. Details below.  

The Chiu program for Taiwan studies at Oregon State University invites applications for a research fellowship for the academic year 2023-24. Based on the support from the Chun and Jane Chiu Foundation, the fellowship program is set up to sponsor  the following categories of research: 1. History of Taiwan; and 2. Projects on Taiwan in anthropology, political science, sociology, or literature with a strong historical dimension.  We especially welcome proposals on Taiwan which are developed in transnational or comparative perspective. The Chiu fellowship can be a residential or non-residential fellowship (depending on the fellow's preference and needs and other conditions). The fellow is required to dedicate their time to research, writing, and training in teaching. The fellowship is a nine-month appointment with a stipend of $56,000 US dollars. In addition, OSU will provide a healthcare option and support for professional development. 
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The goal of the research fellowship is to assist young scholars who  intend to establish their career in the international academia. Candidates should provide evidence of completion of their PhD degree by June 15, 2023. They must not be more than 3 years beyond receipt of the PhD by June 15, 2023. We accept applications from scholars based in North America (the United States and Canada) and Taiwan. 

To apply, please submit the following documents to [email protected]  by Feb 20, 2023.

1. A cover letter 
   
2. Curriculum vitae, including list of publications 
   
3. A research proposal in which applicants explain their project. The proposal should not exceed three pages (double-spaced, Times New Roman, font size 12). 
   
4. Two letters of reference. One must be from the applicant’s major professor (dissertation advisor).  Applicants could ask their referees to email their letters as attached PDFs to [email protected]. 

The committee will make its decision in late March or early April. Please don't hesitate to send a message to [email protected] if you have any questions. 

Oregon State University is committed to inclusive excellence by advancing equity and diversity in all that we do. We are an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer, and particularly encourage applications from members of historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, women, individuals with disabilities, veterans, LGBTQ community members, and others who demonstrate the ability to help us achieve our vision of a diverse and inclusive community. 

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to Narratives of Civic Duty and Taiwan’s Democratic Trajectory on Thursday, January 26, 2023 from 12:30 - 1:45 pm PT. To attend, register at the event page. 

In her newly-published book ​Narratives of Civic Duty: How National Stories Shape Democracy in Asia, Aram Hur investigates the impulse behind a sense of civic duty in democracies. Why do some citizens feel a responsibility to vote, pay taxes, or take up arms for one's country? Civic duty is typically seen as the result of culture or character. Rather, Hur finds that it emerges from a force long seen as detrimental to democracy: strong national attachments. National stories—the folklore of the national people—embed relational legacies with the state that can harness, stunt, or even subvert the nation’s powerful pull toward civic duty. The talk focuses on the case of Taiwan and how its diverse national stories have shaped its democratic past and future.

Aram Hur is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Institute for Korean Studies at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on nationalism and democracy in East Asia, with special attention to issues of identity change, integration, and democratic support in the Korean peninsula and Taiwan. She is the 2021 Korea Society Sherman Emerging Scholar and a 2018-19 CSIS U.S.-Korea NextGen Scholar. She is the author of Narratives of Civic Duty: How National Stories Shape Democracy in Asia(Cornell University Press, 2022). She holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and BA with honors from Stanford University.

In my latest piece for Taiwan Insight, I consider the lack of absentee or early voting options for people stuck in quarantine or who were COVID-positive during the 2022 Taiwan local elections.

I'm pretty critical of Taiwan's leadership here: they had more than two years to think about this problem, but they didn't learn from the rest of the world and were woefully underprepared to hold an election during a pandemic. 65k people were denied the right to vote as a result.

​That is indefensible. It is long past time for Taiwan to introduce alternative ways to vote for citizens who can't physically access their polling stations. Korea and Japan share similar electoral administrative features, but they are way ahead of Taiwan now.

"With its colourful and fiercely contested campaigns, efficient electoral administration, and universal acceptance of the results, Taiwan’s recent local elections were, in most ways, a sign of a vibrant and healthy democracy. But one aspect failed to live up to basic democratic standards: thousands of people were denied the right to vote because they were trapped in mandatory COVID quarantine. After nearly three years of dealing with a global pandemic, Taiwan’s leaders should have been able to find some way to accommodate these citizens, as many other countries around the world have managed to do under much more difficult circumstances. Instead, they ignored the issue, and many Taiwanese were denied the right to vote. Taiwan’s democracy has received much recognition recently for its impressive vitality and resilience. But on voting rights, it is now a laggard. It can and must do better."

The rest of this piece appears at Taiwan Insight. 

The Conference Group on Taiwan Studies is part of the American Political Science Association. It hosts a number of special panels (last year there were seven) that have a separate submission and evaluation process. If you are interested in presenting a paper on anything related to Taiwan at APSA next year in Los Angeles, consider submitting to CGOTS. Details below:   

2023 American Political Science Association
Conference Group on Taiwan Studies (CGOTS)

CALL FOR PAPERS
Submission Deadline: January 18, 2023

The 2023 American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting will be held from August 31- September 3, 2023, in Los Angeles, California. The conference theme is “Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation.”

CGOTS invites paper and panel proposals on Taiwan’s domestic politics, cross-Strait issues, and international relations consistent with the theme of “Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation.”

Political communication can be fraught with mis- and disinformation that can skew the political landscape and impact the attitudes and actions of political actors. Misinformation broadly refers to disseminating false, misleading, or unsubstantiated information without intent to deceive. Disinformation goes further to deliberately mislead with biased information, manipulated facts, or propaganda. Both can include fake news, conspiracy theories, and rumors and be spread by ordinary individuals, influencers, governments, public-relations firms, internet bots, or human-curated fake social media accounts. Mis- and disinformation are not new, but these phenomena are becoming increasingly prevalent and problematic worldwide. Advances in communication technologies mean that they can spread faster and broader than fact-based information. Polarized publics are especially eager consumers. A further innovation is producing “deep fakes” that make distinguishing fakes and facts harder.

On one hand, spreading information–whether false or true–can be expressed in the terminology of rights. Efforts to address mis- and disinformation take place in the context of the internationally recognized human rights of freedom of thought and expression. Engaging in mis and disinformation can be seen as exercising the right to freedom of thought and speech. In this vein, limiting or regulating information flows can be portrayed as overstepping or infringing upon these rights and controlling people’s actions. Governments may use tackling mis- and disinformation to justify infringing these rights. At the extreme, critics have linked information-monitoring to the kinds of oppression we see from authoritarian governments.

On the other hand, exercising the right to freedom of expression without embracing responsibility for providing accurate, evidence-based, and truthful information hurts trust and many rights other than free speech. Covid-19-related misinformation, for example, undercuts the right to health. Election-related disinformation can corrode the right to free and fair elections by discouraging voting, eroding trust in democratic norms, and corrupting institutions. Falsehoods that amplify hatred against racial and ethnic, religious, or political minorities violate the right to non-discrimination, freedom of religion, and even self-determination. In this vein, we could perhaps have a right to the truth that supersedes the “right” to lie. Nonetheless, even apparent attempts to fight mis- and disinformation could be employed against political opponents, repress critical journalists’ freedom of the press, and hurt markets.

For the 2023 Annual Meeting, we encourage participants to consider questions about “Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation” in Taiwan, especially those that highlight diversity in methodological approaches and topics. We also welcome proposals attentive to various domestic and international challenges Taiwan encounters in a world of mis- and disinformation. Entering the final year of President Tsai Ing-wen’s second term, studies examining changes in the political landscape in Taiwan and its future direction is particularly desired. We encourage scholars to raise and study the following questions under the Taiwan context, including how citizens react to the Mis- and Disinformation in Taiwan; how to better understand the diverse social clusters and their respective political views and demands in Taiwan; how to utilize and demonstrate various methodological approaches to advance scholarly understanding of Taiwan politics; how to comprehend cross-Strait relations under Tsai’s second term and the future administration; and how to incorporate the concept of diversity in scholarly research of Taiwan politics.

We also welcome proposals that utilize innovative and diverse approaches to understand how Mis- and Disinformation in Taiwan affect the attitude toward allies and competitors. Research investigating the dynamics of U.S.-Taiwan-China relations, the effect of Mis- and Disinformation on Taiwan’s domestic and international politics, the impact of Mis- and Disinformation on Taiwan’s outward and inward trade and investment patterns, the potential changes between the cross-Strait relations in the era of misinformation, and the public perception on Taiwan’s foreign policy is highly desirable. These questions help the political science academe to understand Taiwan in the global context better and raise Taiwan’s international visibility.

Please send proposals to APSA, and choose CGOTS as one of your submission’s subfield : https://connect.apsanet.org/apsa2023/

The submission deadline is January 18, 2023.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Austin Wang ([email protected])
CGOTS Coordinator. Travel support for CGOTS panelists is subject to the availability of external funding.

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