Thursday, March 21, 2024
10:30 AM – 2:00 PM ET
State Room
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street NW Washington, D.C. 20052
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won an unprecedented third term in January 2024 in a tight 3-way race. As President-elect Lai Ching-te readies the transition to inauguration on May 20, what are we learning about key policy issues at home and abroad?
What does the new political environment suggest for Taiwan’s democracy and identity? What lessons can we learn from Chinese tactics related to the elections? How are policies being shaped on Taiwan’s security front, especially on cross strait relations and what are the chances for improving Taiwan’s diplomatic reach?
Join the Sigur Center as top experts debate and discuss these looming questions.
Panel One: New Political Environment & Implications at Home (10:30 am-12:00 pm)
China’s Tactics and Taiwan’s Election Integrity, Kenton Thibaut, The Atlantic Council
Changing Party Politics, Chiaoning Su, Oakland University
Identity Politics and the Electorate, Shelley Rigger, Davidson College
Moderator, Alexa Alice Joubin, GWU
Lunch (12:00-12:30 pm)
Panel Two: New Political Environment & Foreign Policy Implications (12:30-2:00 pm)
Outlook on Cross Strait Relations, Jennifer Kavanagh, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Directions in US-Taiwan Ties, James Lee, Academia Sinica
Taiwan’s Prospects for Greater International Space, Jacques deLisle, The University of Pennsylvania
Moderator, Deepa Ollapally, GWU
Speakers
Yaqiu Wang (pronounced Ya-cho) is Research Director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, leading the organization’s research on human rights issues within China and the Chinese government’s global influence.
Prior to joining Freedom House, Wang was Senior China Researcher at Human Rights Watch, working on issues including internet censorship, protection of human rights defenders, and women’s rights. She has also written extensively on the Chinese government’s role in undermining human rights globally and multinational corporations’ complicity in human rights violations in China. Before Human Rights Watch, Wang worked on press freedom issues in China and other Asian countries for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Wang was born and grew up in China, and has a MA degree in International Affairs from George Washington University. She has testified before US Congress, and is frequently quoted by major news outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, and appeared on CNN, NBC, NPR, and BBC.
Chiaoning Su is an associate professor in Communication, Journalism and Public Relations at Oakland University. She also serves as the director of the Public Relations program and the Klein Center for Culture and Globalization, as well as PRSSA’s academic advisor. Beyond OU, Su served as the 2018-2020 President of the Association for Chinese Communication Studies, and the non-resident fellow of the Taiwan NextGen Foundation. Su received her Ph.D. in media and communication from Temple University in 2015. Her research focuses on two distinct yet interconnected research lines: journalism of crisis and journalism in crisis. While the first line examines the representation and production of crisis news, the second focuses on journalism in public life during an era of waning democracy. Her work has been published in Media, Culture and Society, International Journal of Communication, Asian Journal of Communication, and Taiwan Journal of Democracy, and Communication Review. She is the recipient of the 2020 Honors College Inspiration Award and the 2021 Teaching Excellence Award at Oakland University. Prior to her academic career, Su worked as a communication specialist at Ogilvy Public Relations and for several political campaigns in Taiwan. Through these professional experiences she developed expertise in media pitches and crisis management. In recent years, her research attracted increasing international media attention. AlJazeera, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Asia, and Voice of America have interviewed her on U.S.-China-Taiwan relations, press freedom in East Asia, China’s wolf warrior diplomacy, and Taiwan’s nation branding. Additionally, she appeared on several Taiwanese radio programs to discuss strategic narratives to amplify Taiwan’s international visibility. In her leisure time, Su likes to travel and read. She is always in search for a good story and the hidden messages behind the narratives.
Shelley Rigger is the Brown Professor of Asian Studies. She teaches courses on East Asian Politics, including domestic politics of East Asian countries and the international relations of the region. Rigger’s research and writing focuses on Taiwanese politics and on the relationships among the United States, the People’s Republic of China, and Taiwan. In 2019-2020 she was a Fulbright scholar at National Taiwan University in Taipei, studying the political and social views of Taiwanese youth. She’s been a visiting professor at two universities in the People’s Republic of China: Fudan University (2006) and Shanghai Jiaotong University (2013 & 2015), and was a visiting researcher at National Chengchi University in Taiwan in 2005. Rigger is also non-resident fellow of the China Policy Institute at Nottingham University and a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). She also interacts frequently with US government officials, especially in the Taiwan policy field. I’ve held a number of administrative posts at Davidson College; Rigger currently serves as the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty. She is also a director of The Taiwan Fund, a closed-end investment fund specializing in Taiwan-listed companies. Rigger has written two academic books on Taiwan’s domestic politics — Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (Routledge 1999) and From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2001) – as well as two books for general readers – Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse (2011) and The Tiger Leading the Dragon: How Taiwan Propelled China’s Economic Rise (2021). She has published articles on Taiwan’s domestic politics, the national identity issue in Taiwan-China relations, generational politics in Taiwan, and related topics. Rigger has also published items in the Washington Post Monkey Cage blog.
Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A political scientist by training, she has spent her career studying national security threats and their consequences for U.S. foreign policy and defense strategy. At Carnegie, Kavanagh’s research explores dynamics in contemporary geopolitics, with a focus on relationships between major powers, including the United States, European Union, Russia, and China. In addition to examining the types of power and influence that matter most in international system, Kavanagh’s work considers the domestic political foundations of geopolitical trends and analyzes possible future trajectories and their implications. Prior to joining Carnegie, Kavanagh was a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where she led projects focused on deterrence, military interventions, and U.S. military posture for defense and national security clients. She was most recently director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program in RAND’s Arroyo Center, which supports the U.S. Army. Kavanagh also co-authored Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life, and co-founded and led RAND’s Countering Truth Decay Initiative, a portfolio of projects focused on polarization, disinformation, and civic development in the United States. Kavanagh received an AB in government from Harvard University and a PhD in political science and public policy from the University of Michigan. She is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.
James Lee is an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica, the national academy of Taiwan. He is also an affiliated researcher of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) of the University of California system and a collaborator of Canada’s Network for Strategic Analysis. He received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University in 2018, and he has previously held research positions at the European University Institute in Florence, the University of California, San Diego, and the NATO Defense College in Rome. Lee’s research in strategic studies is at the intersection of political science and diplomatic history, with a focus on U.S. foreign policy and the security of Taiwan. He is one of the principal investigators on the “American Portrait” project, an annual survey of public opinion in Taiwan on U.S.-Taiwan relations. His research has been published in Business and Politics, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of East Asian Studies, and the Journal of Chinese Political Science. Lee is also a policy analyst of U.S.-Taiwan relations, with publications in outlets such as Le Rubicon, Global Asia, the Network for Strategic Analysis, and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. His working languages are English, Mandarin, French, Italian, and German.
Jacques deLisle is the Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus on contemporary Chinese law and politics, including: legal reform and its relationship to economic reform and political change in China, the international status of Taiwan and cross-Strait relations, China’s engagement with the international order, legal and political issues in Hong Kong under Chinese rule, and U.S.-China relations. His writings on these subjects appear in a variety of fora, including international relations journals, edited volumes of multidisciplinary scholarship, and Asian studies journals, as well as law reviews. DeLisle is also professor of political science and former Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Penn and director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He has served frequently as an expert witness on issues of P.R.C. law and government policies and is a consultant, lecturer and advisor to legal reform, development and education programs, primarily in China.
Moderators
Alexa Alice Joubin is Professor of English, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, International Affairs, East Asian Languages & Literatures, and Theatre. She co-directs the Taiwan Education & Research Program and is an affiliate faculty at the Institute for Korean Studies. She is the inaugural recipient of the bell hooks Legacy Award and holder of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award.
Deepa M. Ollapally is a political scientist specializing in Indian foreign policy, India-China relations, and Asian regional and maritime security. She is Research Professor of International Affairs and the Associate Director of the Sigur Center. She also directs the Rising Powers Initiative, a major research program that tracks and analyzes foreign policy debates in aspiring powers of Asia and Eurasia.
Dr. Ollapally is currently working on a funded book, Big Power Competition for Influence in the Indian Ocean Region, which assesses the shifting patterns of geopolitical influence by major powers in the region since 2005 and the drivers of these changes. She is the author of five books including Worldviews of Aspiring Powers (Oxford, 2012) and The Politics of Extremism in South Asia (Cambridge, 2008). Her most recent books are two edited volumes, Energy Security in Asia and Eurasia (Routledge, 2017), and Nuclear Debates in Asia: The Role of Geopolitics and Domestic Processes (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). Dr. Ollapally has received grants from the Carnegie Corporation, MacArthur Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Asia Foundation for projects related to India and Asia. Previously, she was Associate Professor at Swarthmore College and has been a Visiting Professor at Kings College, London and at Columbia University. Dr. Ollapally also held senior positions in the policy world including the US Institute of Peace, Washington DC and the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India. She is a frequent commentator in the media, including appearances on CNN, BBC, CBS, Diane Rehm Show, and Reuters TV. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.
