Formosa Foundation Supports
Brown University Strait Talk Symposium
From November 9-13, students from China, Taiwan and the United States
converged in Providence, Rhode Island for “Strait Talk: A Multi-Track Symposium
on U.S.-China-Taiwan Relations.” Hosted by Brown University’s Watson Institute
and sponsored by the Formosa Foundation, the conference drew high-level officials,
academic, and policymakers for a series of public lectures, panels and workshops that
aimed to confront the future of the highly fraught triangular relationship.
The student-run, student-initiated conference’s mission centered on fostering awareness,
dialogue, engagement and peace. At the heart of the symposium was the “Interactive Conflict-
Resolution Dialogue Project,” in which 15 students drawn in teams of five from China, Taiwan
and the United States met for six days of intensive sustained dialogue on U.S.-China-Taiwan
relations.
Their work culminated in consensus policy recommendations, which the students presented
at Brown University’s Joukowsky Forum as the symposium’s closing event.
Director of the Brooking Institution’s Center for North East Asian Policy Studies and former U.S. diplomat Dr. Richard Bush opened the symposium with the lecture Untying the Knot? U.S.-
China-Taiwan Relations. On November 12, Dr. Michael Kau, Vice Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Taiwan, offered a provocative keynote speech examining Taiwan’s economic growth, democratization and de facto independence from China. Former ambassador James Lilley—the
only senior U.S. diplomat to work on both sides of the Taiwan Strait—gave the symposium’s
closing lecture the following day on The Future of U.S.-East Asian Relations.
While two senior advisors from the People’s Republic of China’s State Council were originally scheduled to offer the keynote lecture Dragon in the East: China’s Role in the Modern World,
that particular lecture was cancelled after the speakers withdraw from participation. The
symposium additionally featured panels that sought to probe the underlying issues in the
evolving relationship between the United States, China and Taiwan. Pulitzer Prizewinning
journalist Seth Faison and MIT Associate Professor Emma Teng confronted the historical
questions of identity and nationalism in the Chinese and Taiwanese context. Boston College
Professor Robert Ross, board member of Harvard’s John King Fairbanks Center; Jonathan Pollack, Chair of Asia Pacific Studies at Naval War College; and the Formosa Foundation’s Chairman Don
Lee explored the implications of the shifting global power balance.
In partnership with the Strait Talk Symposium, the Watson Institute concurrently hosted an exhibition of U.N. Cultural Ambassador for Tolerance and Peace T.F. Chen’s artwork on Global
Understanding.
With President Bush’s recent high-profile visit with President Hu Jintao, in which the issue of
Taiwanese independence again came up as a flashpoint, the Formosa Foundation’s support of this symposium was particularly timely.
While the Strait Talk Symposium brought relevance to the issue of Taiwan in U.S.-China relations through its high-level keynote speakers, event was most distinguished through the unprecedented “ICR Dialogue Project” and student-focused approach. As the Formosa Foundation’s Don Lee
commented after the event, “I truly think what students here have done shows a lot of initiative and determination.
The quality of the conference has been fantastic.” “Taiwan is often considered an abstract entity, but it’s not,” said Vice Minister Kau, citing Taiwan’s democratic and economic development. “There are
23 million souls there alive and kicking—they want to enjoy freedom too.”“I don’t want war between China and Taiwan,” said one graduate student from mainland China who
preferred to remain anonymous. “I want to solve this peacefully. If China moves toward democracy, maybe the Taiwan situation can be resolved. It’s not easy,” he said, “but we can try.”
