Stanford University

FSI scholars offer insight on historic China-Taiwan talks

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In the wake of the recent historic meeting of the leaders of China and Taiwan, the Stanford News Service asked two of the university's Asia experts about the aftermath of that meeting and its possible effects on political relations between the two countries, the military situation and Taiwan's Jan. 16 presidential and parliamentary elections.

The first presidential meeting between the leaders of the communist mainland and the democratic island, split by civil war in 1949, was held in early November on neutral territory in Singapore.

Kharis Templeman is the Taiwan Democracy program manager at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He recently wrote about why Taiwan's defense spending has fallen as China's has risen. Thomas Fingar is a distinguished fellow at Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He served as the chairman of the National Intelligence Council and in other key positions in Washington. 

Do you anticipate any lasting effects from the face-to-face meeting of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou?

Thomas Fingar: At a minimum, the meeting appears intended by both sides to validate and lock in the much-improved cross-Taiwan Strait relationship that has evolved over the past several years.

Kharis Templeman: I do think the Ma-Xi meeting itself will have one lasting legacy: it has created a precedent for treating the directly elected president of the Republic of China as an equal and as the rightful representative of Taiwanese interests in cross-strait relations. From now on, leaders in Beijing are going to have a hard time arguing that a non-KMT (the Kuomintang, Taiwan's governing party,) president is illegitimate, as they did during the [former Taiwanese president] Chen Shui-Bian era, or to continue to insist on referring to Taiwan’s leaders as provincial-level officials. So, the next president will come into office somewhat strengthened by that precedent.   

Will the meeting have any effect on the January elections in Taiwan?

Templeman: I don’t think it will make much, if any, difference. Taiwanese public opinion is deeply divided about Ma Ying-Jeou’s meeting with Xi. Ma himself remains quite unpopular, the economy is barely growing, and the KMT presidential candidate remains at least 20 points behind in the polls. There’s little indication that this meeting has shaken up what has been a large and steady lead for DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-Wen, and I would be shocked if she didn’t win a comfortable victory in January.

Fingar: Probably not. Beijing seems to have learned that its past attempts to influence elections on Taiwan have been ineffectual or counterproductive, and the meeting is unlikely to change minds or votes on the island. 

How might the elections affect military spending on either sides, or China's aggressive island-building for military bases?

Fingar: The meeting will not have any effect on military spending or the building of artificial islands in the South China Sea, but Beijing may have hoped that agreeing to meet with Ma to demonstrate how "good" the relationship is might persuade Washington not to approve another round of arms sales to Taiwan.  Regardless of who wins the election on Taiwan, the next administration is likely to seek another round of U.S. arms sales in order to prove that it has the support of the United States.

Templeman: The meeting will have no impact on the security balance in the region. Ma reportedly raised the issue of PRC (People's Republic of China) missiles within easy range of Taiwan, but Xi claimed, implausibly, that they were not targeted at Taiwan, and that was the end of it. The broader trends are unchanged: the PRC’s military budget is growing annually by double-digit rates while Taiwan’s remains essentially flat. The consequence is that the PRC’s capacity to take coercive measures against Taiwan continues to expand, even as cross-strait cooperation has been improved and institutionalized.

Dan Stober is at the Stanford News Service.

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Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore on Nov. 7, 2015. | Flickr/Office of the President Republic of China (Taiwan)
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Of Paradigms, Politics and Principles: The 2016 Taiwan Elections and Implications for China’s Security Strategy and Cross-Strait Relations

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Sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project and the U.S. Asia Security Initiative at the Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC)

Abstract

During the recent meeting between PRC President Xi Jinping and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, the “1992 One China Consensus” served as a mutually acceptable paradigm for maintaining “peaceful and stable” conditions across the Taiwan Strait.  For Xi Jinping, the warmth of the visit thinly veiled a message to Taiwan’s leaders and electorate, as well as to onlookers in Washington.  Chinese officials and media clearly link the talks and confirmation of the 1992 Consensus to “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”—a concept that is increasingly unpalatable to many in Taiwan.  Xi hopes to keep DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (and perhaps even future KMT leaders) in the 1992 Consensus “box” and to co-opt the U.S. in this effort, but perhaps underestimates the political transformation underway on Taiwan. 

The Xi administration has also hardened its position regarding “core interests” such as Taiwan, embodied in a “bottom line principle” policy directive that eschews compromise.  Although many commentators and most officials across the region have shied away from stating that the PRC and Taiwan are at the crossroads of crisis, the collision of political transformation on Taiwan and the PRC’s “bottom line principle” will challenge the fragile foundations of peaceful cross-Strait co-existence.  Changes in the regional balance of military power brought about by a more muscular People’s Liberation Army compounds the potential for increased friction, providing Beijing with more credible options for coercion and deterrence.

This talk will consider the politics and principles involved in cross-Taiwan Strait relations in light of the upcoming 2016 Taiwan elections and the policies of the Xi Jinping administration; and will discuss some of the possible implications for China’s national security policy, regional stability, and the future of cross-Strait relations.

Bio

Cortez Cooper
Mr. Cortez A. Cooper III joined RAND in April 2009, providing assessments of security challenges across political, military, economic, cultural, and informational arenas for a broad range of U.S. government clients.  Prior to joining RAND, Mr. Cooper was the Director of the East Asia Studies Center for Hicks and Associates, Inc.  He has also served in the U.S. Navy Executive Service as the Senior Analyst for the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific, U.S. Pacific Command.  As the senior intelligence analyst and Asia regional specialist in the Pacific Theater, he advised Pacific Command leadership on trends and developments in the Command’s area of responsibility.  Before his Hawaii assignment, Mr. Cooper was a Senior Analyst with CENTRA Technology, Inc., specializing in Asia-Pacific political-military affairs.  Mr. Cooper’s 20 years of military service included assignments as both an Army Signal Corps Officer and a China Foreign Area Officer.  In addition to numerous military decorations, the Secretary of Defense awarded Mr. Cooper with the Exceptional Civilian Service Award in 2001.

2016 Taiwan Elections and Implications for Cross-Strait and Regional Security
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Cortez Cooper Senior International Policy Analyst RAND Corporation
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Liberal Taiwan versus Illiberal South Korea: The Divergent Paths of Electoral Campaign Regulation

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Abstract:

Both South Korea and Taiwan are considered consolidated democracies, but the two countries have developed very different sets of electoral campaign regulations. While both countries had highly restrictive election laws during their authoritarian eras, they have diverged after democratic transition. South Korea still restricts campaigning activities, including banning door-to-door canvassing, prohibiting pre-official period campaigning, and restricting the quantity and content of literature. Taiwan has removed most campaigning restrictions, except for finance regulations. This study explores the causes of these divergent trajectories through comparative historical process tracing, using both archival and secondary sources. The preliminary findings suggest that the incumbency advantage and the containment of the leftist or opposition parties were the primary causes of regulation under the soft and hard authoritarian regimes of South Korea and Taiwan. The key difference was that the main opposition party as well as the ruling party in South Korea enjoyed the incumbency advantage but that opposition forces in Taiwan did not. As a result, the opposition in Taiwan fought for liberalization of campaign regulations, but that in South Korea did not. Democratization in Taiwan was accompanied by successive liberalizations in campaign regulation, but in South Korea the incumbent legislators affiliated with the ruling and opposition parties were both interested in limiting campaigning opportunities for electoral challengers.

 

Bio:

Dr. Jong-sung You is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. His research interests include comparative politics and the political economy of inequality, corruption, social trust, and freedom of expression. He conducts both cross-national quantitative studies and qualitative case studies, focusing on Korea and East Asia. He recently published a book entitled Democracy, Inequality and Corruption: Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines Compared with Cambridge University Press. His publications have appeared at American Sociological Review, Political Psychology, Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Perspective, Trends and Prospects, and Korean Journal of International Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and taught at UC San Diego. Before pursuing an academic career, he fought for democracy and social justice in South Korea.

 

 

Jong-sung You Senior Lecturer College of Asia and the Pacific, Australia National University
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When can Asians celebrate a shared history?

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Two key challenges facing Northeast Asia are how to tame the power of nationalism and create shared memories of history, Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin wrote in The Diplomat. 

Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), urged action on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Northeast Asians should use the commemoration as an “opportune occasion to reflect on their unfortunate past to learn lessons,” only then can the region become more peaceful and prosperous.

Shin and Daniel Sneider, Shorenstein APARC’s associate director for research, lead the Divided Memories and Reconciliation research project which examines memories of the wartime experience in Northeast Asia and what steps can be taken to reconcile disputes over history.

One of their latest outcomes is the book Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies (April 2015), edited with University of Washington professor Daniel Chirot, that studies how wartime narratives are interpreted, memorialized and used in Europe and Asia.

The full article in The Diplomat can be accessed by clicking here.

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Men dressed as Japanese imperial army soldiers march at the Yasukuni Shrine in August 2011, on the anniversary of the end of World War II. | Reuters/Issei Kato
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President Ma delivers talk on Taiwan-US relations via videoconference

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On Tuesday, June 2, 2015, CDDRL's Taiwan Democracy Project welcomed President Ma Ying-jeou of the Republic of China (Taiwan) as he addressed a crowd of over 200 in a talk commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the long history of the U.S.-R.O.C. relationship. The speech was accompanied by a panel Q&A discussion with Lanhee J. Chen, former chief policy advisor to U.S. Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney; Karl Eikenberry, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan; and Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council. The event was moderated by William J. Perry, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of Defense. 

This special event was co-sponsored by CDDRL's Taiwan Democracy Project; the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, San Francisco; and the Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
 

Click here to view photos from the event via our Facebook Album: http://on.fb.me/1QxpzQp

See below for press coverage of the event:

June 3, 2015

"Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou Holds Teleconference on 70th Anniversary of Second World War Victory"

Pacific News Center

"President Ma talks history in video conference"

Focus Taiwan News Channel

"Ma marks sacrifices of ROC armed forces during WWII"

Taiwan Today

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Democracy studies journal reviews “New Challenges”

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Writing for Democratization, Kyong Jun Choi at the University of Washington reviewed New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (Stanford University Press, 2014), a co-edited book by Stanford professors Larry Diamond and Gi-Wook Shin.

“Among the most notable strengths of this volume is its analysis of new phenomena that have rarely been addressed in existing literature,” Choi writes.

The book seeks to illustrate different characteristics of the evolution of democracy in Taiwan and South Korea. The two countries share similar economic and political directions since industrialization took place in the 1960s and transition toward democracy began in the 1980s.

Choi says that the book “certainly stands as a stepping stone for research on new democracies struggling to consolidate democracy.”

“New Challenges” is one outcome of a multiyear research project at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and a conference co-hosted with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law in 2011.

The review is featured in Democratization’s vol. 21, issue 7. Information about accessing the review can found by clicking here.

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Demonstrators in Seoul commemorate the historic June 10 mass pro-democracy movement of 1987. | Reuters/Jo Yong-Hak
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Pathways to Democracy: Taiwan's Lessons for China

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Abstract:

Authoritarian ruling parties are expected to resist democratization, often times at all costs. And yet some of the strongest authoritarian parties in the world have not resisted democratization, but have instead embraced it. This is because their raison d’etre is to continue ruling, though not necessarily to remain authoritarian. Put another way, democratization requires ruling parties hold free and fair elections, but not that they lose them. Authoritarian ruling parties can thus be incentivized to concede democratization from a position of exceptional strength. This alternative pathway to democracy is illustrated with Asian cases – notably Taiwan – in which ruling parties democratized from positions of considerable strength, and not weakness. The conceding-to-thrive argument has clear implications with respect to “candidate cases” in developmental Asia, where ruling parties have not yet conceded democratization despite being well-positioned to thrive were they to do so, such as the world’s most populous dictatorship, China.

 

Bio:

Joseph Wong is the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, and Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Democratization, Health and Development. Professor Wong was the Director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School from 2005 to 2014. In addition to academic articles and book chapters, Professor Wong 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), both published by Cornell University Press, as well as Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose, co-edited with Edward Friedman (Routledge, 2008), and Innovating for the Global South: Towards a New Innovation Agenda, co-edited with Dilip Soman and Janice Stein (University of Toronto Press, 2014). He is currently working on a book monograph with Dan Slater (University of Chicago) on Asia’s development and democracy, which is currently under contract with Princeton University Press. Professor Wong earned his Hons. B.A from McGill University (1995) and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001). 

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Joe Wong Professor and Canada Research Chair in Political Science University of Toronto
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Korean Unification: An American View

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The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) remains a potentially destabilizing element of the Korean Peninsula, making it difficult to construct a regional architecture that could help preserve peace and prosperity. “Korean Reunification: An American View” suggests that transformation of the North Korean regime may be a prerequisite for Korean reunification and a key factor in building a sustainable future in Northeast Asia. The United States, the Republic of Korea, Japan and others must find ways to engage the North, without rewarding misbehavior. Two suggested approaches include pushing for Chinese-style reforms and increasing incentives for the DPRK elite.

 

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Entrepreneurs point toward innovation in China’s health services

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A middle class is emerging in China, and simultaneously, its population is rapidly aging. These two phenomena are impacting the country’s traditional consumer habits, including spending on healthcare. Experts say private-sector services are one important part of the future of China’s healthcare system, and perhaps also a sign of what’s to come for other countries in the region. Entrepreneurs can provide innovative services that cater widely to consumers and support a shift toward integrated care for health promotion and long-term management of chronic disease, also supplementing resources available in traditional public facilities.

Three experts visited the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and shared perspectives on those trends at the panel discussion, “Healthcare Entrepreneurs in East Asia: Innovations in Primary Care and Beyond,” hosted by the Asia Health Policy Program.

Historically, healthcare services in China have been almost entirely government-run. A patient would go to a public clinic, stand in a queue, and receive treatment within a few hours – being referred elsewhere if additional treatment was required.

Now, the private sector is growing, based on the promise of improved care and an enhanced experience, both removing the waiting line and ushering in new technologies. The government has also issued several policies encouraging “social capital” investment in health and fitness services.

The private sector for preventative care services now holds around fifteen percent of the entire marketplace in China, and “is expected to get much bigger over the next five years,” said Lee Ligang Zhang, the founding chairman and chief executive officer of iKang, a healthcare group based in Beijing.

Zhang oversees the company’s operation of 50 self-owned healthcare centers and an extended network of 300 affiliates. iKang is one of many groups catering to a growing consumer base of corporate workers and senior managers seeking care outside of the public system.

Comparative view

Increased development of premium healthcare facilities is not only emerging in China, but also in neighboring Taiwan. Since 1995, Taiwan implemented a national health insurance system, and has been lauded for its success in service provision.

Taiwan transitioned its healthcare market to universal coverage. Under this system, a patient can essentially “shop around” and select where to go for services, most of which are covered under the country’s insurance collective system at public or private providers.

“On average, every Taiwanese goes to see a doctor 14 times a year, compared to five times a year in the United States, and two times [a year] in China,” said Dr. Fred Hun-Jean Yang, a physician and chairman of MissionCare, Inc.

Such numbers reflect the higher availability of services compared to China, he said. Even as a small island, Taiwan has over 15,000 clinics and the price for services is generally affordable for the average citizen. Despite this availability of public and private services, Taiwan’s newer healthcare entrepreneurs seek to fill a market demand shaped by similar factors as in China. Yang says technology and the efficiency of the private sector healthcare system is attracting new consumers.

Missioncare is headquartered in northern Taiwan’s Taoyuan City and consists of four community hospitals with a larger network of clinics across the country as well as coordinated long-term care services for the elderly and those with chronic disease. The group has already expanded into China, and plans to integrate healthcare innovations, such as wearable monitoring and mobile payment.

Patient-centric service

Chinese citizens, particularly those with greater expendable income, are more willing to pay out-of-pocket for an improved patient experience, the panelists said.

“The consumer psyche is important,” said Dr. Wei Siang Yu, the founder of the Borderless Healthcare Group (BHG), a group of companies based in Singapore that focuses largely on health telecommunications.

One perspective is that consumers desire a “high-end” environment made possible by tailored design aesthetics and effective branding. Guided by this trend, Yu, a business executive and physician by training, started the “smart cities, smart homes” initiative at BHG.

BHG is now launching an incubator model in Shanghai, which combines intelligent design aesthetics with patient care, and is planning to localize such centers across China. The model is referred to as an “experience center,” rather than a hospital or clinic, and healthcare services – examinations, operations and value-added activities like wellness and education activities – are all centralized in one location.

Looking ahead, Yu said healthcare is likely to move even further away from the traditional hospital setting, and more toward experiential and home-based care models.

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(L to R): Wei Siang Yu, founder of Borderless Healthcare Group; Lee Ligang Zhang, chairman and CEO of iKang Healthcare Group; and Fred Hung-Jen Yang, chairman of Missioncare, Inc. discuss healthcare innovation at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Center.
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Healthcare Entrepreneurs in East Asia – Innovations in Primary Care and Beyond

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AHPP and CEAS joint event

Three distinguished healthcare entrepreneurs will share their experiences in adding value within health systems of East Asia. Mr. Zhang, founder of iKang Healthcare Group, Inc., will share his experience with merging traditional healthcare with a versatile online platform to build a preventative healthcare service network in China. Dr. Yang will share his experience in Taiwan and China to analyze opportunities in China, and use a case study of MissionCare to exemplify Value-driven Business Transformation. Dr. Wei will share his vision for Borderless Healthcare Group.

Mr. Lee Ligang Zhang has been a successful entrepreneur and business executive since 1998, bringing his knowledge and acumen to a number of companies in his professional career that range from healthcare to the Internet. Mr. Zhang founded iKang Healthcare Group, Inc. (“iKang”) in December 2003, successfully merging traditional healthcare with a versatile online platform to build a preventative healthcare service network that spanned the entire country. This “anytime, anywhere” network was to become the blueprint for the industry that transformed how customers accessed healthcare services in China. Since its inception, Mr. Zhang has been serving as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and has overseen many important milestones in its lifetime. iKang was listed on the NASDAQ on April 9, 2014 and is currently the largest provider in China's fast growing private preventive healthcare services market, accounting for approximately 12.3% of market share in terms of revenue in 2013.

Prior to iKang, Mr. Zhang was a co-founder of eLong.com, a NASDAQ-listed online travel service company, and served as CEO of its China operation from 1999 to 2003. From 1998 to 1999, Mr. Zhang served as head of product development at Sohu.com, a leading NASDAQ-listed Chinese Internet company. Mr. Zhang founded the Harvard China Review in 1997 and co-founded the Harvard China Forum in 1998 while studying at Harvard University.

Mr. Zhang studied biology as an undergraduate student at Fudan University in China, and went on to receive a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry from Concordia College in the US before obtaining a master's degree in genetics from Harvard University. Mr. Zhang has been a member of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Science Alumni Association Council since 2005, and also serves as Vice President of the Harvard Club of Beijing and the Shanghai Alumni Association at Fudan University.

Dr. Fred Hung-Jen Yang is a physician executive and is currently Chairman of MissionCare Inc,, and President of Healthcare Corporation of Asia, a company that owns and operates four community hospitals and seven long-term care facilities in northern Taiwan.

After graduating from National Taiwan University Medical School with an MD degree in 1994, Fred chose to pursue a career in healthcare management.  He earned a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Harvard in 1995 and an MBA from the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, CA in 1997. Before going back to Taiwan in 1998, he worked as a financial analyst for Tenet Healthcare System, the second largest hospital chain in the US. He is currently a candidate in the doctorate program of Johns Hopkins Doctor of Public Health Part-time Program.

Since 1998, Dr. Yang has been actively serving  the MissionCare Group in many important capacities, such as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operation Officer and, Chief Executive Officer.

Over the past ten years, Dr. Yang has made significant contributions not only to his company but also to the healthcare industry in Taiwan. Under his leadership, MissionCare became Taiwan’s first JCI accredited hospital, hence helping to elevate Taiwan’s healthcare quality to a higher level.

In addition to hospital management, Dr. Yang also excels at health economics, financial engineering and strategic management. In 2010, he received an Ernst & Young Taiwan Entrepreneur Award for conducting the successful listing of his company on the Taipei OTC, making it the only hospital group listed in Taiwan.

Dr. Wei Siang Yu is a globally renowned pioneer in healthcare TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunication). He is the founder of Borderless Healthcare Group of companies which operates borderless healthcare initiatives around the world. Dr. Wei graduated as one of the top students at Monash Medical School in 1995 and went against the conventional career path of an honours student to become a medical inventor in the space of digital bio-communication. He gained worldwide recognition in his work on social application of digital bio-communication and became the youngest nominee of CNN People Choice Award in 2003. Dr. Wei’s work was featured by international media all around the world including Discovery Channel, CNN, BBC, Fox News, CNBC, ABC, Time, Wired, ZDF German TV, ARTE French TV, Japan TV, Yomiuri Shimbun, Korean SBS TV, Figaro, Asian Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Guardian UK, LA Times, Channel News Asia, Age, Sunday Times UK, Newsweek, Tatler, Bazaar, Marie Claire New York, Glamour Paris etc. Today, Dr. Wei chairs the Borderless Healthcare Group of companies with the key role of converging global healthcare practices with technology, media and telecommunication applications via strategic partnerships and merger & acquisition.

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Mr. Lee Ligang Zhang Chairman and CEO, Ikang Healthcare Croup, Inc.
Dr. Fred Hung-Jen Yang Chairman, MissionCare, Inc
Dr. Wei Siang Yu Founder, Borderless Healthcare Group
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