EVENTS

Abstract 

During her inaugural speech back in March 2016, Madame Tsai Ing-wen announced her administration would establish a ‘New Southbound Policy’ (NSP) aimed at enhancing economic and cultural ties between Taiwan and 18 countries in the Indo-Pacific region. The main goal of the policy is to integrate the resources and strengths of Taiwan’s public and private sectors in order to establish a mutually beneficial model of cooperation with the targeted countries, including India.

The Seminar will discuss the opportunities and challenges of Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy for India and surrounding area, identify trade and investment potential, and ways to boost people-to-people exchanges, among other issues.

About the Speakers

Bonnie S. Glaser is a senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at CSIS, where she works on issues related to Asia-Pacific security with a focus on Chinese foreign and security policy. She is concomitantly a nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a senior associate with the Pacific Forum. Ms. Glaser has worked for more than three decades at the intersection of Asia-Pacific geopolitics and U.S. policy. From 2008 to mid-2015, she was a senior adviser with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, and from 2003 to 2008, she was a senior associate in the CSIS International Security Program.

Prior to joining CSIS, she served as a consultant for various U.S. government offices, including the Departments of Defense and State. Ms. Glaser has published widely in academic and policy journals, including the Washington Quarterly, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, International Security, Contemporary Southeast Asia, American Foreign Policy Interests, Far Eastern Economic Review, and Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, as well as in leading newspapers such as the New York Times and International Herald Tribune and in various edited volumes on Asian security. 

She is currently a board member of the U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She served as a member of the Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board China Panel in 1997. Ms. Glaser received her B.A. in political science from Boston University and her M.A with concentrations in international economics and Chinese studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Ambassador Derek Mitchell is the incoming President of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and senior advisor to the Asia Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Ambassador Mitchell was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 29, 2012, as the first U.S. ambassador to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Burma) in 22 years. He took up his post in July 2012, and departed March 2016. In 2011, Ambassador Mitchell was appointed the State Department’s first special representative and policy coordinator for Burma, with the rank of ambassador. From 2009 to 2011, Ambassador Mitchell served as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, overseeing the Defense Department’s security policy in Northeast, Southeast, South and Central Asia. 

From 2001 to 2009, Ambassador Mitchell was senior fellow and director of the Asia Division of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was special assistant for Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1997-2001. In the 1990s, Ambassador Mitchell served as senior program officer for Asia and the former Soviet Union at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington, D.C. 

Ambassador Mitchell began his work in Washington as a foreign policy assistant in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) from 1986-88. Ambassador Mitchell has authored numerous books, articles and policy reports on Asian security affairs, and co-authored China: The Balance Sheet – What the World Needs to Know about the Emerging Superpower (Public Affairs, 2006). He received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Virginia.

Kristy Tsun-Tzu Hsu is Director of the Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center (TASC), Chung Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER), Taiwan (R.O.C.). Her research interests include Southeast Asian study, regional economic integration, international trade policy and economic/trade law, trade and development issues and gender issues. She advices on Taiwanese government’s Asian, in particular Southeast Asian and Indian policy, including the New Southbound Policy, and on other trade related policy areas. She also leads the Joint Feasibility Study of FTA with a number of Asian countries.

She currently serves as Advisory Member to the Trade and Development Committee of ROC National Confederation of Industries, International Affairs Committee of ROC Chamber of Commerce, adviser to the Council of Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce in Vietnam, adviser to the Association of Foreign Relations, and adviser to the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce’s, or CNAIC’s monthly publication CNAIC Magazine, and Standing Supervisor to Taiwan Women Film/Video Association.

She obtained her LL.M from the School of Law, Soochow University, Taiwan, and B.A. in Department of Foreign Literature and Languages of National Taiwan University, Taiwan. She was the Executive Secretary and associate research fellow at the Chinese Taipei APEC Study Center, Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) from 1998 - 2003; journalist of the Commercial Times in Taiwan from 1989 - 1997, and Correspondent in Tokyo for the newspaper in 1990.

Ambassador Vinod C Khanna is a former Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies. As a member of the Indian Foreign Service, he was India's Ambassador to Cuba, Indonesia, and Bhutan. During his diplomatic career he handled several responsibilities relating to Sino-Indian relations. After his retirement he served as  the first Head of the India Taipei Association which looks after India's interests in Taiwan.

He was educated at Bombay and Oxford, and has been associated with Harvard University as a Fellow and the University of Delhi as a Visiting Ambassador. He is a founder member of the China Study Group and has been a member of the Editorial Board of China Report. He has co-authored Ramayana in Indonesia and India and China: The Way Ahead.