Challenges Facing Taiwan: A Conversation

Notes and links to readings and analyses are assembled to provide background for a January 20, 2024 meeting held in a Zoom videoconference about challenges facing Taiwan. A guest from Taiwan participated in the meeting.

David L. Passmore https://davidpassmore.net (Research Fellow, Ohio River Valley Institute
Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Penn State University)
2024-1-20

Background

Country of Taiwan

Taiwan — more formally, the Republic of China — is a notable driver of U.S. international diplomacy, military strategy, and public concern. The centerpiece of what is termed the “Taiwan issue” is the question of the future for this self-ruling democracy, which the People’s Republic of China claims as its territory. Answering this question is a flash point between the U.S. and the People’s Republic.

Meeting

A group of men, calling itself The Think Tank, from a wide variety of business, education, and government backgrounds meet in Pennsylvania six days during most weeks to discuss topics related to politics, policy, and practices that affect the position and action of the U.S. in regions, in the nation, and globally. The purpose of our January 20 meeting was to enrich participants’ understanding of Taiwan and the “Taiwan issue” from the view of a Taiwanese citizen.

Introducing the meeting one month before occurrence was a “teaser” infographic, The Think Tank Orientation to Taiwan. This meeting was not recorded. Participants could not record the meeting, either. This meeting was not live simulcast on Facebook, Workplace from Meta, YouTube, Twitch, or any other custom live streaming services. Provided in this document are links to a sampler of information is provided about Taiwan’s history, politics, population, geography, and economy.

Our Guest

The January 20 meeting of the Think Tank involved a discussion with a virtual guest from Taiwan The guest shared his views as a citizen of Taiwan, not from a perspective as a country specialist in an academic sense. He is not a diplomat or an interlocutor for Taiwan politics, strategy, or tactics. Rather, this session was framed as the Think Tank’s opportunity to engage with a “man on the street” from Taiwan. The visitor has a resumé that reflects wide knowledge about Taiwan, China, and the United States resulting from his significant life experiences as a student, professor, academic leader, traveler, and soldier. We keep the identity of the guest private to avoid current and potentials risks that might accrue from real or virtual respondents or agents.

General

History

Politics

Population

Geography

Economy

Last Revised

[1] "2024-09-18 15:07:52 EDT"

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NOTES FROM PITTSBURGH by David L. Passmore is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

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Citation

For attribution, please cite this work as

Passmore (2024, Jan. 20). NOTES FROM PITTSBURGH: Challenges Facing Taiwan: A Conversation. Retrieved from https://davidpassmore.github.io/blog/mem/2024-09-18-taiwan/

BibTeX citation

@misc{passmore2024challenges,
  author = {Passmore, David L.},
  title = {NOTES FROM PITTSBURGH: Challenges Facing Taiwan: A Conversation},
  url = {https://davidpassmore.github.io/blog/mem/2024-09-18-taiwan/},
  year = {2024}
}

NOTES FROM PITTSBURGH by David L. Passmore is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

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