The eighth annual Strait Talk Symposium kicked off this weekend with four panels tackling various aspects of the Taiwan Strait conflict, including two new panels on cybersecurity and cross-Strait education. This week, delegates from the United States, China and Taiwan will participate in conflict resolution workshops and hammer out a consensus document with proposals for how the United States should handle the conflict.
Strait Talk began in 2005, the brainchild of Johnny Lin '08 and other Brown undergraduates. The program brings 15 delegates ages 18 to 27 from the three countries to Brown for a week of peace talks. Events include four public panels and 40 hours of conflict resolution workshops.
The Taiwan Strait conflict involves competing claims by the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China to sovereignty over mainland China and Taiwan.
"The Taiwan Strait conflict can be a very emotional issue for people," said Lan Mei '14, the Strait Talk chair. "The goal (of the workshops) is to get everyone to feel safe enough to share their perspective and talk it out." The delegates will present their policy proposals at Brown Wednesday and at the New York University School of Law Thursday.
This year's symposium included two new panels: one on cybersecurity and another on how education and NGOs are changing cross-Strait relations. Strait Talk organizers created the new panels in response to recent trends in the relationships between the U.S., China and Taiwan, such as more Chinese students studying abroad in Taiwan. "We've been trying to find more innovative panels so that the symposium can stay relevant," said Mabel Fung '15, the Strait Talk speakers and panels coordinator.
Last spring, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission published a report on China's cyber warfare and espionage capabilities. "If we were to engage in a cyber war, we run the risk of destroying our economy," said Professor of Computer Science John Savage, one of the cybersecurity panelists. Savage pointed out that a cyber attack on electrical generators in North America "could turn out the lights for months, if not years."
Strait Talk organizers make an effort to include new faculty members in each year's symposium. Rebecca Nedostup, a new associate professor of history, spoke Saturday about the development of different "political cultures" on either side of the Taiwan Strait since 1949. Panel attendees praised Nedostup's presentation for illuminating the conflict's social dimension. "It helped mix up the very technical panels with something from the humanities," said Derek Sheridan GS.
Since the 1980s, increasing economic ties between China and Taiwan have reduced the threat of a military confrontation, Fung said. But the Taiwan Strait conflict is more relevant than ever, and the conflict has been used to study other kinds of regional disputes, like those in the Middle East, she added.
