Thursday, April 3rd, 2014 Taiwan’s Economic Future in the 21st Century

Description

Taiwan is one of the world’s postwar miracle economies. A leading manufacturer and innovator in key industries, Taiwan’s economy has steadily climbed the global value chain. But challenges loom ahead. As a highly integrated economy into the global economy, Taiwan is sensitive to world markets. The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, for instance, saw massive drops in global demand for critical IT components manufactured by Taiwanese firms. Taiwan’s economy is quite vulnerable. Economic growth has slowed quite considerably; unemployment is up; manufacturing is slowly being hollowed out; and the lure of Chinese markets has begun to overshadow Taiwan’s economic dynamism. Taiwan is not standing still, however. It signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement – a de facto free trade agreement with China – in an effort to gain further inroads into the Chinese market and to diversify its trade agreements in the region; it continues to experiment with new industrial sectors, looking for the next winner; and it has tried to position Taiwan to be a part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Mr. Rong-Chuan Wu (Director-General, TECO), Mr. David Mulroney (former Canadian Ambassador to China) and Professor Joseph Wong (Professor, Political Science and Director, Asian Institute) will discuss the challenges, uncertainties and prospects of Taiwan’s economic future.

Ambassador Rong-Chuan Wu is currently the Director General of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Toronto as of Feb. 1, 2014.

Before arriving at his post in Toronto, Ambassador Wu was the Director General of the Department of Non-governmental Organization International Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2010 to 2014. Prior to his appointment as the ROC Ambassador to the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis in 2008, he has served as the Director General of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta, U.S.A. since 2003.

Amb. Wu’s other assignments included serving as Section Chief of Treaty, the Congressional Liaison Officer in the Foreign Ministry and Charge de Affaires in the ROC Embassy in the Commonwealth of Dominica. He began his career in foreign services by serving in Jordan and Poland respectively.

Amb. Wu graduated from the Central Police University in Taiwan and began his career as a police chief in Taiwan. Later he received his master’s degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. U.S.A.

David Mulroney is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, where he is writing about Canada’s relationship with China and lessons learned from our recent engagement in Afghanistan. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

Mr. Mulroney served as Ambassador of Canada to the People’s Republic of China from 2009 to 2012. Prior to his appointment to Beijing, he was assigned to the Privy Council Office in Ottawa as the Deputy Minister responsible for the Afghanistan Task Force, overseeing inter-departmental coordination of all aspects of Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan. He also served as Secretary to the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan (“the Manley Panel”).

Mr. Mulroney’s other assignments included serving as Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and, concurrently, as the Prime Minister’s Personal Representative to the G8 Summit. Immediately prior to that, he served as Foreign and Defence Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada. From 1998 until 2001, he was Canada’s senior representative in Taiwan.

Mr. Mulroney graduated from Saint Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. He participated in full time Mandarin training at the Canadian Forces Language School in Ottawa.

Joseph Wong is the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Professor of Political Science, and Canada Research Chair in Health and Development. He is also the Director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School. Wong is the author of many academic articles and several books, including Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea and Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of the Asian Developmental State, both published by Cornell University Press. He recently co-edited with Dilip Soman and Janice Stein Innovating for the Global South with the University of Toronto Press. Professor Wong has been a visiting scholar at major institutions in the US (Harvard), Taiwan, Korea and the UK (Oxford); has worked extensively with the World Bank and the UN; and has advised governments on matters of public policy in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe. Wong¹s current research focuses on poverty and social policy innovation. Wong was educated at McGill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.