Assessing the 2024 Taiwan Election: An IGP Rapid Response

On January 13, 2024, Taiwan elected the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) candidate, Lai Ching-te, as president. Columbia professors and East Asia experts Thomas J. Christensen and Andrew Nathan discuss the impact of the election outcome on the region and on the broader geopolitical landscape. Panelists: Thomas J. Christensen* James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations, IGP Affiliated Faculty Member, Columbia SIPA *All opinions expressed in this video are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the United States Government. Andrew J. Nathan Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=8gQR6RQQVR4&t=0s

Thomas J. Christensen is Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the China and the World Program at Columbia University.  He arrived in 2018 from Princeton University where he was William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War, Director of the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, and faculty director of the Masters of Public Policy Program and the Truman Scholars Program.   From 2006-2008 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. His research and teaching focus on China’s foreign relations, the international relations of East Asia, and international security.  His most recent book is Lost in the Cold War: The Story of Jack Downey, America’s Longest-Held POW (Columbia Univ. Press, 2022).  His earlier book, The China Challenge:  Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power (W.W. Norton) was an editors’ choice at the New York Times Book Review, a “Book of the Week” on CNN”s Fareed Zakaria GPS, and the Arthur Ross Book Award Silver Medalist for 2016 at the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Christensen has also taught at Cornell University and MIT. He received his B.A. with honors in History from Haverford College, M.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. He has served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, as co-editor of the International History and Politics series at Princeton University Press, and as a member of the Academic Advisory Committee for the Schwarzman Scholars Program. He is currently the Chair of the Editorial Board of the Nancy B. Tucker and Warren I. Cohen Book Series on the United States in Asia at Columbia University Press.  Professor Christensen is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Non-Resident Senior Scholar at the Brookings Institution. He was presented with a Distinguished Public Service Award by the United States Department of State.

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Andrew J. Nathan is Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. His teaching and research interests include Chinese politics and foreign policy, the comparative study of political participation and political culture, and human rights. He is engaged in long-term research and writing on Chinese foreign policy and on sources of political legitimacy in Asia, the latter research based on data from the Asian Barometer Survey, a multi-national collaborative survey research project active in eighteen countries in Asia.

Nathan is chair of the steering committee of the Center for the Study of Human Rights and chair of the Morningside Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Columbia. He served as chair of the Department of Political Science, 2003-2006, chair of the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 2002-2003, and director of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, 1991-1995. Off campus, he is a member and former chair of the board, Human Rights in China, a member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch, Asia, which he chaired, 1995-2000, and a former member of the board of the National Endowment for Democracy. He is the regular Asia book reviewer for Foreign Affairs magazine and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Contemporary China, China Information, and others. He does frequent interviews for the print and electronic media, has advised on several film documentaries on China, and has consulted for business and government.

Nathan's books include Peking Politics, 1918-1923; Chinese Democracy; Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, co-edited with David Johnson and Evelyn S. Rawski; Human Rights in Contemporary China, with R. Randle Edwards and Louis Henkin; China's Crisis; The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China's Search for Security, with Robert S. Ross; China's Transition; The Tiananmen Papers, co-edited with Perry Link; Negotiating Culture and Human Rights: Beyond Universalism and Relativism, co-edited with Lynda S. Bell and Ilan Peleg; China's New Rulers: The Secret Files, co-authored with Bruce Gilley; Constructing Human Rights in the Age of Globalization, co-edited with Mahmood Monshipouri, Neil Englehart, and Kavita Philip; How East Asians View Democracy, co-edited with Yun-han Chu, Larry Diamond, and Doh Chull Shin; and China’s Search for Security, co-authored with Andrew Scobell.

Nathan's articles have appeared in World Politics, Daedalus, The China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, Asian Survey, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, The Asian Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, and elsewhere. His research has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Henry Luce Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and others. He has directed five National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars.

Born on April 3, 1943, in New York City, Professor Nathan received his degrees from Harvard University: the BA in history, summa cum laude, in 1963; the MA in East Asian regional studies in 1965; and the PhD in political science in 1971. He taught at the University of Michigan in 1970-71 and has been at Columbia University since 1971.

Photo Credit: By Cypp0847 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=143919671