Fellow's Projects
Read about recent projects from our fellows.
The Tiger Leading the Dragon: How Taiwan Propelled China’s Economic Rise.
This talk, based on Shelley Rigger’s new book, The Tiger Leading the Dragon, traces the development of the cross-Taiwan Strait economic relationship and explores how Taiwanese firms and individuals helped create the China of today.
The University of Nottingham's Taiwan Studies Programme presents an online book Launch hosted by editors Michael Reilly and Dr Chun-yi Lee who will invite co-authors to join them and present their chapters.
Routledge Research on Taiwan Series A New Era in Democratic Taiwan Trajectories and Turning Points in Politics and Cross-Strait Relations Edited by Jonathan Sullivan and Chun-Yi Lee.
This book identifies past, present and future trajectories in party politics and state-society relations in Taiwan. Providing a comprehensive examination of public opinion data, it sheds light on significant changes in the composition of political attitudes amongst the electorate. Through theoretical and empirical analyses, this book also demonstrates the emergence of a ‘new’ Taiwanese identity during the transition to democracy and shows how a diffusion of interests in society have led to an opening for niche political organisations. The result, it argues, is a long-term challenge to the ruling parties.
The controversy surrounding the M503 air route started in January 2018. On 4 January, China announced the new northbound flights on the M503 route, which lies very close to the middle line of the cross-Strait air border. This is not a new route, as many commentators have already mentioned. The M503 route had initially been discussed in 2015, due to the fact that the then President of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jou and his party the Kuomintang (KMT) were in power and seeking closer trade ties to the China.
Read the blog post.
Listen to Michael Cole being interviewed about M503 air route:
Monitoring the implementation of China's overseas NGO law: The view from Europe
Picture description: Group picture taken during ESRC IAA Workshop in London, 14 June 2017 'Civil society cooperation with China: from engagement to divestment?' (Dr Fulda third from left, Ms Macbean eighth from left, Dr Patrick Schroeder third from right, Dr Fabian eighth from right).
Dr Andreas Fulda
In September 2017, Dr Andreas Fulda from the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham was awarded a prestigious grant from the Ford Foundation. The project 'Monitoring the implementation of China's overseas NGO law: The view from Europe' has two overarching objectives:
- To monitor and evaluate the state of implementation of China's Overseas NGOs Law by documenting the intended and unintended consequences of the new law for European NPOs and their Chinese partners
- To re-conceptualise people-to-people exchanges in EU-China relations by identifying and documenting new and innovative approaches to critical, creative and constructive European China engagement
Research for this project is being carried out by Dr Fulda and his team members Ms Nicola Macbean (The Rights Practice), Dr Patrick Schroeder (Institute of Development Studies) and Dr Horst Fabian (independent researcher and EU-China Civil Society Ambassador).
Project implementation has begun in October 2017 and field research and outreach activities will be conducted until 31 December 2018. 24 European NPO leaders in the eight European member states United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and Italy will be interviewed by the research team. Stakeholder workshops in Brussels and Berlin will provide additional venues for experience sharing among European NPO leaders, academics and government officials.
Listen to Andreas talk about the project:
Towards an EU-Taiwan Investment Agreement: Prospects and Pitfalls
Michael Reilly
In late 2015, against a background of growing populist opposition to international trade agreements, the European Commission announced its willingness to negotiate a comprehensive bilateral investment agreement with Taiwan. While this should be relatively straightforward, this book warns that it is unlikely to be so. The major stumbling block is not Chinese opposition, as is so often assumed, or populist resistance but a lack of sufficient political will on both sides. This stems from a mutual lack of awareness which in turn is due to the relative stagnation of bilateral trade. A successful outcome would therefore act as a catalyst in developing relations further.
The author examines the principal obstacles to reaching an agreement and the ways of overcoming them. The book should be of interest to policy makers, negotiators and advisors involved in the forthcoming negotiations but also to anyone with an interest in the EU's relations with Taiwan.
Read the blog post.
Listen to Michael Reilly being interviewed about his book: