Academia Sinica, the nation’s top research institute, yesterday launched its first world congress on Taiwan studies with the primary goal of establishing links among people engaged in Taiwan studies globally.
More than 700 people are attending the three-day congress, discussing topics such as Taiwanese art, literature, religion, sociology, economy, political science, and environmental changes.
The institute said it hoped the congress, the biggest of its kind ever held in the world, would serve as a framework for sharing academic achievements in the field of Taiwan studies.
It is also aimed at developing interdisciplinary collaboration, facilitating global networks and giving greater exposure to Taiwan studies, the institute said.
“This world congress can really serve as a new beginning for Taiwan studies academically, intellectually and institutionally and for future careers in Taiwan studies in many years to come,” Congress secretary-general Michael Hsiao (蕭新煌) said at the opening ceremony.
Hsiao, director of the sociology institute at Academia Sinica, said there had been burgeoning interest in Taiwan studies at home and abroad over the past two decades, and many centers for Taiwan studies have been established around the world.
Academics and experts from Japan, Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, China and other countries are scheduled to present papers at the congress.
Masahiro Wakabayashi, a political science and economics professor from Japan’s Waseda University, will present a speech on Sunday on the writings of Yeh Jung-chung (葉榮鐘), a Taiwanese activist in the anti-Japanese movement in Taiwan before World War II.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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