On October 10, President Lai Ching-te will follow in his predecessors’ footsteps and deliver a major “Double Ten Day” speech. The date commemorates the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, a series of events that led to the end of imperial rule in China and the founding of the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan’s official name still today.

Five months into his term as ROC President, how will Lai describe his accomplishments thus far in a complicated domestic landscape where his Democratic Progressive Party has only a minority of seats in the legislature? How will he characterize his stance on cross-strait relations and how will Beijing react? And how will he address Taiwan’s relationship with foreign countries and its role in the world given the tightening of its international space?Our panel of three professors who are based inside and outside Taiwan will discuss the main takeaways from Double Ten Day and the challenges that lie ahead.

Moderator

Margaret K. Lewis,  the Associate Dean for Faculty Development & Institutional Operations and a Professor of Law at Seton Hall University. Lewis is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the National Committee on United States-China Relations Board of Directors, for which she is also a Public Intellectual Program fellow. She has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at National Taiwan University, a visiting professor at Academia Sinica, and a consultant to the Ford Foundation. 

Panelists

Dr. Lev Nachman, a political science professor in the Graduate Institute of National Development at National Taiwan University. He is also a Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council Global China Hub and the National Bureau of Asian Research. He was the 2021 Hou Family Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Fairbanks Center for China Studies, and holds his PhD in Political Science from the University of California Irvine. His research focuses on public opinion and political participation in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Cross-Strait Relations and US-Taiwan Relations, and he is the author of Taiwan: A Contested Democracy Under Threat. 

Wei-Ting YEN, assistant research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica (IPSAS). Previously, she was an assistant professor of the Government Department at Franklin and Marshall College. She is also a Public Intellectual Program fellow at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and Associate Editor for Asian Politics & Policy. Dr. Yen is a political economist, with a focus on governance and welfare state development in Asia.