In this conversation, Taiwan's Representative to the United States, Jason Yuan, and Director of CDDRL, Larry Diamond, will talk about a variety of issues associated with the triangular relationship among Taiwan, China, and the United States.

Mr. Jason Yuan took office as Republic of China’s (Taiwan) Representative to the United States in August, 2008. Representative Yuan is a career diplomat who began his government career in 1974 as an acting naval attaché for the Embassy of the Republic of China in the United States. After then, he has been Deputy Director and Director of Congressional Liaison Division for the Coordination Council for North American Affairs, Director General of Department of North American Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Representative of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada. He has also served as Ambassador to Panama, and Director General of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles. Prior to the current post, Representative Yuan was Representative of Kuomintang-People First Party (KMT-PFP Alliance) to the United States.

Representative Yuan obtained his MA in Business and Public Administration from Southeastern University and BA in Chinese Navy Academy (Taiwan).

This is special event within Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Long-term demand for nuclear fuel is high as demonstrated by the continued rise in activities such as uranium mining and milling, enrichment, and fuel fabrication. At a recent international conference in Beijing on nuclear energy, IAEA officials stated that the global financial crisis is unlikely to deter the increasing long-term demand for new nuclear power plants. In order to limit the proliferation risk, the IAEA suggested the concept of multinational nuclear arrangements and member countries followed up with various related proposals. A few projects at the front-end of the nuclear fuel cycle are reviewed in the context of such multinational arrangements. Policies of two uranium-producing countries, Mongolia (a new supplier) and Kazakhstan (a relatively new supplier) are compared. The development at the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle is reviewed in the context of collaboration of supplier countries and countries with strong technological capability and demand such as Russia, France, China, Japan, and India. 

Undraa Agvaanluvsan is a visiting professor at CISAC. Her research covers the technical and policy aspects of the uranium and nuclear energy industry. Mongolia, her homeland, has a large reserve of natural uranium that it wants to develop for economic and strategic purposes. Similar to other developing nations, Mongolia also is considering nuclear power to help reduce domestic pollution and meet growing demand for electricity. In this context, Agvaanluvsan is analyzing Mongolia's uranium mining and processing policies to compare this emerging industry with parallel developments in Kazakhstan and countries in southern Africa. She also is comparing Mongolia's potential role as a uranium supplier to that of Canada's and Australia's.

Agvaanluvsan received her bachelor's (1994) and master's (1995) degrees in physics from the National University of Mongolia. From 1996-97, she studied high energy physics at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. Agvaanluvsan earned her doctorate in 2002 from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, studying nuclear reactions and quantum chaos in nuclei. Following completion of her doctorate, she conducted postdoctoral research work in the Nuclear Experimental Physics group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

In addition to Agvannluvsan's scientific and policy analysis work, in 2008 she served as an adviser to Mongolia's Minister of Foreign Affairs. Agvaanluvsan also is director of the recently established Mongolian-American (MonAme) Scientific Research Center in Ulaanbaatar, which focuses on energy, the environment and mineral processing technologies. In September 2008, she helped organize MonAme's first international meeting, the "Ulaanbaatar Conference on Nuclear Physics and Applications," in Mongolia's capital.

Abstract: China's three human spaceflights (2003, 2005, and 2008) and 2007 anti-satellite test have put the world on notice that a new geography is emerging in 21st Century space competition, which also includes several other leading Asian countries: India, Japan, and South Korea. North Korea is also desperately trying to enter the club of space-faring nations.  Why are Asian states today so interested in space?  What are their evolving capabilities, in both the civilian and military sectors? And how are these countries' activities likely to affect the interests of the United States?  This presentation will cover each of these issues, as well as emerging Obama administration space policies, particularly in regard to China.  (Dr. Moltz recently returned from research trips to South Korea and Japan, where he conducted extensive interviews with space officials and analysts. His talk is based on a book manuscript he is currently writing.)

James Clay Moltz holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs and in the Space Systems Academic Group at the Naval Postgraduate School.  >From 1993 to 2007, he worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies' Center for Nonproliferation Studies, where he served as deputy director from 2003-07.  Dr. Moltz is the author (most recently) of The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests (Stanford University Press, 2008).  He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and holds an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies and a B.A. in International Relations (with Distinction) from Stanford University. Dr. Moltz serves as a consultant to the NASA Ames Research Center, where he chairs the Space Futures Analysis Group.

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Japan has been hit unexpectedly hard by the global economic  recession.  Although Japanese financial institutions were not  seriously damaged by the initial financial crisis in the United  States, the economy has been staggered by an unprecedented drop in  exports.  With the economy likely to shrink by five to six percent  in 2009, Japan faces the worst economic downturn in over a half  century.  Policy responses to this situation have been complicated  by the uncertain political situation, with an unpopular prime  minister and a looming election for the lower house of the national  Diet.

What does all this mean for relations with the United States?   There are several important developments.  First, one impact of the  crisis is a shrinkage of Japan's current-account surplus, implying  that (at least in 2009) Japan will be a much smaller net supplier  of capital to the United States and the rest of the world.  Second,  the government appears to be willing to respond to the crisis with  strong fiscal stimulus, which should please the Obama  administration.  Third, even with stimulus in Japan, economic  recovery will lag behind that of the United States because real  recovery will depend on an upturn in exports.  Fourth, it is China,  not Japan, that will be the key among Asian countries.  China will  continue to grow, and is also applying fiscal stimulus, so it will  likely play a significant global role in enabling an end to the  recession.
All of these factors will play into bilateral relations,  complicated by the political uncertainty in Japan.  Bilateral  relations are close, and will remain so in the Obama  administration.  But the administration is likely to view Japan as  playing only a limited role in the global effort to cope with the  consequences of the financial and economic crisis.

About the Speaker:

Edward J. Lincoln joined NYU in 2006 to be director of the Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies and clinical professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business. Professor Lincoln teaches courses on the global economy.

Professor Lincoln’s research interests include contemporary structure and change in the Japanese economy, East Asian economic integration, and U.S. economic policy toward Japan and East Asia. His latest book, on the underappreciated importance of economic issues in international relations and American foreign policy, is Winners Without Losers: Why Americans Should Care More About Global Economic Policy, published in 2007. He is the author of eight other books and monographs, including East Asian Economic Regionalism (The Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, 2004), Arthritic Japan: The Slow Pace of Economic Reform (Brookings, 2001), and Troubled Times: U.S.-Japan Economic Relations in the 1990s (Brookings, 1998). An earlier book, Japan Facing Economic Maturity (Brookings, 1988) received the Masayoshi Ohira Award for outstanding books on the Asia-Pacific region.

Before joining NYU, Professor Lincoln was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and earlier a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In the mid-1990s, he served as Special Economic Advisor to Ambassador Walter Mondale at the American Embassy in Tokyo. He has also been a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Professor Lincoln received his Bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, his M.A. in both economics and East Asian Studies at Yale University, and his Ph.D. in economics also at Yale University.