Written by Ketty Chen.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan and grew up in Dallas, Texas, I am currently a visiting scholar with the Institute of Advanced Study of Humanity and Social Sciences at the National Taiwan University.  Prior to my post in Taiwan, I taught political science at Collin College in Plano, Texas and at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.

I received my doctoral degree in political science from the University of Oklahoma, specializing in comparative politics, international relations and political philosophy.  More specifically, my research in the field of comparative politics focuses on democratization.  I am especially interested in examining the consolidation of democracy and the subsequent quality of democracy.  For the past year and a half, I have been on the ground and embedded with Taiwan’s major social movements, documenting their advocacy strategies, the issues they are protesting and the government’s responses to the social movements and members of the civil organization.

In international relation studies, the focus of my research is on issues relating to regional security in the Asia Pacific and conflict resolution.  With China’s increasing attempt to marginalize Taiwan’s international and regional participation, I intend to focus more on Taiwan’s attempt to position and maintain herself as an influential player in the region and China’s continuous attempt to absorb Taiwan without having to use traditional military threat.

Interestingly, I found the issues quite a few Taiwanese social movements have been focusing their protests are directly related to resistance to Chinese influence, mostly through economic means and through media.  Therefore, I plan to focus my CPI column articles on social movements in Taiwan and their implications to the state and quality of Taiwan’s democracy, in addition to Taiwan’s plan to create and maintain successful external relations.  I will also write about China’s attempt to influence and absorb Taiwan, while exerting herself as the region’s strongest power.  It is my hope to elucidate to readers issues often neglected by international media and cross-strait relation watchers.

Ketty Chen is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. Her personal blog is here and she tweets @HelloKetty1998.