"Cross-Strait Relations Since 2016: The End of The Illusion" Book Event

Mr J. Michael Cole

As part of the 2020 SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies Summer School, we kindly ask that you register to attend .

This event will be held online through Blackboard Collaborate.

*Please be aware that all Summer School event times follow British Summer Time (BST)

Abstract

Mr. Cole's talk will focus on how his analysis of cross-Strait relations since 2016 was conducted, the result of unprecedented access to many of the top decision makers in Taiwan, exchanges with foreign diplomats, as well as involvement in various initiatives between Taipei and governments worldwide. He will discuss the challenges and advantages of mixing a journalistic approach with traditional academic research to create a hybrid work that can appeal to the ordinary public, government officials and the academic community. Published in Chinese-language in Taiwan first (as was its predecessor, Convergence of Conflict in the Taiwan Strait), the author will also touch on how Cross-Strait Relations Since 2016 was constructed so it could strike a balance as work intended for a Taiwanese audience and a foreign one, and discuss the areas where, perforce, the two manuscripts had to differ.

Biography

J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based senior fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa and the Taiwan Studies Programme at the University of Nottingham, UK. He holds a Master's Degree in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada (05) and is a former intelligence office with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in Ottawa. He is a consultant for governments and the defense industry. From 2014-16, he was an employee of the Thinking Taiwan Foundation, a think tank created by future president Tsai Ing-wen. From 2006-13, he was deputy news editor, a columnist and journalist at the Taipei Times. He is also founder of the Taiwan Sentinel web site and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy's Taiwan Democracy Bulletin, where he now acts as editor-at-large. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, South China Morning Post, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Globe and Mail, Jane's Defence Review, Lowy Interpreter, the Age, China Brief (Jamestown Foundation), ChinaFile, IISS Military Balance, and several others. His latest book, Cross-Strait Relations Since 2016: The End of the Illusion, was published by Routledge in March 2020. Three of his six books have also been published in Chinese language in Taiwan.

Organiser: SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: ml156@soas.ac.uk