Andrew J. Nathan: A Vision for Columbia Students to Be “More Informed about Taiwan”
“Taiwan is not that well understood,” former WEAI director explains on Taiwanese news program.
The Weatherhead East Asian Institute enjoyed a moment in the Taiwanese media spotlight last week when Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University political science professor and a two-term former director of the Institute, spoke to local media during a visit to Taipei.
The occasion was Nathan’s appearance on Taiwan Television's news program Global Insights, in which he was interviewed by one of his former students—Taiwanese newscaster Zoe Lin, who graduated from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in 2003. (Watch the clip here.)
In the Q & A, which received coverage in Yahoo News Taiwan, Nathan confirms that the Institute is developing plans for a center dedicated to Taiwan studies. He outlines the thinking behind those plans:
“We have a vision of a Taiwan center that would be anchored in a professorship that would be based in the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, to promote Taiwan studies in all the other units of the university,” he tells Lin. The goal of the center will be “to bring attention to Taiwan, all of the things about Taiwan — not only politics, not even chiefly politics necessarily, [though] that’s part of it, but art, engineering, business, trade relations, all the different aspects of Taiwanese society. “We train students who go out into government, media, business, into education,” Nathan continues. “We want those students to be more informed about Taiwan. Taiwan is not that well understood.”
Nathan expresses his gratitude to another Taiwanese Columbia graduate, Frank Wang (SEAS ’96), who has generously raised initial funding for Taiwan-centered activities at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. Nathan explains that these could range from lower-profile events like academic lectures to more high-profile programs like conferences and visits by Taiwanese VIPs in the arts, business, and politics. The proposed Taiwan center, however, “would be a bigger operation to embed studies of Taiwan in the curriculum.”
Nathan’s remarks about Taiwan studies at Columbia are part of a longer segment in which he addresses Taiwan’s strategic importance and the semiconductor company TSMC’s investment in American operations, among other topics. Watch that clip here.
(Editor's note: TTV prevents their content from displaying as embedded video, but the bold-face links above will take you to the relevant clips on YouTube.)