Human Rights and Cross-Strait Relations

Monday, December 11, 2023 9:00 am – 6:15 pm CET/GMT+1 

W15 Café (Waldstraße 15, 13 156 Berlin)

A collaboration between Bard College Berlin and the National Sun Yat-Sen University under the aegis of the Open Society University Network, this one-day workshop brings together academics, activists, students, and a UN representative, to discuss the current state of cross-strait relations and the role of the discourse around human rights in it, from a variety of perspectives. The questions it will consider include the meaning of democracy and human rights in the region, the problem of “cultural security,” as well as the role of the UN in addressing global threats.

Register for the workshop here.

Workshop program:
9:15 - Welcome and introductions: Chiahao Hsu 
9:30-11:00 - Brenda Vongova, United Nations: The Role of the UN in Addressing Global Threats (view a short preparatory reading for the talk here)
Coffee/tea
11:30-13:00 - Bin Xu, Emory University, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin: Authoritarianism, Sovereignty, and the Culture of Democracy in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
Lunch break
14:00-15:30 - Chiahao Hsu, National Sun Yat-Sen University: Human Rights with Chinese Characteristics
15:45-16:15 - Student presentations
Coffee/tea
16:30-18:00 - Martin Dimitrov, Tulane University: Universal Human Rights as a Threat to Chinese Cultural Security
Participants:
Bin Xu is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Emory University and currently a fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2023-2024). His research interests are situated in the intersection between politics and culture, broadly defined, with a regional focus on East Asia, especially China, and with a global and comparative perspective. He is the author of The Politics of Compassion: The Sichuan Earthquake and Civic Engagement in China (Stanford University Press, 2017); Chairman Mao’s Children: Generation and the Politics of Memory in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021); and The Culture of Democracy: A Sociological Approach to Civil Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022).

Brenda Vongova has been a United Nations international civil servant for over a decade. During this time, she has championed the UN values of peace, respect for human rights, and has been a vocal advocate for the universal ideals, principles and values enshrined in the UN Charter. Brenda Vongova currently serves in the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General, H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterres. Prior to this post, she served in the Office of the former United Nations Secretary-General, H.E. Mr. BAN Ki-moon. Her expertise in handling political briefing materials was honed during her previous service in the Office of the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Mr. Jeffrey Feltman, who oversaw the UN’s diplomatic efforts to prevent and mitigate conflicts worldwide. Between 2008 and 2010, she served in the cabinets of several President of the United Nations General Assemblies.

Martin K. Dimitrov is Professor of Political Science at Tulane University. He is also an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard; Associate Editor for Asia of the journal Problems of Post-Communism; and Associate Editor for Social Science (China and Eurasia) of The Journal of Asian Studies. His books include Piracy and the State: The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China (Cambridge University Press, 2009); Why Communism Did Not Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Politics of Socialist Consumption (Ciela Publishers, 2018); and Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Chiahao Hsu received his Ph.D. from National Sun Yat-Sen University (Poli. Sci.). He is currently serving as an Assistant Professor at Si-wan College, National Sun Yat-Sen University and the Deputy Director of Taiwan Education Center in the Philippines (under Ministry of Education, R.O.C.). His publications range widely from Tocqueville Studies (Political Theory), China Studies (Regional Studies), and Asia-Pacific Geopolitics (International Relations).

Ewa Atanassow is Professor of Politics at Bard College Berlin. Her teaching and research examine alternative conceptions of modernity, and the way key modern concepts—such as sovereignty, nationhood, democracy, globalization, post-coloniality—have been understood in different geo-political contexts. She is the author of Tocqueville's Dilemmas and Ours: Sovereignty, Nationalism, Globalization (Princeton University Press, 2022), and the co-editor of When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty in Theory and Practice with Thomas Bartscherer and David Bateman (Cambridge University Press, 2023) among others.

---

Email: [email protected]