In January, President Ma gained another four years as head of Taiwan and will take office in May. His policy with China has been one of unprecedented rapprochement. Businessmen, goods, direct flights and now tourists regularly cross the Taiwan Strait.  But the continued arms sales from the US to Taiwan demonstrate that the security situation is still volatile and despite closer ties, a final solution is still nowhere on the horizon. What will be the policies of President Ma towards China in the next four-year period? Can he continue – to use his own words - to ‘minimise the risk and maximize the opportunity’? This has substantial consequences for cross-strait relations and the future of the entire Asia-Pacific region. Our panelists will explore these issues and analyze Taiwan’s prospects for rapprochement.

Dr. Lyushun Shen is the Representative at the Taipei Representative Office in the United Kingdom. Educated in Taiwan and the United States, he previously served as the Republic of China’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and was the Representative at the Taipei Representative Office in the EU and Belgium and the Deputy Representative at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO).

Jonas Parello-Plesneris a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Previously, he was Director of a development NGO with activities in Asia and served as Denmark’s Senior Advisor on China and North East Asia. In 2011, he co-authored the brief ‘The Scramble for Europe’ about the Chinese economic presence in Europe and the memo ‘China’s Janus-faced Response to the Arab Revolutions’.