The International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) will hold an event on Taiwan’s foreign policy. We will have keynote speeches by Jaushieh Joseph Wu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan and Urmas Reinsalu, Member of the Estonian Parliament and former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defence. They will be followed by a discussion between Minister Wu, Marko Mihkelson, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at Riigikogu, and Dr Elena Antanassova-Cornelis, Japan Chair at ICDS, that will be moderated by Leslie Leino (Tallinn University).
Time: Wednesday, 8 November 2023 at 15:00-16:00Place: Radisson Collection Hotel, Rävala St 3, Tallinn, Copenhagen room (2nd floor)
Programme:
Welcoming remarks by Indrek Kannik, Director of ICDS
Keynote speech by Dr Jaushieh Joseph Wu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan
Keynote speech by Urmas Reinsalu, Member of Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament), former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defence
A discussion on “Europe and Taiwan at the times of increasing global tensions” by Minister Wu, Marko Mihkelson, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at Riigikogu, and Dr Elena Antanassova-Cornelis, Japan Chair at ICDS
Participation at this event is by invitation only.
Photo gallery: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjB2wHQ
Biographies of the keynote speakers and panelists
Minister Dr Jaushieh Joseph Wu
Before becoming the Minister of Foreign Affairs he served as the Secretary-General in the Office of the President (2017-18), Secretary-General of the National Security Council (2016-17), Secretary-General of the Democratic Progressive Party (2014-16), and Executive Director of the Committee on Policy Research and Coordination of the Democratic Progressive Party (2012-14). He was previously the representative of the Democratic Progressive Party (2012-16) to the United States and of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (2007-08). From 2004-07, he was the Chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council and served as the Deputy Secretary-General in the Office of the President (2002-04). From 1989-2002, he was a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the National Chengchi University. Minister Wu holds a PhD in political science from Ohio State University (USA) and an MA in political science from the University of Missouri-St. Louis (USA).
Urmas Reinsalu
Urmas Reinsalu is a Member of Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) since March 2023, where he also serves a member of Foreign Affairs Committee. From July 2022 till being elected to the Riigikogu, he served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, having previously held this office between 2019 and 2021. Since graduating from the University of Tartu in 1997, he has served in multiple government positions, including as the Director of the Office of the President of the Republic (1998-2001), Minister of Defence (2012-14), and Minister of Justice (2015-19). Mr Reinsalu has been a Member of the Estonian Parliament since 2003.
Marko Mihkelson
Marko Mihkelson is a Member of Riigikogu where he also serves as the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr Mihkelson was first elected to Parliament in 2003 and is currently serving his sixth mandate. In previous convocations, he served as the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Chair of the EU Affairs Committee, and Chair of the National Defence Committee. Between 2000 and 2003, he worked as the Director of the Baltic Centre for Russian Studies. From 1997 to 2000, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Postimees, the biggest national daily newspaper, and Postimees’s correspondent in Moscow (1994-1997). Mr Mihkelson has an MA degree in history from the University of Tartu.
Dr Elena Atanassova-Cornelis
Dr Elena Atanassova-Cornelis is the newly established Japan Chair at ICDS. She is also a Professor of International Politics of the Asia-Pacific at the University of Antwerp and Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), and an adjunct professor at the Brussels School of Governance of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as well as an Associate Fellow within the Global Fellowship Initiative of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (Switzerland). Dr Atanassova-Cornelis has authored numerous academic articles, book chapters, briefing papers, and policy reports covering Japanese foreign and security policy; alliances, alignments, and major power relations in the Indo-Pacific; regional security in Northeast Asia, including the geopolitics of the Taiwan Strain and the Korean Peninsula; and regional multilateralism and EU-Asia relations. Previously, Dr Atanassova-Cornelis was a Visiting Professor at Ghent University (Belgium), the Lille Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Lille, France), and the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies. She was also a Senior Associate Analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris and a holder of the Taiwan Fellowship of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China on Taiwan. She was a recipient of the Monbusho Scholarship of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and pursued graduate studies at Sophia University in Tokyo. She holds a PhD in Japanese studies from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, (Belgium).