President Ma Ying-jeou will take part in a video conference at 9:00 a.m. on April 16 Taipei time (6:00 p.m. April 15, US Pacific time) with the Stanford University Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). Members of the US academic community will attend the event live at Stanford University's Bechtel Conference Center at Encina Hall.
The video conference will be chaired by former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and will feature a panel that includes CDDRL Director Larry Diamond, Professor Francis Fukuyama, and former Chief of US Naval Operations Admiral (ret.) Gary Roughead. The chair and panelists are all authorities in the fields of international politics, diplomacy, and security. The president will deliver a keynote address focusing primarily on how Taiwan intends to achieve cross-strait peace and improve Taiwan-US relations while facing the changing state of the world and the Asia-Pacific region. After his speech, the president will take questions from the panelists and members of the audience at Bechtel Conference Center. The video conference has generated considerable interest in the US, and a large number of people have registered to join the audience.
This marks the fourth time that President Ma will exchange views with US academics via video conference. Similar events were held in 2010 with Harvard University, and in 2009 and 2011 with the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). By means of his keynote address and the ensuing discussion with the live audience, the president expects that observers in the US will come away with a better understanding of what the ROC has been doing in support of regional peace. The event will also highlight the long-standing friendship and close cooperative ties between the ROC and the US.
The video conference will be streamed live via both the Chinese (www.president.gov.tw) and English (english.president.gov.tw) websites of the Office of the President. To watch the live stream via the Chinese website, click on the "最新影音" button on the right-hand side of the homepage. To watch via the English website, click on the "Bulletin Board" button on the right-hand side of the homepage. In addition, Radio Taiwan International will also be streaming the event live in both Chinese and English via its website.