Website
Founder and Administrator:
Dr. Philip Yang
Professor, Department of Political Science
Director, Taiwan Security Research Center
National Taiwan University
Overview
of the Site
Taiwan Security
Research (TSR) is an academic and non-governmental website designed to
aggregate and disseminate information on current events relating to Taiwan’s security
and regional security issues. The website compiles newspaper articles, op-ed
pieces, official policy statements, academic papers and reports from English
language sources posting them daily on TSR’s website. The website is designed
to provide an unbiased, reliable English-language source of up-to-date
information relating to Taiwan’s security situation.
Statement
of Purpose
In addition to
acting as an information service to the academic community, the major purpose
of the TSR is to serve as a confidence-building measure (CBM) by providing
timely, objective and balanced information to those concerned with the
maintenance of peace and security across the Taiwan Straits and the
Asia-Pacific region. It is the belief of the website administrator that the
Taiwan security issue is not merely a question of regional security, but one
of the most important foreign policy problems of this new century.
Background
Since the end of 1997,
Taiwan Security Research has been maintained as a website focusing on Taiwan
and regional security issues. It is managed and maintained almost entirely by
the website administrator, with occasional technical and administrative
assistance from Prof. Yang’s students.
Content
The website’s
homepage provides three venues for accessing information:
- Users
can scroll down to the 7-9 line news briefs summarizing the most recent
postings to the website. These briefs are organized into two groups:
newspaper articles (whose full length generally runs from 1-3 printed
pages) followed by longer pieces (op-ed pieces, academic papers,
studies, reports, and policy statements). The title of the piece appears
as a hyperlink that can be clicked to access the full document. Longer
documents are downloadable in PDF format, while the majority of documents
are immediately displayed after clicking the link. Following the title
is the date and source of the piece that precede the 7-9 line abstract
of the full document.
- Users
can click on any of the dozen or so sub-categories which organize and
cross-reference current and archived postings related the sub-category
subject. Current sub-categories include subject specific and geographic
headings
- Users
can also search the website using key words.
Support
Support for Taiwan Security Research is provided by :
Reviews
The TSR website
has been recommended by leading journal and scholars in the field including:
Foreign
Affairs (July/August
2000, p. 154)
"Maintained by Philip Yang of Taiwan National University, this site is
an excellent source for news and information on Taiwanese and Chinese
security issues. The page eschews Web junk - there is a refreshing absence of
spinning tanks, dancing airplanes, and morphing flags - and concentrates
instead on a serious subject. Its strengths include substantial sections on
the People's Liberation Army as well as generous material on Taiwan. This
site is likely to become an increasingly important resource, given the
unlikelihood of tranquility in that part of the world any time soon."
June Teufel
Dreyer (Professor,
Department of Political Science, University of Miami)
"This beautifullly-designed website provides everything one needs to
know about Taiwan security research in one convenient place. Weekly emails
give users a summary of what has been added in previous days. This website is
timely, succinct, and visually attractive."
Paul Evans (Professor, Department of
Political Science, University of British Columbia)
"The
Taiwan Security Research website and listserv is one of several projects that
distributes information on Asia Pacific security issues. Balanced, thoughtful
and non-partisan in selection, and state-of-the-art in presentation, it has
been playing a unique and valuable role for policy-relevant research in three
respects. First, it tends to focus on issues relevant to cross-Straits
relations, where other sites concentrate on a broader geographic area.
Second, it includes information from sources in Taiwan that are not found on
other websites. This is especially important because views from Taiwan are
rarely part of international conferences and meetings. Third, it includes
news coverage (along the same lines as NAPSNET) as well as reflective pieces
on broader issues and themes."
Harry Harding (Dean, Elliot School of
International Relations, George Washington University)
"This
has proven to be one of the most valuable websites on security problems in
Asia. I would rank it alongside the Nautilus website for its
comprehensiveness and objectivity. The Nautilus website, of course, focuses
on the Korean peninsula; TSR focuses on the situation in the Taiwan Strait.
Thus, the two complement each other well."
Dennis Van
Vranken Hickey (Associate Professor, Political Science Department, Southwest
Missouri State University)
"The Taiwan Security Research website provides me with information that
would be difficult, if not impossible, to collect elsewhere. In addition to
gathering and presenting up-do-date articles and analyses from the world
press, the website also posts the work of numerous experts in the field. It
provides a unique and invaluable service that is unavailalbe anywhere else
and provides it in an easy to understand fashion. Moreover, it provides users
with links to government websites, think-tanks and libraries. Finally, the
website contains a database--that is, it stores past postings for future
use."
Roderick
MacFarquhar (Fairbank
Center, Harvard University)
"The
Taiwan Security Research (TSR) web site is an invaluable source of
information on Taiwanese politics and the security situation in the Taiwan
Strait. There are usually several items which I need to read to get briefed
on a rapidly changing situation which has the potential for becoming the
focus of a major international crisis."
Andrew Nathan (Professor, Department
of Political Science, Columbia University)
"The
website contributes enormously to the ability of scholars in the U.S. to keep
track of Taiwan affairs. As such, it raises both the quantity and the quality
of attention to and commentary on Taiwan in American academia, and serves not
only an academic but a national security interest for Taiwan. Academically,
what I appreciate very much is that the site is complete, accurate, impartial,
and easy to access. As a result, I have a lot of confidence that by using it,
I'm keeping up with commentary and news on Taiwan security related affairs. I
have no other way to do this."
Joseph Nye (Dean, Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University)
"I have
found the TSR to be the single best source of information on the
China-Taiwan-United States relationship that exists. It provides
comprehensive and objective information on one of the most important foreign
policy problems of this new century. In a world cluttered with unwanted
e-mail, I find myself reading every issue of TSR without fail."
Michael
Yahuda
(Professor of International Relations, The London School of Economics and
Political Science)
"I am truly
grateful for your supply of the Taiwan Security Research (TSR) website as I
have found it extremely useful for my research and for such commentaries as I
am asked to give from time to time in the local and international media. The
weekly supply of authoritative and properly sourced news and academic
articles on issues relevant to Taiwan's security has become an indispensable
resource for me in the writing of papers for conferences and in ensuring that
I do not miss important statements and commentaries. I have come to rely on
the weekly supply of the TSR and I am sure that this must be true of other
scholars too."
Stephen J.
Yates (Senior
Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation)
"Cross-Strait relations and Taiwan's security are amonth the highest priority
issues to U.S. policymakers. Over the last decade several developments in
Taiwan and its relations with Beijing have significantly challenged American
policy throughout Asia. For those of us who conduct academic research to
provide context and background for U.S. policymakers in such times of
difficulty, Philip Yang's Taiwan Security Research (TSR) is an indispensable
resource. His weekly reports keep us informed of the best articles and
studies produced by experts worldwide, and the online archive is a goldmine
of source material for long-term research and historical analysis."
Yu-Shan Wu (Professor, Department
of Political Science, National Taiwan University)
"I
consider Prof. Philip Yang's web site on Taiwan security a great asset to the
academic community in a truly global sense. It arouses interest in
cross-Straits relations and sensitizes international scholars to Taiwan's
security needs. It serves both the academic and security interest of this
country."
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