Transcript
Jing Huang: Welcome, and thank all of you for coming to this event. We all know Dr. Richard Bush who, in my view, is one of the most knowledgeable and well-respected scholars on the Taiwan issue. That he is the most knowledgeable is self-evident—just look at the books and articles and papers he has published, and we all have learned a great deal from them. He is well-respected, in my view, not only because he has long years of service in the U.S. government, but also because he really cares about Taiwan, cares about peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and cares about how to find a way to eventually solve the Taiwan issue peacefully. Because of that, in my view, his analysis of the Taiwan issue is very objective and very thorough and very fair. I believe all of us, including myself, have learned a great deal from his writings and his studies on this issue, and we'll continue to learn.
So it is my great honor to introduce Dr. Richard Bush.
Richard C. Bush III: Thank you very much. Good morning to you all. Thank you for coming. I'd like to thank my friends in the communications department for arranging this event. They always do a terrific job. And thank my colleagues at CNAPS for their assistance, and particularly thank my good friend and colleague here at Brookings, Dr. Jing Huang. Dr. Huang is helping Brookings build up its capacity on the study of China, and we're very lucky to have him.
I have been at Brookings for a little over three years. "Untying the Knot" is my first book here. I wrote it in order to try and better understand why this problem, the Taiwan Strait issue, is so hard to solve. You might think that it wouldn't be, since the people involved are all ethnic Chinese, with the exception of several hundred thousand aborigines, and there is just an immense amount of economic convergence going on. And yet, on the political front and the security front, it can be quite hostile.
Read the full transcript (PDF - 93KB)
View Full Transcript »