The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) will jointly hold an International Conference on “Grassroots Democracy and Local Governance in China” with the Chinese Political Science Association and the Center for China Studies of National Chengchi University from November 2 to 3, 2004, at the International Conference Hall of the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University.
China experts from here and abroad will be invited to join the two-day conference, to extensively discuss and assess the development of grassroots democracy and local governance in China, as well as the political, economic, social, and cultural effects on the rural and urban areas. Chu Yun-han, Chairman of the Chinese Political Science Association; Lin Bih-jaw, Vice President of National Chengchi University; Lin Cheng-yi, Director of the Center for China Studies, and MAC Chairman Jaushieh Joseph Wu were invited at the opening ceremonies to address to the conference. Prof. Kenneth Lieberthal of the University of Michigan was also invited to give the keynote speech.
In view of the model of local governance in China, the impact of the Chinese Communist Party’s reform and open policy has produced a number of changes in the system, whose development prospects are worthy of concern. Through this conference, the MAC hopes to collect views from here and abroad to formulate its China policies and establish stable cross-Strait relations from a more objective and comprehensive point of view, as well as, by taking this opportunity, to gradually carry out the directives of President Chen Shui-bian at the “Sanchih Conference” in 2002, in which he expressed concern with instructed further assistance for the democratization in d China.