Where is the conference taking place?

The conference is scheduled to be held in Taipei, offering attendees an opportunity to engage with the local context of Taiwan's commercial traditions.

The 4th International Conference on Taiwan Commercial Traditions: Institutional and Extra-Institutional Practice

Name: The 4th International Conference on Taiwan Commercial Traditions: Institutional and Extra-Institutional Practice
Start: 2027-09-23T00:00:00Z
End: 2027-09-24T00:00:00Z
Location: Taipei

Sep 23–24, 2027Taipei, TaiwanIn-person

Registration open

The 4th International Conference on Taiwan Commercial Traditions focuses on the intricate interplay between institutional and extra-institutional practices within Taiwan's commercial history. Hosted in Taipei, this conference serves as a critical forum for scholars to delve into the historical evolution of business, trade, and economic structures on the island. It aims to unravel how formal regulations and informal customs have shaped commercial activities over time, offering a nuanced understanding of Taiwan's economic development.

Committees & topics

Topics
Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence · Inclusive Economic Development in a Fragmenting Global Economy · Bridging the Global Digital Divide · Global Security in an Era of Multipolar Competition · Ethical Standards in Emerging Technologies and Global Governance · The Future of the International Trade System · International Security and the Crisis of Collective Defence · International Legal Cooperation and the Rule of Law

Why it matters

Understanding Taiwan's commercial traditions is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, it provides historical context for contemporary economic policies and challenges. The long-standing interactions between formal institutions and informal networks have created a unique commercial landscape that continues to influence modern business practices. Secondly, the conference's focus on both institutional and extra-institutional practices highlights the complex nature of economic systems, where legal frameworks often interact with cultural norms, social relationships, and unwritten rules.

This historical lens is particularly relevant given Taiwan's significant role in the global economy, especially in high-tech industries. By examining the foundations of its commercial success, researchers can identify enduring patterns and adaptive strategies that have allowed Taiwan to navigate various geopolitical and economic shifts. The insights gained from this conference can inform current discussions on economic resilience, trade relations, and regional development, offering valuable lessons for other economies facing similar dynamics.

How to prepare

For those preparing to engage with the themes of this conference, a strong understanding of historical research methodologies and economic history is paramount. Participants should be prepared to analyze primary sources and engage with diverse interpretations of commercial practices. Familiarity with the broader East Asian economic history will also be beneficial, allowing for comparative analyses and a deeper appreciation of Taiwan's unique trajectory.

Delegates interested in the policy implications of historical commercial traditions should consider how past institutional designs and informal arrangements have either facilitated or hindered economic growth and stability. This involves examining the evolution of property rights, contract enforcement, and market regulations, as well as the role of social trust and networks in commercial transactions. Engaging with the conference's themes through the lens of What Is Stakeholder Mapping? and Hidden Stakeholders can provide a framework for understanding the various actors and influences that have shaped Taiwan's commercial landscape.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 3 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

China

Views Taiwan's commercial history as an integral part of broader Chinese economic development, emphasizing shared cultural and historical roots.

Role in topic

Historically, CHN has had significant commercial ties with Taiwan, influencing its economic development through trade, migration, and political interactions. Understanding these historical linkages is crucial for comprehending the evolution of Taiwan's commercial traditions.

Japan

Acknowledges its colonial influence on Taiwan's institutional and economic structures, particularly in modernizing commercial practices.

Role in topic

JPN's colonial period in Taiwan introduced significant institutional changes, including legal frameworks, infrastructure development, and modern business practices, which profoundly shaped Taiwan's commercial traditions and continue to have an impact.

United States

Monitors Taiwan's economic stability and commercial practices as a key partner in global supply chains and a democratic ally.

Role in topic

USA has played a significant role in Taiwan's post-war economic development through aid, trade, and investment, influencing its integration into the global economy and the evolution of its commercial institutions.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has moved from a research frontier to a general-purpose technology reshaping economies, militaries, and public discourse. The 2022 release of large generative models accelerated regulatory attention, prompting the EU AI Act (2024), the US Executive Order 14110, China's generative AI measures, and the UK-hosted Bletchley and Seoul AI Safety Summits. At the multilateral level, the UN General Assembly adopted its first AI resolution in March 2024, and the Global Digital Compact (2024) tasked the Secretary-General with establishing an Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and a Global Dialogue on AI Governance. The core disputes are jurisdictional and normative. States disagree on whether AI should be governed through a binding international instrument (favored by many developing states and some European actors), through sectoral regimes (the OECD/G7 Hiroshima Process approach), or through national regulation with voluntary interoperability. Underlying these debates are concerns over military applications, compute access, training data and copyright, algorithmic discrimination, and the concentration of frontier capability in a small number of US and Chinese firms. Today the regulatory landscape is fragmented but converging on a few shared themes: transparency obligations for frontier models, red-teaming and evaluations, watermarking of synthetic content, and protections against catastrophic and CBRN misuse. The unresolved questions are how to share compute and benefits with the Global South, how to discipline state use of AI in surveillance and warfare, and how to verify any future commitments.

Key players

Inclusive Economic Development in a Fragmenting Global Economy

The post-2020 economic landscape has been defined by overlapping shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic, supply-chain disruption, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the highest interest rates in a generation, and a sharp slowdown in development finance. Many low- and middle-income countries now spend more on external debt service than on health or education, with the IMF and World Bank warning of a 'lost decade' for development. The G20 Common Framework for debt treatment has produced only limited restructurings for Zambia, Ghana, and a handful of others, while progress toward the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals has stalled or reversed on most indicators. The core dispute is over the architecture of development finance. Developing states, organized through the G77 and the African Group, are pressing for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (advanced in 2023-24), reform of multilateral development bank capital adequacy, and a sovereign debt workout mechanism under UN auspices. Major creditors — the United States, EU members, China as the largest bilateral lender, and private bondholders — prefer existing Paris Club and IMF-led processes, disagreeing on burden-sharing and transparency. The Fourth Financing for Development Conference (Seville, 2025) produced the 'Compromiso de Sevilla,' which acknowledged the scale of the gap but left most structural questions to follow-on negotiations. The agenda now is how to mobilize private capital at scale, unlock climate finance promises, and ensure that industrial policy revivals in the North do not foreclose development paths in the South.

Key players

Bridging the Global Digital Divide

The digital divide — the gap between those with meaningful access to digital technologies and those without — has narrowed at the level of basic mobile coverage but widened in terms of quality, affordability, and skills. The ITU estimates that roughly one-third of humanity remains offline, concentrated in least-developed countries, rural areas, and among women and older populations. Even where connectivity exists, affordability of devices and data, lack of local-language content, low digital literacy, and unreliable electricity limit real use. The issue rose on the UN agenda through the 2003-05 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and was renewed by the 2024 Global Digital Compact, which committed states to universal meaningful connectivity by 2030 and to scaling safe, inclusive Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). Disputes turn on financing — who pays for last-mile networks and DPI in low-income countries — and on governance models. India's success with Aadhaar and UPI has popularized open-source DPI stacks, while some states prefer vendor-led or sovereign-controlled approaches. Spectrum policy, satellite internet (notably low-earth-orbit constellations), and submarine cable security have added geopolitical dimensions. Today the debate also extends to the 'AI divide': access to compute, data, and talent that will determine which states can build on the next technological wave. WSIS+20 review in 2025 and follow-up to the Global Digital Compact provide the immediate negotiating tracks.

Key players

Global Security in an Era of Multipolar Competition

Global security is undergoing its sharpest restructuring since the end of the Cold War. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Gaza war following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks, regional escalation involving Iran, Israel, the Houthis and Hezbollah, the civil war in Sudan, and intensifying US-China strategic competition over Taiwan and the South China Sea have all stressed the post-1945 collective security architecture. The UN Security Council has been deadlocked on most major conflicts, with a record number of vetoes by Russia and frequent US vetoes on Israel-Palestine. The core disputes concern the legitimacy and reform of that architecture. The G4, African Union ('Ezulwini Consensus'), and Uniting for Consensus blocs offer competing visions of Security Council reform. Beyond institutions, states disagree on the boundaries of the use of force, on nuclear doctrine (with New START expiring in 2026 and no successor in sight), and on the regulation of emerging military technologies including cyber, drones, and autonomous systems. Today's agenda includes restoring functional arms control with Russia and engaging China, managing escalation in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, and reinforcing norms against the use of force annexation. The Pact for the Future (2024) and its New Agenda for Peace provide a framework, but implementation depends on great-power willingness to accept constraints.

Key players

Ethical Standards in Emerging Technologies and Global Governance

The acceleration of biotechnology, artificial intelligence, neurotechnology, and data-intensive surveillance has outpaced existing ethical frameworks. UNESCO adopted the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in 2021 and the Recommendation on the Ethics of Neurotechnology in 2025, while the WHO has issued guidance on human genome editing following the He Jiankui controversy of 2018. In parallel, scandals over data harvesting, predictive policing, deepfakes, and platform-mediated disinformation have made 'tech ethics' a mainstream policy concern. The core dispute is whether ethical standards should remain voluntary and principle-based — as in most UNESCO instruments and corporate codes — or become binding through human rights law, product regulation, or new treaties. Western democracies generally emphasize individual rights, due process, and non-discrimination; China and several other states stress collective benefits, social stability, and developmental priorities; many Global South states focus on protection against exploitation, including extractive data practices and biocolonialism. Cross-cutting concerns include research integrity, dual-use risks, and the ethics of human subjects in low-regulation jurisdictions. The contemporary agenda includes operationalizing UNESCO's AI ethics readiness assessments, governing human enhancement and brain-computer interfaces, setting norms on synthetic media and election integrity, and embedding ethics review into international scientific cooperation.

Key players

The Future of the International Trade System

The rules-based multilateral trade system built around the World Trade Organization is under unprecedented strain. The WTO Appellate Body has been non-functional since 2019 due to the US block on appointments, leaving disputes unresolved or appealed 'into the void.' Successive Ministerial Conferences (MC12 in 2022, MC13 in 2024) produced limited outcomes on fisheries subsidies and the e-commerce moratorium, while failing to advance agriculture or to definitively resolve the TRIPS waiver agenda. At the same time, industrial policy has returned. The US Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act, the EU's Green Deal Industrial Plan and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and China's continued state support for strategic sectors have blurred the line between legitimate policy and protectionism. Export controls on advanced semiconductors, critical-mineral supply-chain strategies, and a proliferation of unilateral sanctions are reshaping trade flows. Developing countries warn of 'green protectionism' and demand differential treatment for climate-related measures. The core dispute today is how to reconcile decarbonization, security-driven 'de-risking,' and development with non-discrimination principles. The agenda includes WTO dispute settlement reform, disciplines on industrial subsidies, the permanent status of the e-commerce moratorium, and the integration of trade with climate, labor, and digital rules.

Key players

International Security and the Crisis of Collective Defence

International security has shifted from the post-Cold War assumption of declining inter-state war back toward open great-power confrontation and large-scale conventional conflict. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza and its regional spillovers, repeated North Korean missile tests, and rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait have all stressed the institutions and treaties designed to manage state-to-state conflict. The nuclear order is particularly fragile: the INF Treaty collapsed in 2019, the Open Skies Treaty in 2020-21, and New START is suspended and set to expire in February 2026 without a successor under negotiation. The core disputes concern deterrence, alliances, and the regulation of new domains. NATO has expanded to include Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) and increased defense spending, while Russia, China, and partners (Iran, North Korea) have deepened defense-industrial cooperation. In the Indo-Pacific, AUKUS, the Quad, and the US-Japan-Korea trilateral signal a security architecture in formation. Meanwhile, cyber operations against critical infrastructure, the militarization of space, and the proliferation of armed drones complicate traditional categories of attack and defense. The contemporary agenda focuses on preserving strategic stability, restarting arms control with Russia and engaging China for the first time, managing escalation risks across multiple theaters, and applying international humanitarian law to new technologies of war.

Key players

International Legal Cooperation and the Rule of Law

International legal cooperation — the network of treaties, mutual legal assistance agreements, and institutions that allow states to investigate cross-border crime, enforce judgments, and uphold international law — has expanded dramatically since the 1990s but is now under significant political strain. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants in 2023-24 against the Russian president (over deportation of Ukrainian children) and senior Israeli and Hamas figures, drawing sharp responses from non-party states. Disputes at the International Court of Justice, including South Africa's genocide case against Israel and the Gambia's case against Myanmar, have placed the Court at the center of geopolitical contestation. The core debates concern jurisdiction, immunity, and selective enforcement. States disagree over universal jurisdiction, the scope of head-of-state immunity, the obligations of ICC parties to execute warrants, and the politics of referrals and deferrals under the Rome Statute. Beyond criminal law, negotiations on a UN Convention against Cybercrime (adopted by the General Assembly in late 2024) exposed sharp divisions over human rights safeguards. Tax cooperation, asset recovery, extradition, and the enforcement of arbitral awards are similarly contested. Today's agenda includes implementing the cybercrime convention, advancing a possible crimes-against-humanity treaty, strengthening mutual legal assistance for sanctions enforcement and asset recovery, and protecting international courts and tribunals from political retaliation.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for The 4th International Conference on Taiwan Commercial Traditions: Institutional and Extra-Institutional Practice.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

US Job Openings at 6.7M

Trump's Economic Reset

Trump's Economic Approval Hits 30% Amid Iran

GOP Promotes Trump's Tax Savings on Deadline

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Taiwan September 2027

By committee

Frequently asked questions

The 4th International Conference on Taiwan Commercial Traditions: Institutional and Extra-Institutional Practice

Sep 23–24, 2027Taipei, TaiwanIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence · Inclusive Economic Development in a Fragmenting Global Economy · Bridging the Global Digital Divide · Global Security in an Era of Multipolar Competition · Ethical Standards in Emerging Technologies and Global Governance · The Future of the International Trade System · International Security and the Crisis of Collective Defence · International Legal Cooperation and the Rule of Law

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 3 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

China

Views Taiwan's commercial history as an integral part of broader Chinese economic development, emphasizing shared cultural and historical roots.

Role in topic

Japan

Acknowledges its colonial influence on Taiwan's institutional and economic structures, particularly in modernizing commercial practices.

Role in topic

United States

Monitors Taiwan's economic stability and commercial practices as a key partner in global supply chains and a democratic ally.

Role in topic

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence

Key players

Inclusive Economic Development in a Fragmenting Global Economy

Key players

Bridging the Global Digital Divide

Key players

Global Security in an Era of Multipolar Competition

Key players

Ethical Standards in Emerging Technologies and Global Governance

Key players

The Future of the International Trade System

Key players

International Security and the Crisis of Collective Defence

Key players

International Legal Cooperation and the Rule of Law

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for The 4th International Conference on Taiwan Commercial Traditions: Institutional and Extra-Institutional Practice.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

US Job Openings at 6.7M

Trump's Economic Reset

Trump's Economic Approval Hits 30% Amid Iran

GOP Promotes Trump's Tax Savings on Deadline

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses