NMF held an interactive session with its MoU partner, the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation (TAEF), on 23 Feb 24. The 8-member TAEF delegation was led by Dr Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao (Chairman, TAEF) and Dr Alan H Yang (Executive Director, TAEF), accompanied by Prof Roger Liu (CEO, Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology), Dr Sana Hashmi, Hsiao-Chen Lin (Assistant Professor, Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University), Ian Tsung-Yen Chen (Associate Professor & Associate Dean of College of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science, National Sun Yat-sen University), Yi-wen Chang (Yvonne) (Assistant Research Fellow, TAEF), and Nai-Chuen Wang (Flora) (Media Liaison Officer, TAEF).
The interaction was led by Dr Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao (Chairman, TAEF) and Commodore Debesh Lahiri (Executive Director, NMF), with Senior Fellows, civilian researchers and NMF research interns in attendance.
The session started with a presentation by Captain RS Sawan (Senior Fellow, NMF), which provided an overview of the NMF’s evolution, vision, goals, and approaches towards furthering India’s maritime interests. Thereafter, Dr Alan H Yang gave a synopsis of Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy, launched in 2016, and how the TAEF supports efforts at making Taiwan indispensable for its global partners by engaging young foreign scholars, fostering think-tank cooperation, and promoting Taiwan’s inclusive and peaceful vision for the region.
In order to deepen NMF-TAEF cooperation, Dr Hsiao proposed more frequent discussions, sponsoring reciprocal visits by young scholars for research, and jointly publishing a special issue of NMF’s flagship journal, Maritime Affairs on ‘India-Taiwan cooperation in the Maritime Domain’. Commodore Lahiri, in turn, called attention to the opportunity for the TAEF to leverage India’s resident domain expertise on Disaster Risk Reduction & Management, Capacity Building & Resource Sharing, and Science, Technology & Academic Cooperation pillars of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI).
The interaction concluded with discussions on progressing areas of convergence codified by the MoU. The TAEF delegation was presented with a set of Maritime Perspectives 2023 and Capt Kamlesh K Agnihotri’s book, Leveraging High-Technology Developments in the Chinese Military and Maritime Domains.
