Heidelberg University: Details of event: An Ontological Security Dilemma

Back to Events of Wednesday 17th July 2024

Wednesday
08
MAY

06:00 PM

An Ontological Security Dilemma—Beijing, Washington Taipei

SHIH Chih-yu

This lecture complicates the classic security dilemma by considering the notions of ontological security and relational deterrence. It studies how the ontological security dilemma has emerged between the US, China, and Taiwan from the relational perspective and how these spiral chains will further develop in the future. The paper incurs the literature on relational analysis to expound on how different ontological security concerns allude to relational deterrence between the three actors. Taiwan’s separatism is more of a threat to China’s relational self than to physical security because the separatist does not belong to an already agreed relationship. A geometric model and a few simulations yield three unconventional findings. 1) The less advantaged the US military is over China, the less likely armed unification will occur. 2) The US anti-Chinese tendency is irrelevant in determining the probability of armed unification. 3) What may escalate the spiral are China’s anti-Taiwan independence and Taiwan’s anti-unification. Case sensitivity indicates the ontological sensibilities of a security dilemma.

Chih-yu Shih is National Chair Professor of the Ministry of Education and University Chair Professor of Political Science at National Taiwan University. With his concept of Post-Chineseness and combining the fields of international relations, cultural politics, and intellectual history, Shih boldly challenges the essentialized notion of Chineseness in existing scholarship through the revelation of the multiplicity and complexity of the uses of Chineseness by strategically conceived insiders, outsiders, and those in-between. He is the author and editor of many books, including Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Studies of China and Chineseness: Unlearning Binaries, Strategizing Self and Post-Chineseness: Cultural Politics and International Relations.

Address

Institut für Sinologie

010.01.05

Voßstraße 2

69115 Heidelberg

Homepage Event

https://www.zo.uni-heidelberg.de/sinologie/research/tls

Organizer

Institut für Sinologie

Homepage Organizer

www.zo.uni-heidelberg.de/sinologie

Contact

Institut für Sinologie

Alle Termine der Veranstaltung 'Taiwan Lecture Series 2024 ':

This year’s Taiwan Lecture Series is devoted to questioning Sinophone Authenticities from cross-sectional perspectives. Approaching the topic In Search for Home—Authenticity and Chineseness in Taiwan and the SinophoneWworld, it will consist of four sections, and offer views from art, politics, literature and gender studies. It will begin with a section “Contesting Home—Artistic Renderings” with Taiwan Sound and Visual Artist, FENG Chi-han (Taiwan/Hong Kong), a second section on “Post-Chineseness in Taiwan Politics” with SHIH Chih-yu (National Taiwan University), a third on “Travel Writing and Taiwan Identities” with LIN Shu-hui (National Taiwan Normal University), and a last on “Homing Feminism in the Sinophone World” with Paola ZAMPERINI (Northwestern University).

Tuesday 07th May 2024, 01:00 PM

Security community vs. Global South—Taiwan’s coloniality

SHIH Chih-yu

Wednesday 08th May 2024, 06:00 PM

An Ontological Security Dilemma—Beijing, Washington Taipei

SHIH Chih-yu

Sunday 12th May 2024, 06:00 PM

Israel in Egypt: Konzert/Projektion/Installation—Heimat? Auf der Suche

Chi-Han FENG & Junge Kantorei

Wednesday 15th May 2024, 06:00 PM

ASEAN, SCO, and Taiwan’s Desecuritization Options

SHIH Chih-yu