UW Taiwan Studies Program

Join UW-TSP on Wednesday, February 7 at 3:30pm in THO 317 and online as we welcome Professor Ian Rowen to discuss his newly published book One China, Many Taiwans: The Geopolitics of Cross-Strait Tourism. One China, Many Taiwans examines how tourism, one of several strategies employed by the PRC at exerting political control over Taiwan, aggravated tensions between the two polities, polarized Taiwanese society, and pushed Taiwanese popular sentiment further toward support for national self-determination.

Professor Rowen will focus on how Chinese tourism bifurcated Taiwan into “Two Taiwans”—one performed as a part of China for Chinese group tourists, versus the other experienced as a site of everyday life by local residents and some independent tourists. He will also delve into how this process amplified conflict between those business, civil society, and state actors that had a differing interest in sustaining a PRC-oriented tourist industry, creating an increasingly pluralistic civic nationalism in Taiwan.

Ian Rowen is Associate Professor in the Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature at National Taiwan Normal University. Previously an assistant professor of Geography and Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, he earned his PhD in Geography from the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

This event was made possible by the generous support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.