This fall, Prof. John J. Tkacik, Jr. will teach a new course entitled “The United States and Taiwan, 1895-Present” (IWP 710).
Prof. Tkacik served for 24 years in the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service Officer, with almost 20 years of that working in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and on China/Taiwan affairs in the State Department. He served as Chief of China Analysis at the U.S. State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), where he supervised all State Department analysis, coordination, and dissemination of China economic, commercial, military, political, and strategic intelligence. Prof. Tkacik is a fluent Chinese speaker (Mandarin) and an acknowledged expert on Taiwan’s economics and politics.
Prof. Tkacik’s new course will trace the American relationship with Taiwan and China since 1895, through the First and Second World Wars and the position Taiwan held in U.S. strategic planning during the Cold War, the Nixon Opening to China through the 1970s and 1980s until China’s Tiananmen Demonstrations of 1989 turned Beijing totally against Washington as China’s main adversary. The class will then examine Chinese propaganda against the so-called “our One China policy” in Washington and contrast it with Beijing’s “One China Principle.”
The course will be offered on Wednesday evenings this fall.