The Hoover Institution Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and Program on the US, China, and the World host Guardians of Economic Sovereignty: How Taiwan and Singapore Navigate Chinese Capital Through National Security Review on Wednesday, January 15, 2025 from 4:00 – 5:15 PM PT at the Herbert Hoover Memorial Building, Room 160.
The speaker will discuss two distinct strategies for scrutinizing outbound investment from China, as adopted by Taiwan and Singapore—both key trade partners of China. Growing concerns over Chinese investment have led to stricter national security reviews worldwide, yet the actual enforcement of these reviews remains understudied, particularly outside the U.S. context. The speaker contrasts Singapore's reliance on ex post monitoring with Taiwan's emphasis on ex ante screening. Additionally, the speaker highlights how Singapore leverages privatized monitoring to reinforce investment scrutiny, while Taiwan incorporates elements of private enforcement. The discussion underscores the importance of utilizing market intermediaries as enforcement agents, serving as a crucial supplement to the traditional framework of national security reviews. Both cases demonstrate how the private sector can take a proactive role in enforcing national security reviews.
About the Speakers
Weitseng Chen is a faculty member at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, specializing in law and economic development, law and politics, and legal history in the context of Greater China. He has recently published several books, including Regime Type and Beyond: The Transformation of Police in Asia (CUP, 2023), Authoritarian Legality in Asia: Formation, Development and Transition (CUP, 2019), The Beijing Consensus? How China Has Changed the Western Ideas of Law and Economic Development (CUP, 2017), Property and Trust Law: Taiwan (with Yun-Chien Chang & Y. J. Wu, Kluwer, 2017), and Law and Economic Miracle: Interaction Between Taiwan’s Development and Economic Laws After WWII (in Chinese, 2000). Weitseng Chen earned his JSD from Yale Law School. Prior to joining NUS, he served as a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and practiced as a corporate lawyer in the Greater China region with Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Kharis Templeman is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and program manager of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, as well as a lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies at Stanford University. A political scientist by training, he writes and speaks frequently about cross-Strait relations and Taiwan politics and policy issues. Dr. Templeman has edited three book volumes: Taiwan’s Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years and Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years (both with Larry Diamond and Yun-han Chu), and Electoral Malpractice in Asia: Bending the Rules (with Netina Tan). His other research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, Ethnopolitics, Journal of Democracy, International Journal of Taiwan Studies, and Taiwan Journal of Democracy, along with several book chapters. He has also written on Taiwan policy issues for the Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council, Foreign Affairs, Taiwan Insight, War on the Rocks, and The Diplomat. Dr. Templeman is a member of the U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group and a country coordinator for the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project. He holds a B.A. from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan.
