On January 13, 2024, Taiwan’s voters will go to the polls to elect a successor to President Tsai Ing-wen, who is term-limited. Who will succeed her as three parties jockey for support? Some analysts believe the election will be a referendum on relations with China, but others think domestic issues (like housing and wages) will be top of mind. What issues will inform Taiwan’s political debate?
The election is being watched closely as it will likely impact relations between Taiwan and China as well as Taiwan’s broader role in the world. Join the American Council on Germany for a discussion with ACG Board member and Young Leader alumna Tara Hariharan, who just returned from a two-week study tour to Taiwan and serves as Managing Director of Global Macro Research at NWI Management LP, and Dr. Gudrun Wacker, Senior Fellow in the Asia Division of the German Institute for International Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP).
This will be the first in a series of events organized by the ACG under the heading Superwahljahr 2024. Starting with Taiwan in January and running through the U.S. presidential election in November, national elections will be held in more than 50 countries and some 3.9 billion people (or 49% of the world population) will be eligible to vote.
Tara Hariharan (ACG Board Member and 2016 Young Leader) is Managing Director of Global Macro Research at NWI Management LP, a New York-based global macro hedge fund with an emphasis on emerging markets. As head of macro research for the firm since 2012, Tara focuses on economic activity, macro-political trends, and policy in the U.S. and China and is a keen student of European political economy. She directs top-down analysis of macroeconomic data, monetary and fiscal policy, and political trends for countries and regions worldwide, and well as maintenance and constant evolution of NWI’s “macro dashboard” with a strategic focus on potential investment opportunities in fixed income, equities, foreign exchange, and commodities. Her analysis is notably informed by sustained dialogue with a diverse group of high-level global policymakers in both developed and emerging markets.
Ms. Hariharan earned a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2007. She was awarded a 2014 American Marshall Memorial Fellowship by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is closely involved with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Dr. Gudrun Wacker is a Senior Fellow in the Asia Division of the German Institute for International Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP), a Berlin-based thinktank. Her research focuses on Chinese foreign and security policy (especially EU-China relations), Taiwan, and security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific. She joined SWP in 2001. Prior to that, she served as a Researcher at the Federal Institute for Russian, East European, and International Studies in Cologne. Since 2018, she has been an EU representative at the ASEAN Regional Forum Expert and Eminent Persons
