Two former prime ministers of Japan and Estonia are to address the annual Indo-Pacific security forum when it opens in Taipei tomorrow, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The keynote speeches are to be delivered by Taro Aso, a senior member of the Japanese Diet who served as prime minister from 2008 to 2009, and Andrus Ansip, a member of the European Parliament and former prime minister of Estonia from 2014 to 2019, the ministry said in a news release.
The one-day Ketagalan Forum, organized by think tanks along with the government, is to focus on regional and global security issues, with current and former officials, academics and experts from various countries discussing traditional and nontraditional threats and challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, it said.
This year’s forum is divided into three panels focused on the challenges in cross-strait and global security, the effects of information warfare on democracy and Taiwan’s role in the reconstruction of the international supply chain, the ministry said.
The guests are to include Japanese lawmaker Keisuke Suzuki and former US diplomat Daniel Russel, who specialized in East Asian affairs and is now vice president for international security and diplomacy at the US-based Asia Society Policy Institute.
In total, 14 lawmakers, former government officials and academics from 12 countries are to attend the forum, including Lithuanian lawmaker Vilius Semeska; Admiral Karambir Singh, former Indian Chief of Naval Staff and current chairman of the India-based think tank National Maritime Foundation; and Isaac Ben-Israel, an Israeli military scientist who founded Tel-Aviv University’s Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security.
The Ketagalan Forum: Asia Pacific Security Dialogue is being held fully in person this year for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic started three years ago.
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