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From September 18th, Professor Tsay and Professor Mikami brought 5 Japanese students and 4 Chinese students in Policy Science to Taiwan and started an 8-day fieldwork trip, named “what is the democracy in East Asia-the referendum and election systems in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China,” to explore the democratic history in Taiwan. In Taiwan, they had deep academic communication with local great universities and visited some significant historical sites where they ever highlighted the process of Taiwan democracy.

On September 19th, in National University of Kaohsiung, students represented the referendum systems in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively, and with the help of Professor Jian and Tsay, students from National University of Kaohsiung and Ritsumeikan University exchanged the ideas about student movements happened in Taiwan. Honoga Miyauchi and Takumi Morimoto, 2nd year students from Policy Science, Ritsumeikan University showed how referendum system works in Japan and explained it with the example of the voting process of construction idea of Osaka District. 2nd year student from CRPS, Ritsumeikan University, Zhang Xubo, represented functions and the role of referendum system in Hong Kong. Zheng Yijing, the student from the Faculty of Law, National University of Kaohsiung, introduced the main content of Taiwan referendum system. And by receiving the feedback of questionnaire, it can be easily realized that Sunflower students movements promoted the development of Taiwan democracy and National University of Kaohsiung supported this democratic movements totally.

September 21st, members of Taiwan project visited National Taiwan University. Professor Tay-Sheng Wang gave a speech about the Elements of Japanese Law in Taiwanese Law, and put forward a lot of ideas. After that, students in Taiwan University and Ritsumeikan University had an exchange of their views about Taiwan democracy.

On September 22nd, the professors and students from Ritsumeikan University, Taiwan democracy project, visited the Taipei University. There, the professors and students shared their ideas with the professor and students from Taipei University by presenting reports and question & answer on specific questions which are close to the topic. The main research goal of the visit was through comparing the political system in different areas, Japan, China and Taiwan, finding out the degree of democracy of such system and the impact of them. After visiting the campus and the beautiful library which was designed with creative ideas and inspirations, the meeting started. First, Ryota Ito and Maho Imagawa discussed the basic information and status quo of the Japanese political system, with the analysis the pros and cons of the system. Then the CRPS students Xu Ziqi and Li Zekun gave the speech about the Chinese political system, the unique Chinese socialist run. Later, the Taipei University students talked about ‘the electoral system of Taiwan presidential election and its impacts,’ by using theories to explain the theme. After the speech, Taiwanese students answered questions from Ritsumeikan University. In the end, all students and professors had free talks for one and half hours.

During the period of fieldtrip, students of Taiwan project also visited many historical sites. On September 20th, students visited the office of New Power Party which is new rising, and Academia Historica in Taipei. Staff member introduced the history of Taiwan presidential election and held a seminar for answering the questions related to Taiwan democracy. In following days, they also went to Cilin Education Foundation, Presidential Palace and Taipei 228 Memorial Museum to have a better understanding of Taiwan democratic history.

Through this fieldwork trip, besides learning a lot important knowledge about referendum, election system and the process of democracy in Taiwan, members of Taiwan democracy projects of Policy Science of Ritsumeikan University also established good relationships with these great universities in Taiwan.

XU ZIQI
LI ZEKUN
ZHANG XUBO