Strait Talk

Founded in 2005 by Brown University undergraduates, Strait Talk is a non-partisan dialogue program that seeks to transform international conflict by connecting young people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the United States and empowering them to strive for peace.

Strait Talk is resolving the Taiwan Strait conflict in three steps:

  • Identifying outstanding young people from the three communities
  • Transforming them into active peacemakers through a dialogue experience
  • Propelling them and their ideas to positions of influence through a high-level, inter- communal network

Strait Talk is a bridge between grassroots youth advocacy and elite-driven network theory. Its process is based on the Interactive Conflict Resolution method, which has been used since the 1960s to facilitate dialogue between people engaged in apparently intractable conflicts. The basic goals of ICR are to create personal trust across conflict lines and to develop creative and workable ideas to help spur official dialogue.

Strait Talk hosts an annual symposium on the Brown University campus in early November. During the symposium, Strait Talk brings fifteen university students (five each from Mainland China, Taiwan, and the United States) to Brown for a week of private conflict resolution sessions, led by an expert conflict resolution facilitator.  Outside of these sessions, we also hold panels in which leading scholars, diplomats, and journalists with experience in Taiwan Strait issues address the delegates and the Brown community at large, contributing to campus-wide discourse and grounding the conflict resolution process in scholarship.

For more information, please visit our website, http://straittalk.org or contact straittalk@gmail.com. For the latest updates with Strait Talk, follow our twitter at straittalkbrown.