The U.S. should use its military power to deter China from invading Taiwan.

William Galston vs. Peter Van Buren

For the affirmative: 

William A. Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha chair in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he has served as Senior Fellow since 2006. The author of ten books and more than one hundred articles in the fields of American politics, public policy, and political theory, he also writes a weekly opinion column for the Wall Street Journal. He is a veteran of six presidential campaigns and was President Clinton’s Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy from 1993 until 1995. A recipient of the Hubert Humphrey award from the American Political Science Association, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

For the negative: 

Peter Van Buren spent 24 years as an American diplomat, assigned to Taipei, Beijing, and Hong Kong. He also served in Japan, Korea, and spent a year in Iraq embedded with the 10th Mountain Division as part of the reconstruction effort there. It was his whistleblowing book about Iraq that saw him forced into early retirement after a bitter fight with the State Department over his First Amendment rights. Since leaving government, Van Buren has written for the New York Times, Reuters, The Nation, Salon, TomDispatch, and Antiwar.com. He is currently a contributing editor for The American Conservative Magazine. He is the author of three books, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent.

About the Event:

Doors open at 5:30 PM
Meeting convenes: 6:00 PM
Reception: 7:30 PM

Cash Bar
Food will be provided.

Caveat

21 A Clinton St. New York, NY 10002

Tickets must be reserved in advance.

Moderated by Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein.

*PLEASE NOTE: Per NYC regulation, you will be required to show proof of full vaccination in order to attend.

Due to these unforeseen circumstances, we are planning to livestream this event for those who cannot attend. Livestream tickets are available and must be reserved at least 24 hours in advance so that we can send out all the necessary details to join the event.

If you register to attend the livestream, you will receive the livestream link on the date of the event in an email from The Soho Forum with the subject line, “Livestream Link for Tonight’s Debate.”