Withdraw Statement
09/13/2018
The Statement of the Chinese Regional Science Association – Taiwan
Twenty-nine years ago, the Chinese Regional Science Association – Taiwan (CRSA–T) joined the Regional Science Association International (RSAI). Over this period, the CRSA–T has actively participated in various activities of the RSAI, held relevant RSAI conferences in 1992, 1995 and 2017, and fulfilled our responsibility as a good section member.
We deeply regret that today the RSAI has yielded to the pressure of the Regional Science Association of China (RSAC) to allow a political dispute into a purely academic organization, pressuring a good long-term member to change its name. This decision of the RSAI Council to ask CRSA–T to change its name on Aug. 30, 2018 in Cork-Ireland clearly violates the stipulation in Section 2a Article IV of the Constitution, where each section is defined on the basis of geography, language, or culture, rather than on the basis of one side’s political viewpoints. We cannot understand why a long-established and prestigious international organization actually discussed an application for membership with a highly unjust prerequisite to change the name of an existing member. We believe that the only proper way to solve such unnecessary disputes is to restructure the RSAI with individual person-based membership, rather than section-based membership.
Based on the resolution of the Council of the CRSA–T on July 25, 2018, we regret to announce that the CRSA–T hereby withdraws from the RSAI in order to keep our right to name ourselves, rather than having a name imposed on us by any other entities.
Fu-Chuan Lai
President of the Chinese Regional Science Association – Taiwan
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