INTERACTIVE CONFLICT RESOLUTION
The dialogue program at each Strait Talk symposium utilizes the Interactive Conflict Resolution (ICR) method. Developed by scholar-practitioner John Burton in the 1960s, ICR is a method of facilitating dialogue between people engaged in apparently intractable conflicts by building personal trust between opposing parties and developing creative and workable ideas to help spur official discourse in the future. It is often utilized to bring together influential individuals, in situations where formal dialogue is deadlocked or non-existent. Unlike a negotiation or debate, ICR encourages mutual recognition and consensus building, helping all parties acknowledge each other’s identities, grievances, and aspirations. In the past, ICR has been applied successfully in major conflicts around the world, including Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, Indonesia, Cyprus, and the former Soviet states.
As implemented by Strait Talk, ICR has three core phases:
For the first part of the symposium, delegates go through training that is on par with a graduate level course of conflict resolution studies, learning the theory and practice of resolving conflicts.
EDUCATION
Delegates dive into the heart of the conflict, sharing and questioning the aspects of identity, history, politics, and collective trauma that reside at the core of the dispute on all sides. Coming together as a group, delegates talk about issues and ideas that are bigger than any one individual, drawing deeply on their own knowledge and experiences.
DIALOGUE
In the last phase, delegates achieve consensus on a series of real-world policy proposals aimed at resolving the conflict. These proposals envision the seemingly impossible, grounded in a newfound appreciation of other delegates’ realities, perceptions, and dilemmas.
CONSENSUS
Strait Talk Facilitators
Tatsushi Arai
Dr. Tatsushi (Tats) Arai is a scholar-practitioner of conflict resolution, multi-track diplomacy, sustainable development, and cross-cultural communication with 20 years of diverse international experience. Dr. Arai served as a United Nations Senior Mediation Advisor in 2018-19. As a trainer, mediator, and dialogue facilitator, he has designed and led a number of civil society dialogues and policy-oriented workshops for political leaders, diplomats, military and peacekeeping professionals, civil society and religious leaders, and representatives of international organizations. He also provides consultancy to United Nations agencies, and advises and partners with diverse NGOs. Dr. Arai’s latest peacebuilding practice includes supporting a Nigerian-led initiative in building a sustainable reconciliation platform for the reintegration of rehabilitated former Boko Haram members into their home communities; training Syrian and Lebanese humanitarian professionals in mediation skills; facilitating capacity-building workshops for diplomats from Muslim-majority countries; promoting interfaith and inter-communal coexistence in Myanmar and Singapore, and conducting Interactive Conflict Resolution workshops on China-Japan relations. In recognition of his contributions to peace research and applied practice, Dr. Arai received a Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2015 from George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, where he earned his doctorate in 2005.
Tetsushi Ogata
Dr. Tetsushi Ogata is an assistant professor of peace and conflict studies at Soka University. Prior to that, he was a lecturer in peace and conflict studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of George Mason University’s Genocide Prevention Program. As a conflict resolution practitioner, he has facilitated the launch of national committees for genocide prevention in member states of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region in Africa; collaborated with the European governments to advance their policies on genocide prevention through organization of the Genocide Prevention Advisory Network; and helped launch the Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes, a global network of atrocity prevention focal points around the world. Dr. Ogata serves as a facilitator of the U.S. West Coast Strait Talk symposium.
Erika Qing Guan (官晴)
Erika Qing Guan is a native of Beijing, China, a Chinese delegate at the 2010 Strait Talk Berkeley symposium, and the founder of Strait Talk Hong Kong. Inspired by her experience at Strait Talk, she has been engaging in peace practice and bridge-building efforts across divided communities in different parts of the world, and has served as a conflict resolution dialogue facilitator since 2013. She was a teaching fellow in the Harvard International Negotiation Program, served as co-chair for the Sustainable Peace Working Group at the Religions and Practice of Peace initiative at Harvard Divinity School, and worked in the public relations industry. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Political Science at Northwestern University. Erika holds MA degrees from Harvard University and National Taiwan University, and a BSocSc from the University of Hong Kong. Erika is also a spiritual practitioner and trained as a meditation teacher at Heart Chan.
Ryan Chiu
Born and raised in Taiwan, Ryan Chiu is a peacebuilding practitioner. He has been involved with Strait Talk since 2013, when he attended Strait Talk Brown as a delegate. Ryan has been facilitating Strait Talk symposia and training future facilitators since 2016 and currently serves as Strait Talk’s Director of Program Design and Evaluation. He also serves as the Director of Operations and Conflict and Negotiations Specialist Consultant at TransLegal Shanghai. He holds an M.S. degree from George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and a BA from National Dong Hwa University.
Having worked in multiple locations in the US, East Asia, and Brazil, coaching conflict engagement and facilitating workshops and dialogues, he has over 50 workshops in diverse settings under his belt. In an effort to further Strait Talk as a movement overhauling the process through which regional relationships can be built, Ryan has adapted methodologies from fields including international relations, psychology, and sociology to implement a non-conventional problem-solving workshop and produce actionable solutions for the Taiwan Strait issue.
Hao Xiong
Dr. Xiong is an associate professor and the director of the Juris Master Program at Fudan University Law School, a mediator of the Second Intermediate Court of Shanghai, and a Strait Talk facilitator. He participated in the inaugural Strait Talk Hong Kong symposium in 2011. He specializes in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as well as empirical and interdisciplinary legal studies. Before joining the faculty of the Fudan University Law School in 2014, he worked as a research assistant at the University of Hong Kong’s China Affairs Office. Dr. Xiong obtained his LLB from East China University of Politics and Law, his LLM from the University of Melbourne, and his PhD from the University of Hong Kong. Dr. Xiong is the recipient of a U.S. Department of State Fulbright Fellowship and he was selected as a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School during 2011-12.
Paul Kyumin Lee
Paul Kyumin Lee is a senior program assistant for youth programs at USIP. Before joining USIP, Lee worked in the Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow. He has been involved with Strait Talk since 2018, when he attended the symposium at Brown University as a US delegate. His facilitation experience includes the Words of Engagement Intergroup Dialogue Program, a social justice education program that brings together students of diverse social identity groups for facilitated face-to-face conversation that enhance participants’ self- and social awareness at the University of Maryland and Seeds of Peace, a summer camp in Maine for teenagers from conflict areas.
Outside of work, he leads Divided Families USA, an NGO that advocates for a formal mechanism for Korean Americans to reunite with their relatives in North Korea, and co-produces the Divided Families Podcast, a platform for connecting stories of family separation. He graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s in political science and speaks Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and Spanish.