May 23, 2009 Whitney High School Cerritos, California Model United Nations Specialized Committee and International Gaming Conference VII
CONFERENCE POST-MORTEM ADVANCED CRISIS SIMULATION—TAIWAN CABINET
Co-Chair Sally Huh		Co-Chair Minal Malik
WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS COMMITTEE?
The majority of the delegates present in the Advance Crisis Taiwan Cabinet were engaged in the crisis during both committee sessions. Our committee voted to have unmoderated caucuses where delegates continued on the discussion while remaining in their seats. As chairs, we tried to limit up to six unmoderated caucuses per session, with each caucus lasting about 15-30 minutes. This proved to work very well since delegates were given adequate time to discuss the issue among themselves in an orderly and diplomatic fashion. Unlike a typical caucus, delegates remained in their seats as they would in a conference. Each delegate who wanted to speak was encouraged to contribute his/her ideas. Every time a delegate wrote a press release or a directive, that delegate read off his/her statement to the entire cabinet to lessen conflict and ask for approval. This proved to be highly efficient, for it reduced the number of redundant press releases and helped to unify the cabinet. We had twelve members in our cabinet. Out of the twelve, we saw two delegates who were leading the cabinet throughout the entire committee by actively contributing ideas and suggesting solutions. Overall, we only had two or three delegates who stayed relatively quiet during the sessions. Because it was an advanced crisis committee, many delegates already possessed prior knowledge and experience of crisis committees, which helped to facilitate the cabinet. We were able to save a lot of time in the beginning by not having to repeat through the rules and other trivial information. The crisis simulation that our delegates were dealing with was over the dispute of whether Taiwan should be an independent nation or not. In the beginning, we had some unexpected problems since our cabinet wanted to send communiqués to nations such as Japan and Russia asking for support. This was problematic since we did not have a Russian or Japanese cabinet present. As a result, we tried to limit the communiqués and directives so that they would be directed towards the Chinese cabinet. At one point, the Secretary General in the Chinese cabinet sent us a communiqué declaring that “China was ready for war” which infuriated the Taiwanese cabinet and broke the trust between the two nations. However, the two joint summits we had helped to lessen the tension and come up with some agreements to the crisis. There was no peaceful treaty signed by the end of committee, but both cabinets tried their best to maintain the balance of trust and cooperation in the international community.
AWARDS
v Best Delegate: Ø Huang Pi-Twan--Palos Verdes Peninsula v Outstanding Awards: Ø Francisco Ou—Huntington Beach Ø Paul Chiu—Tustin High v Commendations: Ø Chen Tien-chih Ø Mao Chih-kuo—Huntington Beach Ø Cheng Jui-cheng—
PHOTOS