Minutes of the PRSCO Council Meeting, Goa
PRSCO Council Meeting in Goa, India
Date and Time: 14:00PM–15:30PM Wednesday 30 May 2018
Meeting Place: Room C405, Birla Institute of Technology & Science: K K Birla Goa Campus.

At the beginning of the meeting, Fu-Chuan issued a copy of “the latest PRSCO issues and theirdevelopment (see appendix) to all participants. Budy Resosudarmo asked to discuss the conclusions of theRSAI restructuring committee first. Fu-Chuan agreed, and asked Budy to make a statement. The first issue
was related to the re-structuring suggestions for the PRSCO. The participants did not reach a consensus
on splitting the PRSCO or expanding the PRSCO to become the A-PRSCO, but they all agreed to let
Armenia join the PRSCO. In addition, Kingsley Haynes proposed to wait a few years to see thedevelopment of the situation before PRSCO makes a decision, and there was no other opinion afterwards,
so no further discussion was required. The second issue was about the requests of the RSAC (the RegionalScience Association of China) that Taiwan change its name; Budy hopes that Taiwan will change its nameas soon as possible, otherwise it may have even less dignity after the RSAI is voted out. Yoshiro Higano
first expressed his disapproval, and he believes that the development of the RSAI cannot be based on theimagine of the RSAC. He thinks this is very dangerous. Kingsley subsequently argued to the contrary,noting that the matter has been discussed for over a decade, and cannot continue to drag on like this.
Hidehiko Kanegae said that PRSCO can make our own decisions, which may not be the same as therequests of the Chinese government. Lily Kiminami also advised that Taiwan may consider changing its
name. Finally, Fu-Chuan made a statement, where he has confirmed with the representatives of RSAC thatthe requests of the RSAC were not ultimatums to Taiwan. The RSAC understands the difficulties, so they
are not urgent. Fu-Chuan stressed that if there were no direct talk with the representatives of the RSAC,
then the two sides would not know there was a lot of misunderstanding between them. Likewise, there aremany misunderstandings between the RSAI and RSAC, which is the main reason that the past RSAI
presidents were unable to successfully invite RSAC to join RSAI. Fu-Chuan believes that all parties havegood intentions in this matter, but the combination of good intentions may have unexpected results, justlike the result of the novel, the Gift of the Magi, by the American novelist O'Henry. If there is no mutual
understanding, it is very risky for the PRSCO to make any decision. After Fu-Chuan finished speaking,there were no other comments, so the issue of RSAC asking Taiwan to change its name is shelved.

a) Apologies received, roll-call, and confirmation of Section representatives (Fu-Chuan Lai)
Present:Fu-Chuan Lai (PRSCO President, CRSA-T), Budy Resosudarmo (RSAI president, IRSA), Sumona
Banerjee (Indian RSA), Chitta Ranjan Pathak (Indian RSA), Kingsley Haynes (WRSA), SuminoriTokunaga (JSRSAI), Hidehiko Kanegae (JSRSAI), Lily Kiminami (JSRSAI), Kasumi Susaki (JSRSAI),
Katsuhiro Sakurai (JSRAI), Takeshi Mizunoya (JSRSAI), Yoshiro Higano (past RSAI president,JSRSAI), Cho Deok Ho (KRSA), Woong Gi Sung (Korea), Armida Alisjahbana (IRSA), Fakrul Islam(Bangladesh RSA), Eduardo Haddad (BRSA), Hiroyuki Shibusawa (PRSCO Executive Secretary,JSRSAI)
Apologies received:Roger Stough (WRSA), Jacques Poot (ANZRSAI), Peter Nijkamp (ERSA), Tomaz Dentinho (RSAI
Executive Director), David Plane (WRSA), Lay J. Gibson (WRSA), Rachel Franklin (WRSA), Bob1

Stimson (ANZRSAI), Paul Dalziel (ANZRSAI), Jen-Jia Lin (CRSA-T), S. Eréndira Serrano-Oswald(AMECIDER), Patricio Aroca (SOCHER), Dusan Paredes (SOCHER), Devanto Pratomo (IRSA), LuisArmando Galvis (ACER), Jichung Yang (KRSA), Myung-Hee Kwon (KRSA), Fabian Vilema (RECIR),
Sutee Anantsuksomsri (Thailand), Nij Tontisirin (Thailand), Binh Tran-Nam (Vietnam), Mathews
Nkhoma (Vietnam), Roberta Capello (Editor PiRS), Jean-Claude Thill (past RSAI president)b) Minutes of the PRSCO Council Meeting in Vancouver, 9 November 2017 (Fu-Chuan Lai)
Fu-Chuan moved that the minutes of the previous meeting be approved. His motion was accepted.
c) Report on the 15th PRSCO Summer Institute in 2018 (José Rodríguez)
José was unable to attend the meeting and thus sent his report to Hiroyuki. Hiroyuki confirmed the date ofthe conference to be July 4–6, 2018 and the venue to be Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He also
stated that 33 abstracts have been submitted to the meeting. More domestic participants are expected tojoin the meeting later.
d) Report on the 26th Pacific Conference of the RSAI in 2020 (Rachel Franklin)
Rachel was unable to come to the meeting. Fu-Chuan reminded participants that the conference will beheld on March 18–22, 2020 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Waikiki.
e) Report on the 16th PRSCO Summer Institute in 2020 (Mathews Nkhoma)
Unfortunately, Mathews was also unable to attend this meeting. Hiroyuki had talked with Mathews bySkype. Hiroyuki stated that the venue will be the RMIT University in Ho Chi Minh City, 2020. Mathews
was preparing for the Summer Institute.
f) Report on the 27th Pacific Conference of the RSAI in 2021 (Hidehiko Kanegae)
Hidehiko, a Professor at Ritsumeikan University, presented a brief proposal for the meeting. JRSAI iswilling to host the meeting. Prof. Susaki of Ryukoku University will co-organize the meeting that will beheld in July or August 2021 in Kyoto, Japan. The main venue will be a building at Ryukoku University
near Kyoto station. The proposal was accepted.
g) Discussion on venues for the PRSCO Conferences and Summer Institutes in 2022–2026
27th PRSCO 2021 Japan - JSRSAI
17th Summer Institute 2022 (Philippines)
28th PRSCO 2023 South Korea - KRSA
18th Summer Institute 2024
Fu-Chuan reported that the potential location for the PRSCO 2022 will be the Philippines. Hiroyuki andBudy have contacted colleagues in the Philippines and they will keep in touch about this event.
Fu-Chuan also reported that Mexico and Korea are potential hosts for the PRSCO 2023, but Mexico’srepresentative was not present today. The KRSA is willing to host the PRSCO 2023 in Korea. Cho andWoong presented a proposal for the meeting in Daegu, South Korea. Their proposal was accepted.
h) Confirmation of the PRSCO representative for the RSAI Council
Fu-Chuan confirmed that the three representatives for the RSAI Council are Armida Alisjahbana(Indonesia, 2018–2020), Lily Kiminami (Japan, 2018–2020), and Fu-Chuan Lai (PRSCO President,2018–2019).
i)

PRSCO Awards (John Madden)
John could not attend the meeting and has sent a report from the selection committee. Fu-Chuan reported
that the winner of the PRSCO Prize for the Best Paper by a Young Regional Scientist 2018 is Camila
2Alvayay, Universidad Católica del Norte. The title of the paper is “Housing Demolition and Property Tax
Delinquency: Evidence from Detroit”.
j) Report on activities of Pacific Rim regional science communities
1) Vietnam
Fu-Chuan reported on the activity in Vietnam. Fu-Chuan stated that he visited the UEH (University ofEconomics, Ho Chi Minh City) and met some colleagues. They were preparing the organizing activitiesof the Vietnam Section. Fu-Chuan also reported that the UEH will host the 2018 Summer School of thePRSCO in Ho Chi Minh City, August 1–3, 2018. Fu-Chuan suggested that young colleagues should
participate in this summer school.
2) Bangladesh
Fakrul reported the recent activity in the Bangladesh section. BRSA will organize an assembly in Augustor September in Dhaka.
k) Report of Editors, Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science (APJRS) (Yoshiro Higano)
Yoshiro made a report on the current situation of APJRS.
l)

Any further business1) The next PRSCO Council meeting will be held in San Antonio, Texas in the USA.

Appendix
The latest PRSCO issues and their development
On the afternoon of May 28, I attended the RSAI restructuring committee meeting. There are two major issues, oneof which is related to how PRSCO restructures. The other is related to China's request for the renaming of Taiwan.
The restructuring of PRSCO is mainly due to the fact that Armenia joined the RSAI. Since the ERSA's annual fee istoo high for Armenia, they want to join PRSCO instead. There are several ideas. The first is to expand PRSCO intoA-PRSCO where A stands for Asia; the second is to divide PRSCO into ARSCO (covering the Caucasus,Middle-East, Central Asia, South Asia, China, and South East Asia) and the PRSCO; the third is to rename PRSCO
as ARSCO (all Asian countries but excluding Latin American countries), and the final one is to accept individual
sections as a member of RSAI even if they are not in any super-regional section. After some discussion, it isconcluded that in a few years, India is expected to be the leading section of West Asia and Central Asia, and theseareas may finally form a super-regional association of the RSAI.
For the second issue, the Regional Science Association of China (RSAC) sent a letter to RSAI last November andasked that Taiwan (Chinese Regional Science Association – Taiwan) change its name to China-Taipei. They havethree points: First, that Taiwan should withdraw from the RSAI. Second, if Taiwan stays in the RSAI, China will
not participate in the RSAI. Third, if Taiwan changes its name to “China-Taipei” according to the IGU example,
both can co-exist in the RSAI.
After discussion, the working committee proposed three options for the RSAI Council:
First, Taiwan maintains the status quo.
Second, ask Taiwan to change its name.
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Third, RSAI does not recognize the names of the sections of China and Taiwan, but instead these become individual
members with full rights, the same as other sections in RSAI.
We are meeting here today to discuss the above issues. We hope that we can finally reach PRSCO's own decision.
Thank you very much.
Fu-Chuan Lai4