FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Challenges to Taiwan’s people-centred diplomacy

Challenges to Taiwan’s people-centred diplomacy

On a recent flight (TG 636) from Suvarnabhumi Airport to Taipei, more than half the passengers aboard the plane carried Thai names. They were among several thousand tourists flocking to the island since August following the new visa-exemption policy.

The measure has already generated a dramatically increased number of tourists not only from Thailand but from across Southeast Asia. They have now become a major source of Taiwan’s foreign-currency earnings, economic growth and development. Most importantly, it has expanded people-to-people exchanges between Taiwan and a region previously little seen by outsiders. The visa-free idea was not new, as it had been discussed for several years – but it took the government of President Tsai Ing-wen to act on it.
The pro-active policy is part of several new ideas Tsai has initiated as part of the “people-centred” diplomacy. Officially known as the “New Southbound Policy”, last week it was outlined for the first time in her foreign policy speech towards Asia at an international conference on Southeast Asia studies. Tsai stressed that dramatic changes were taking place in Asia, which necessitated new policy responses from her administration. Taiwan, she added, needed to concentrate on building wide-ranging ties with Southeast and South Asian nations.
Unlike the previous government, Tsai saw these transformations as new opportunities for Taiwan to develop a multifaceted engagement policy with the region. Her government has already reached out to individual Asean members, remembering full well the existing “One China” policy – the mantra the grouping has adhered to since 1972 when the international communist movement switched to recognising China. Within this framework, Taiwan and Asean have focused mainly on economic and cultural matters. At present, the island has more space in the international arena. However, Beijing’s recent snub of Taipei’s desire to attend the triennial assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation was a barometer that cross-Straits relations were changing and still carry a high level of anxiety. The rise of the Democratic Progressive Party and its current stand vis-a-vis China were the contributing factors.
In the past, Taiwan would pay attention to trade and economic matters and on maintaining diplomatic relations with some two-dozen countries, mainly in Latin America, Africa and the South Pacific. In private conversations, some Taiwanese scholars lamented that those much needed financial links could be more useful for development purposes both inside and within the region, given the current economic slowdown.
Tsai’s people-centred diplomacy is interesting because it follows the aspirations of the Asean Community, which includes notions of a narrowing development gap, inclusiveness and social safety nets. As the world’s 16th-largest economy, Taiwan views future holistic relations with the region as an integral part of the island’s long-term identity, economic prosperity and stability. Tsai wants her country to have stronger and encompassing links with Southeast Asia and the rest. In more ways than one, Taiwan also wishes to follow South Korea’s successful cultural diplomacy that promises new energy between the island and region. New areas of focus including talent cultivation and agricultural development are cases in point. With the rise of the Korean Waves [drama and pop music] in early 2000, Taiwan’s popular culture became the region’s main attraction.
Taiwan’s new realisation came following years of frustration that ties with the dynamic region had been restricted and were narrow in scope. Under former president Ma Ying-jieu, maintaining stable ties with China was pivotal to increasing economic transactions and stability across the straits. Attempts to widen the scope of economic cooperation with the Southeast Asian region achieved little progress. The only exception was the case of Singapore. In 2013, it signed a free-trade agreement with Taiwan, elaborately called the Agreement between Singapore and the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu on Economic Partnership (ASTEP). This was a good case study for the rest of Asean members wanting to enhance economic cooperation with Taiwan as a way to avoid antagonising Beijing. 
Taipei has made clear its desire to be part of the emerging economic environment, such as the US-led Trans Pacific Partnership and the Asean-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation, not to mention other new undertakings. Since taking up the nation’s leadership, President Tsai is moving southward quickly to seek stronger ties and cooperation, formally and informally. Indeed, in the 1990s, her predecessor, Lee Teng Hui, came up with similar ideas but he was unable to carry them out effectively. Given her social activist background, Tsai and her team were able to articulate better the new people-centred diplomacy, focusing on whatever was deliverable and at hand, without any political hangovers about past practices.
However, the recent leadership change and the newly established New Southbound Policy Office under her purview has raised concerns over future policy direction. James Huang, its former director and inspiration, is now assigned as envoy to Singapore. Quite a few Taiwanese experts have questioned the effectiveness of a Southbound Policy in the absence of Huang. It will be run by bureaucrats, albeit with Tsai’s strong endorsement and allocation of special budgets. 
One major component of the “people-centred” diplomacy is to dispatch young Taiwanese to the region to learn and work among people in Southeast Asia. Within the next five years, Taiwan plans to dispatch 10,000 young Taiwanese to study and work in the region and allow second-generation immigrants to visit their parents’ home-nation to learn the language. As a democracy, Taiwan would like to boost its profile to take advantage of the rising trend of opening-up in the region. Myanmar and Vietnam. Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and India are the foreign policy’s main priorities. Tsai also hopes that by 2019 Taiwan will host at least 60,000 students from Southeast Asia – nearly half of China’s expected numbers under similar education programmes.
The success or failure of Taiwan’s new diplomacy will largely depend on China’s threat perception. Beijing will be tolerant if future ties with Southeast Asia do not undermine its ties with Asean – and at the same time seek to strengthen stability and prosperity in the region. The island’s increased dependence on the mainland’s economic reactions will decrease, loosening up Beijing’s and local people’s fears of China’s dominance. Taiwan’s close ties with Southeast Asia would promote China’s own global profile, as the two sides share the same objectives related to peace and stability in regional and international affairs.
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