The Cold War may feel like distant history, but its echoes are unmistakable in today’s geopolitical landscape as the United States once again arms foreign allies to counter authoritarian threats. Just as the United States armed Western Europe through NATO to contain Soviet expansion, today it supplies weapons to Taiwan and Ukraine to deter aggression from authoritarian powers. But as Joseph Nye argues in The Future of Power, success in today’s global order depends not only on military strength but also on the ability to shape global norms, alliances, and narratives—a concept known as “smart power.”¹ A more effective approach requires not just military deterrence, but also sustained diplomacy through consistent communication, long-term partnerships, and multilateral cooperation. Supporting allies with weapons can buy time and create leverage. But without strong diplomatic engagement to address deeper tensions like national identity, territorial disputes, and economic dependence, conflict is more likely to escalate. To avoid open war and preserve global stability, the U.S. must pair defense with meaningful efforts to reduce miscalculation, open communication channels, and engage even with its rivals.

To understand modern U.S. diplomatic strategy, it helps to revisit the Cold War. Although the United States and the USSR were allies during World War II, cracks in their relationship emerged as early as 1945 due to conflicting visions for the postwar world—particularly over the political future of Eastern Europe and the spread of communism. In response, the United States adopted a policy to deter Soviet power through the Truman Doctrine, pledging aid to governments threatened by communist subversion, and the Marshall Plan, which provided billions of dollars in economic assistance to stabilize fragile democracies. 

These initiatives were complemented by arms sales, a cornerstone of the U.S. strategy to counter Soviet expansion. By supplying NATO countries with weapons to fortify Western Europe, the United States sent a clear signal of its commitment to defending its allies while avoiding direct military confrontation. This strategy extended globally, with arms sent to nations battling communist insurgencies, such as Greece, Turkey, South Korea, and Vietnam. Arms sales shifted the balance of power in favor of U.S. allies and created a web of fortified partnerships that defined Cold War geopolitics.

Today, this strategy finds parallels in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan—but military support alone is not enough. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 legally obligates the U.S. to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, reflecting a Cold War-style commitment to deter authoritarian expansion, this time from China. By supplying F-16 fighter jets, Patriot missile defense systems, and precision-guided munitions, the U.S. seeks to strengthen Taiwan’s defensive posture and discourage a Chinese assault. 

A balanced strategy would recognize that deterrence through arms is only part of the solution; it must be complemented by reestablishing direct military and political communication channels with Beijing to prevent dangerous misunderstandings, supporting regional coalitions to share security responsibilities, and investing in Taiwan’s civil and economic resilience. In other words, balancing strength with steady dialogue offers both a deterrent and an off-ramp, minimizing the chance of conflict while preserving space for resolution.

Modern deterrence must go beyond military might to include diplomatic strategy, multilateral cooperation, and economic engagement. Arms sales alone cannot resolve the underlying tensions in the Taiwan Strait or elsewhere because they do not address the structural roots of conflict, such as territorial claims, national identity, and trade imbalances. In the realm of diplomacy, perfection in communication is an abstract idea—misunderstandings, mistranslations, and divergent interests are inevitable. 

Yet this should not deter efforts toward improvement. Strengthening diplomatic channels through building a regular, formal communication between U.S. and Chinese military and civilian leaders, establishing crisis hotlines, expanding diplomatic staffing and language expertise in both countries’ embassies, and supporting track-two dialogues among scholars and former officials  are crucial steps toward minimizing miscalculation and building a more stable international order. It also includes developing sustained forum—beyond reactive summits—for negotiation on areas of shared concern like climate change, trade, and global health. These concrete steps are essential to restoring trust and credibility. 

In particular, U.S. engagement with China has lacked consistency and long-term direction. While recent efforts have focused on countering Russia’s aggression in Ukraine through firm diplomatic and military backing, similar engagement with China has been far more uneven. Though China is frequently treated as a strategic competitor—and sometimes an outright adversary—it remains one of the United States’ largest trading partners. This complex interdependence demands a steady and deliberate diplomatic strategy, not just episodic dialogue or reactive policy shifts. Without a clear, consistent approach to China, the U.S. risks deepening misunderstandings, provoking unnecessary conflicts, or losing strategic leverage on global issues, such as climate change and trade. If the U.S. fails to engage proactively, China may feel emboldened to act more aggressively. Michael Swaine, in Creating a Stable Asia, argues that relying solely on deterrence could exacerbate instability rather than prevent it. Washington must therefore invest not only in arms sales, but also in confidence-building measures and regular dialogue with Beijing to reduce uncertainty and miscalculation.

What’s needed is a consistent, bipartisan approach that prioritizes strategic diplomacy as much as strategic defense. That includes reopening and strengthening military and diplomatic channels with Beijing, setting clear terms for cooperation in areas such as climate change and public health, and building multilateral mechanisms in the Indo-Pacific that go beyond military alliances. Engagement does not mean appeasement—it means acknowledging interdependence and using communication as a tool to prevent escalation.

At the same time, Taiwan must also take a more proactive role in its own defense, reducing reliance on U.S. support while continuing to invest in asymmetric capabilities and resilience. If Taiwan does not strengthen its own defense capabilities, it risks becoming too dependent on the U.S., which could weaken its negotiating position and make it more vulnerable to Chinese intimidation. Taiwan’s reliance on external support could also strain U.S.-Taiwan relations if U.S. resources become overstretched due to other global commitments. A more self-reliant Taiwan would not only deter Chinese aggression but would also signal to both China and the international community that Taiwan is capable of defending itself, reducing the likelihood of a confrontation. A balanced strategy—combining self-reliance, constructive engagement, and targeted arms support—offers the best path to security without deepening regional instability.

From Vietnam to Iraq, history shows that deterrence without diplomacy often backfires. The 20th-century containment strategy may still be in use, but the world has changed. Taiwan must not become the next example. Military aid must be matched with sustained diplomatic engagement to reduce tensions and preserve stability. As Joseph Nye reminds us, “Power does not lie in brute strength, but in the ability to shape the preferences of others,” underscoring that diplomacy is not a soft alternative—it’s a strategic necessity.² Only by balancing strength with strategy can the U.S. uphold its democratic ideals without reigniting Cold War-style crises.

1. Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Future of Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2011). ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: American and Taiwanese Flags, Image sourced from Flickr | CC License, no changes made

Semiconductors are the technological backbone of modern electronics and, by extension, the global economy. The policies governing their production and distribution significantly impact economic growth and technological advancement. As the US is attempting to reshore advanced semiconductor manufacturing, it is critical to understand the failures of the Soviet and Chinese semiconductor manufacturing programs and the successes and challenges facing Taiwan’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing sector.

The US does not seem on track to reshore advanced semiconductor manufacturing. While the US is a major player in the semiconductor design space, it has largely ceded manufacturing, assembly, testing, packaging, and other elements of the supply chain elsewhere. Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands play vital parts in the semiconductor supply chain, but Taiwan is the undisputed leader in manufacturing. Over the past few decades, strategic Taiwanese industrial policy has helped it develop into a semiconductor manufacturing powerhouse, producing over 60% of global semiconductors¹ with its leading semiconductor company, TSMC, accounting for 92% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors.² Through the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, the US made a significant attempt to reshore advanced semiconductor manufacturing, but since initial 1980s initiatives like SEMATECH, US industrial policy has not effectively incentivized companies to manufacture advanced semiconductors domestically. The risks of a lagging domestic semiconductor industry reverberate in cautionary tales from the Soviet Union’s failed industrial espionage initiatives and its impact in Russia today. At the same time, the risks of massive state-sponsored semiconductor initiatives are evident in China’s semiconductor investments mishandling talent, overregulating, and corruptly investing in Ponzi schemes. Today, TSMC is still making the most advanced semiconductors in Taiwan,³ and its subsidized Arizona fab is not only behind schedule and over budget but also already last-generation,⁴ and DC-groupthink mirror imaging US security concerns on Taiwan may cause the CHIPS and Science Act to follow in the footsteps of similar failed Soviet and Chinese initiatives. Simultaneously, however, rosy perceptions of Taiwan’s ostensibly positive semiconductor development gloss over the industry’s unique challenges in Taiwan, which presents an opportunity for alternative analysis. Addressing these challenges in Taiwan can provide a strategically and economically viable direction for semiconductor investments in which the US has a comparative advantage.

Soviet reliance on industrial espionage for semiconductor development left Russia technologically disadvantaged in military development

Soviet semiconductor development was fundamentally centered around industrial espionage instead of innovation. As the Soviet Union realized the strategic nature of semiconductors in the 1950s, Soviet scientists and spies began infiltrating US semiconductor companies and research centers.⁵ In 1958, Khrushchev even built an entire city, Zelenograd, around semiconductor production.⁶ A year later, the CIA assessed that Soviet semiconductor technology was often crude copies of Western designs and remained 5-7 years behind the US.⁷ By the 1970s, Soviet leaders provided Zelenograd’s scientists even less leeway to experiment, implementing blanket directives to abandon original development and copy American semiconductor designs instead.⁸ Around the same time, Intel co-founder Robert Noyce realized that focusing on the consumer market rather than the US military would accelerate semiconductor demand and innovation to new heights,⁹ but the CIA found that Zelenograd’s dependence on the Soviet military as its primary customer only grew.¹⁰ Nevertheless, the Soviet semiconductor industry would perpetually remain 5-7 years behind the US until the Soviet military was dissolved in 1992, after which Zelenograd’s uncompetitive semiconductor fabs shut down.¹¹ Even worse than the Soviet’s perpetual technology lag, however, the Soviet pirate and copy strategy allowed the CIA to waste Soviet resources by purposefully designing faulty computer chips that passed Soviet quality tests but failed in operation. The Soviet pirate and copy strategy was also downright dangerous, as the CIA was able to cause the “most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space” by shipping Trojan horse kill switches in the KGB Directorate T’s pirated microchips, resulting in a 3-kiloton explosion destroying a Siberian natural gas pipeline.¹²

Russia’s loss of domestic semiconductor production has left Russia’s civilian and military industries at a technological disadvantage. Due to Russia’s reliance on foreign semiconductor manufacturing mainly centered around US partners like Taiwan and South Korea, its industries have been forced to adopt low-tech designs to ensure at least some supply chain continuity if the US and its allies were to restrict chip sales. Thus, only 5% of the weapons Russia used in Syria were precision-guided.¹³ Even with such self-imposed restrictions, US sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine still forced Russia to extract dishwasher and refrigerator semiconductors for military use.¹⁴ Overall, Russia’s non-existent semiconductor manufacturing base coupled with US sanctions have drastically reduced Russian economic and military might for the foreseeable future.¹⁵

China’s advanced semiconductor industry development failed due to talent drain, industrial espionage, overregulation, and corruption

Although the Chinese Communist Party realized the importance of semiconductor development in the 1950s, Mao Zedong’s radicalism drastically inhibited China’s semiconductor potential. As Mao killed and imprisoned university-educated engineering talent during the Cultural Revolution, he implemented impetuous policies declaring “all people must make semiconductors” during the Great Leap Forward.¹⁶ Thus, many talented Chinese university graduates fled to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and California, with some, like Morris Chang, becoming kingpins of the semiconductor industry. By the time Deng Xiaoping took Mao’s place, China seemed hopelessly behind Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and the US in semiconductor technology. Yet China still considered semiconductors strategically important and thus tried in vain to control chipmaking, inadvertently stifling innovation by shrouding the sector in bureaucracy. Therefore, China’s electronics industry remained almost entirely dependent on foreign chips from the US, Japan, and Taiwan for decades.¹⁷

As China entered a new era, semiconductor startups benefited from vast government support, but much of it was misguided. Zhang Rujing—China-born, Taiwan-educated, and US-trained—founded SMIC, China’s largest pure-play semiconductor foundry, in 2000.¹⁸ Partially state-owned, SMIC tried replicating Taiwan’s semiconductor success through TSMC’s playbook. SMIC extensively poached Taiwanese, South Korean, and American semiconductor experts and received state subsidies, corporate tax holidays, and reduced tax on Chinese sales.¹⁹ China also covertly supported its semiconductor industry through cyber espionage.²⁰ Still, SMIC and other Chinese fabs remain at least 5 years behind TSMC’s leading semiconductor technologies.²¹ During Xi Jinping’s tenure, he launched the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, or “Big Fund,” intending to make China’s semiconductor industry self-sufficient by 2025. While some of its investments in companies like SMIC have been relatively successful in helping China develop trailing-edge semiconductor production capabilities, the “Big Fund” has also been submerged in corruption scandals and Ponzi schemes with its investments in now-bankrupt companies like Tsinghua Unigroup. Due to such corruption, the “Big Fund” has experienced a massive brain drain, with 25% of its talent leaving since 2020.²²

Although the most successful semiconductor manufacturing nation, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry faces significant challenges from geostrategic risk, talent, land, energy, water, and food

Taiwan took a different route than the Soviet Union and China, seeking to innovate instead of industrial replication. Government support, foreign investment, STEM education, entrepreneurship, and industry-academia collaboration allowed Taiwan to become an advanced semiconductor manufacturing powerhouse. Throughout the 1980s, authoritarian government directives spearheaded by Taiwan’s economic minister KT Li allowed Taiwan to develop a semiconductor industry cluster in Hsinchu Science Park. Taiwan’s central government recognized that Taiwan needed to create an indigenous innovative electronics industry as cheap labor shifted to China, or else get caught in the middle-income trap. As Taiwan pursued semiconductor technology transfers from US companies in the 1970s, Taiwan’s government simultaneously offered incentives to overseas Taiwanese like Morris Chang to start businesses in Taiwan. Chang soon pioneered TSMC’s dedicated foundry business model in Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), receiving initial funding from the Taiwanese government and Philips, which owned ASML—the world’s most advanced lithography company. Even though Taiwan’s government and Philips sold off most of their shares, TSMC’s first-mover advantage in the dedicated foundry market and collaboration with academic research centers like ITRI, National Tsing Hua University, and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University allowed it to couple narrowly focused industrial R&D with highly-educated engineering talent. Such an arrangement permitted Hsinchu to develop similarly to Silicon Valley into the highest average income area in Taiwan, with Stanford and Berkeley also synergistically feeding top engineering talent to Silicon Valley companies. Simultaneously, Taiwan’s government was also incubating a comprehensive semiconductor ecosystem in Taiwan’s science parks, symbiotically integrating low-cost design, assembly, testing, and packaging with advanced manufacturing.²³

Although Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is remarkably successful, primary-source on-site interviews conducted in Taiwan with government officials, industry experts, academic researchers, and local residents have revealed the challenges that the industry faces in Taiwan. First, Taiwan faces pressing geostrategic risks from China and natural disasters. Moreover, it also faces a talent drain due to low wages and racism. Taiwan also has minimal land area, causing tensions with local residents over industrial expansion. Furthermore, Taiwan suffers from energy security risks in power production and infrastructure. Taiwan has already faced major water shortages, a resource critical for semiconductor manufacturing, which climate change will only exacerbate. Lastly, Taiwan’s limited land facilitates food security threats as environmental contamination destroys the sparsely available farmland. The following paragraphs will also highlight the demographic groups left behind by Taiwan’s heavy-handed semiconductor industry favoritism from Taiwan’s martial law era until now.

Perhaps most concerning for US national security, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is uniquely exposed to geostrategic risks. Beyond the fact that unifying Taiwan is China’s main strategic priority, much of Taiwan’s advanced semiconductor industry is geographically concentrated in Hsinchu, which sits atop an equatorial seismic fault line. Thus, Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain is uniquely vulnerable to sabotage, surprise attacks, earthquakes, and typhoons. Taiwan’s small size also makes its semiconductor industry fundamentally dependent on foreign governments and clients, who may impose their demands on Taiwanese semiconductor companies like TSMC. Yet, TSMC does not plan on building the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing fabs outside of Taiwan. To US defense planners, such dependence creates a paradox in which it is necessary to defend Taiwan to keep the US economy afloat and ensure national security, but the only way of defending Taiwan is by maintaining weapons systems dependent on a steady advanced semiconductor supply from the island.

Another challenge Taiwan’s semiconductor industry suffers from is brain drain as talented youth seek opportunities elsewhere. First, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry often looks for unquestioning and obedient university-educated workers. Thus, top entrepreneurial talent and non-college-educated students are often left out of the sector Taiwan’s government favors the most. Beyond the industry’s specific target demographic, many of these Taiwanese youth are also emigrating due to a perceived lack of opportunities on the island, low salaries, and excessively high property costs.²⁴ Even worse, Taiwan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at less than 1 birth per woman, and it is set to become the world’s lowest by 2025.²⁵ Additionally, Taiwan’s wealth is quite centralized among elite business owners and management positions are often occupied by elderly industry vanguards, further limiting economic mobility and innovative opportunities for young Taiwanese. While Taiwan’s government has implemented a New Southbound Policy to encourage immigration from Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania to fill semiconductor manufacturing jobs,²⁶ its efforts are often thwarted by racism and discrimination from Taiwan’s mostly homogenous Han Chinese majority. As Taiwan and India were about to sign a memorandum of understanding to allow 100,000 Indian workers to work in Taiwan, several Taiwanese netizens protested against the decision, terming Indian men “rapists.” While Chinese propaganda is undoubtedly helping to push such narratives in Taiwan,²⁷ some Taiwanese factories and a county government implemented restrictive discriminatory policies on Southeast Asian migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.²⁸ Beyond simple propaganda, China uses Taiwan’s discrimination against migrant workers, coupled with its economic leverage, as a psychological cudgel to boost its influence in ASEAN at the expense of Taiwan.²⁹

Although often prioritized, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is running out of the sparsely available land remaining in Taiwan. Behind Bangladesh, Taiwan is now the second most densely populated non-city-state country in the world.³⁰ When Hsinchu Science Park was created in 1980, many local farmers were initially displaced, and low-wage laborers were eventually priced out of Hsinchu due to exponentially increased rent and property prices. As the Hsinchu semiconductor industry was developing, new fabs released dangerous pollutants into the air, affecting nearby residents in the crowded city.³¹ Lax government environmental regulations and a push for rapid economic development during Taiwan’s martial law era ensured that those negatively affected by semiconductor development would be silenced. While democratic Taiwan has taken steps to regulate environmental pollution, accidents still pose acute environmental hazards to local residents.³² Now, however, northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park has become so crowded with semiconductor fabs that there is no more space between Hsinchu City to the west and the Baoshan mountains to the east. Thus, semiconductor companies are diversifying to less-wealthy regions in central and southern Taiwan. Besides spreading the risk of environmental disasters and making land much more expensive for other industries and local residents, Taiwan’s advanced semiconductor industry continues to encroach upon farmland and traditional indigenous areas. Today, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry still wields significant influence over Taiwan’s government, and the demographic groups left behind are often sidelined.

Beyond land, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry faces critical energy security vulnerabilities. As Taiwan seeks to transition to renewable energy and phase out nuclear power, its energy infrastructure is becoming increasingly tenuous. In 2022, over 99% of Taiwan’s energy was imported, and Taiwan had 8 days of LNG stockpiled in 2 terminals. By 2027, Taiwan is seeking to build 3 more LNG terminals, increasing its LNG reserve stockpile to 14 days.³³ Simultaneously, Taiwan seeks to increase solar and wind production,³⁴ but Taiwan’s limited land makes such renewable initiatives challenging. Even if Taiwan successfully hits its LNG reserve and renewable targets, its energy supply would likely still be inadequate in a blockade or natural disaster scenario. Additionally, renewables introduce further variability into Taiwan’s already-stretched power grid, which will have larger and more frequent voltage changes.³⁵ As evidenced in 2022, even a 90-minute major power outage in Taiwan could affect the semiconductor supply chain for months.³⁶

Climate change and resulting water risks also pose major threats to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. TSMC’s water-intensive advanced semiconductor fabs are increasingly built in southern Taiwan, which was hit hard by a drought in 2021, and the region’s water supply is only projected to become more tenuous with climate change. While TSMC was able to truck in water from northern and central Taiwan to supply its southern Taiwan fab, Taiwan’s rainfall is predicted to decrease by 10% overall by 2050, so such options may no longer be feasible. As Taiwan’s semiconductor industry continues to expand, southern Taiwan now has a water deficit of around 390,000 metric tons a day.³⁷ Thus, Taiwan has been building desalination plants to aid in securing a stable water supply, but such plants are extremely energy-intensive, stressing Taiwan’s already overstretched energy infrastructure.³⁸ Additionally, the southern Taiwan cities of Kaohsiung and Tainan are combining reservoirs and planning new water reclamation centers to feed TSMC’s growing southern presence,³⁹ but these pose unique risks to the environment and local residents. Researchers at Kaohsiung’s National Sun Yat-sen University have noted how the semiconductor industry is a leading contributor to drinking water overuse and pollution, along with ocean contamination.⁴⁰ Taiwan’s limited water supply often goes to semiconductor fabs through local pipelines or water trucks ahead of Taiwan’s residents, farmers, and other industries, which restricts the amount available for private consumption and irrigation, posing economic and food security risks. Thus, semiconductor fabs have been trying to increase recycled water consumption, but such in-house measures are again often expensive, energy-intensive, and imperfect in cleaning pollutants.⁴¹

Lastly, an excessive focus on growing Taiwan’s semiconductor industry harms Taiwan’s food security. About 70% of Taiwan’s food is imported, which will likely rise as a lack of land and water increasingly strangles Taiwan’s farmers. As Taiwan seeks to ensure a stable water supply for its semiconductor fabs, Taiwan’s government has prohibited rice farmers in southern Taiwan from planting their crops for the past three years. Thus, those farmers increasingly resort to desperate measures to earn money, such as converting farmland into solar panel farms to sell electricity to the semiconductor industry. However, these panels have negative environmental implications as they bleed toxic lead and cadmium minerals into farmland, contaminating future prospects of healthy crop growth. Therefore, Taiwan’s already limited food supply will be reduced even further with short- and long-term implications.⁴² With dwindling self-sufficient food supplies in a blockade or natural disaster scenario, semiconductor fab workers and other Taiwanese residents may face critical food shortages.

Soviet, Chinese, and Taiwanese failures, successes, and challenges in creating advanced semiconductor manufacturing industries pose important lessons for the US in minimizing industrial espionage, overregulation, and corruption while maximizing the strategic and economic rationale for ensuring abundant talent inflow and natural resources

While it is unlikely that the US will replicate Soviet industrial espionage techniques, significant lessons and implications can be drawn from the Soviet Union’s state-subsidized semiconductor industry failure. First, copying Taiwanese semiconductor designs through industrial espionage would inefficiently keep the US perpetually behind, damage US reputation, and set dangerous precedents facilitating potential sabotage and more intellectual property theft. Second, considering that most US military infrastructure is built around high-tech designs, losing access to Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing facilities would be even more devastating for the US military than US export controls on Russia’s military-industrial sector, considering Russia already planned its military with low-tech solutions in mind. Even if the US military integrates more low-tech solutions, semiconductor supply is bound to be affected since Taiwanese and Chinese companies produce 75% of the world’s legacy chips.⁴³ If China were to cut off Taiwan’s semiconductor supply, defending Taiwan would be much more difficult. Beyond the military, losing access to semiconductors crippled Russia’s electronics and consumer industry, and losing TSMC would likely hit the US economy and technology-centered society even harder.

As the US considers certain semiconductor development pathways amidst massive federal semiconductor investment, China’s approach to building a domestic semiconductor industry offers cautionary tales in talent management, overregulation, and corruption that the US should avoid. Mao-era China’s anti-intellectualism stalled China’s semiconductor development for decades. Thus, the US ought to be wary of growing anti-science trends and increased nativism among the American populace and elected officials. Top engineering and supply chain management talent from around the world, including China, should be able to innovate freely in the US. While the danger of Chinese industrial espionage exists, banning top Chinese talent from the US semiconductor industry would do more harm than good, helping China reverse its own brain drain.⁴⁴ On the flip side, Biden’s current policies banning US talent at Chinese chip firms seem quite effective at keeping American semiconductor workers and many Taiwanese semiconductor workers who hold dual nationality out of China, incentivizing them to go to Taiwan instead.⁴⁵ Biden’s policies may not force American semiconductor workers to return to the US, but any such bureaucratic policies may be misguided anyway. In pursuit of domestic semiconductor production, China overregulated its semiconductor industry, which the US may be in danger of doing already. For legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act aimed at attracting investment in US semiconductor manufacturing, the US should put strategy over economic protectionism. Producing semiconductors on US soil is more important than regulating the percentage of US workers and parts within the fabs, and companies like TSMC ought to be able to bring non-unionized Taiwanese workers to build and staff the fabs if it means the US will have a higher global share of advanced semiconductor manufacturing. After all, Chinese state-sponsored companies like SMIC poached talent mainly from Taiwan and South Korea, allowing SMIC to become China’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturer. The US should welcome Taiwanese workers wishing to work in TSMC’s Arizona facility with the prospect of higher wages and a green card, which would further contribute to US strategic interests by safely harboring critical Taiwanese semiconductor talent. Beyond overregulation, China’s massive semiconductor investments also offer lessons in corruption, mismanagement, and exaggerated Ponzi schemes. The US ought to conservatively provide funds to established advanced semiconductor manufacturing titans like TSMC and Samsung based on their track record of success to avoid China’s pitfalls. Even if Intel is a US company, it has fallen behind in the advanced semiconductor manufacturing race, so the US should primarily pressure TSMC and Samsung to build more advanced semiconductor fabs in the US through more subsidies.

If the US can enhance its domestic competitiveness to capitalize on Taiwan’s challenges in terms of geostrategic risk, talent, land, energy, water, and food, it could likely better incentivize domestic advanced semiconductor manufacturing. China offers a major cautionary tale in excessively trying to replicate how Taiwan developed a successful semiconductor manufacturing industry by throwing state-sanctioned resources at the industry rather than evaluating the challenges that such an industry poses in Taiwan. Like China, the US has much more material resources than Taiwan; yet, US semiconductor policy leadership is at risk of making the same mistake as China.⁴⁶

As beneficial as free trade and semiconductors are to Taiwan’s economy, keeping advanced semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan poses an existential risk to Taiwan itself, the US, and the global economy. Even in Taiwan, some view TSMC’s success as a curse for putting Taiwan further in the danger zone.⁴⁷ If anything were to happen to Taiwan’s semiconductor facilities, the US would be almost powerless to support Taiwan due to the resulting semiconductor shortage. Even if ASML were to quickly ramp up lithography equipment production and ship the lithography machines to US-based semiconductor fabs, ASML relies on the advanced chips that TSMC makes, posing a crucial chokepoint in a disaster or contingency scenario.⁴⁸

Although bringing advanced semiconductor manufacturing to the US is critical, the US should tread carefully. While some have suggested overtly threatening TSMC with export controls to simultaneously roll out advanced technologies in the US and Taiwan or match its US and Taiwan investments 1:1, such actions would only feed China’s propaganda machine and turn Taiwanese people against the US. After all, China tried luring Taiwanese workers with massive paycheck carrots to build its indigenous semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, but such employees are often motivated by money over advancing technology. Forcing TSMC with a stick to build the most advanced semiconductor fabs in the US would presumably lower Taiwanese worker morale even further, and any such fabs would likely be unproductive. In contrast to the 1980s US-Japan semiconductor trade war, there is a decent likelihood that forcing Taiwan to give up its semiconductor technology would hand the world’s most advanced semiconductor technologies and “unsinkable aircraft carrier” right next door to the US’ primary geopolitical rival. Additionally, unilateral covert influence operations amplifying the concerns of anti-semiconductor demographic groups in Taiwan is an option, but such actions may sow distrust and aid Chinese anti-US propaganda if discovered. Instead, the US should seek to make building TSMC semiconductor fabs in the US as economically profitable as possible. TSMC generates most of its revenue from US companies, and the US could push private sector corporations and investors to pressure TSMC to diversify its advanced semiconductor fabs to the US. Furthermore, the US could optimize the CHIPS and Science Act and October 7th rules toward other Taiwanese semiconductor industry challenges. After all, Taiwanese policymakers seem to view the CHIPS and Science Act and October 7th rules as economically beneficial for TSMC and by extension, Taiwan.⁴⁹

In terms of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry’s talent issue, the US should take crucial steps to encourage semiconductor workers to come to the US. While a similar wealth inequality problem exists in the US, Taiwanese workers are paid an average of $22,000 a year.⁵⁰ Thus, the US should encourage talented Taiwanese engineers to come to the US by providing research opportunities, subsidizing higher salaries, emphasizing lower property costs, and offering paths to a green card. Furthermore, while discrimination undoubtedly exists in the US, Taiwan’s mostly homogenous ethnic composition makes it harder for Southeast and South Asian workers to avoid structural racism in Taiwan. Thus, by ensuring US industry is welcoming the best and brightest worldwide, the US can attract more skilled semiconductor engineers. Beyond immigration, however, the US ought to implement comprehensive educational reforms to nurture domestic STEM talent—simply investing more in STEM education through the CHIPS and Science Act is not enough.

Limited land and environmental concerns in Taiwan pose an opportunity for the US to attract advanced semiconductor investment. While US property rights and environmental regulations were stronger when Taiwan first built out its semiconductor industry, both countries are now democracies with similar rights and regulations. Furthermore, considering that the US has much more land, semiconductor priorities are less likely to conflict with those of local residents. Thus, the US should emphasize to semiconductor companies how its plentiful land makes buying land for new fabs cheaper upfront and ensures that those fabs are less likely to cause local residents to complain about pollution.

Given Taiwan’s energy insecurity, the US should emphasize American energy self-sufficiency to semiconductor companies. Considering how crucial stable power is for semiconductor fabs, the US ought to also create a resilient energy grid, especially in areas without resilient grids like Texas, where Samsung is building a new semiconductor fab. Besides providing resilient grids, the US should subsidize backup generators and voltage regulators in semiconductor fabs, thus guaranteeing stable power supplies.

Regarding water, Taiwan seems uniquely vulnerable, and the US should preemptively prepare for similar water challenges. TSMC’s new fab is in the deserts of Arizona, and the US needs to dramatically enhance the drought-prone West Coast’s water infrastructure to support such water-intensive semiconductor fabs. If the US can ensure a stable water supply, TSMC could build additional advanced fabs near its initial fab in the future. Creating an enhanced water infrastructure would also placate the concerns of local residents, farmers, and other industries in Arizona, paving the way for further population and industry growth in one of the fastest-growing places in the US.

Taiwan also faces significant food security challenges, which the US is well-positioned to alleviate. The US is the largest agricultural exporter in the world and will likely not face a food security crisis in a contingency scenario, which would plausibly be attractive to TSMC. Additionally, the US has sufficient land to easily separate farmland, local residents, and semiconductor fabs, ensuring that semiconductor contaminants do not affect food production and locals.

Conclusion

As evidenced by the Soviet Union, China, and Taiwan, the global semiconductor manufacturing industry is strategically critical but exceedingly complex. The Soviet Union’s reliance on industrial espionage, subsequent difficulties, and China’s challenges with talent management, overregulation, and corruption serve as cautionary tales, emphasizing the need for private-sector innovation. Despite Taiwan’s current status as a linchpin of semiconductor manufacturing, it faces significant geostrategic risks, talent retention issues, and natural resource limitations. In attempting to reshore advanced semiconductor manufacturing, the US ought to create an economically-rational atmosphere for semiconductor manufacturing, addressing talent retention, environmental sustainability, energy stability, and robust infrastructure. Such an approach would best strengthen national security and help the US maintain a resilient and advanced domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry.

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: A fab worker holding a semiconductor chip | Image sourced from Maksim Shmeljov/Adobe Stock

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    ↩︎

Offensive cyber operations (OCOs) are a critical component of the PLA’s zero-sum “intelligentized” warfare strategy against Taiwan, which the Russian war in Ukraine has only reinforced (Takagi 2022). OCOs allow the PLA to engage in confrontation against Taiwan while staying below the armed conflict threshold of its use-of-force spectrum (Lee and Clay 2022), making them the optimal tool to influence and psychologically intimidate the Taiwanese populace. Thus, combined with conventional military threats, the PRC has extensively utilized OCOs to exert pressure, sow dissent, conduct espionage, and sabotage infrastructure in Taiwan, targeting government and military networks, critical infrastructure, private corporations, and academic institutions (Farmer 2022). In fact, Taiwan has been the country most targeted by disinformation since 2013 (Brandt et al. 2022), much of it from the PRC (Wang 2022). Furthermore, given that Taiwan is a global technological hub at the forefront of semiconductor innovation, the PRC has also extensively pursued cyber intrusions to steal the intellectual property of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry (Greenberg 2020).

Taiwan’s current President, Tsai Ing-wen, has continually emphasized the importance of cybersecurity throughout her administration. Tsai has not only vocally stressed the importance of resilient cybersecurity mechanisms to protect Taiwan, but also created significant new agencies, frameworks, and research and educational initiatives to tackle PRC OCOs. Supplementing her statement that “cybersecurity is national security” (Formosa TV 2022), Tsai has highlighted the importance of international cooperation in strengthening national security in cyberspace (OCAC 2023). While Tsai has accentuated the centrality of dynamic Taiwanese cyber defenses through her words and actions, Taiwan has not sufficiently hardened its cyber defenses throughout her two terms. Tsai could implement more effective policies to unleash Taiwan’s cyber potential fully.

Recognizing the value of OCOs, the PRC has extensively developed its offensive cyber capabilities over the past few decades. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2023 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) noted that the PRC is likely the “broadest, most active, and persistent cyber espionage threat to U.S. Government and private-sector networks” (CISA, n.d.). The ATA further notes that the PRC is almost certainly capable of launching OCOs to disrupt critical US infrastructure and military assets, conduct political and industrial espionage, manipulate and censor discourse, initiate influence campaigns, and pre-position advanced persistent threats (APTs) (ODNI 2023). Besides organized state-sponsored cyber units like the PLA’s Unit 61398 (Sanger, Barboza, and Perlroth 2013), the PRC has extensively supported non-state “patriotic hackers” launching OCOs as well (CFR 2017). Given Taiwan’s proximity, small size, and unique situation, however, it is even more exposed to PRC cyber threats.

From the first major PRC-Taiwan cyber confrontation in 1999, when PRC hackers hacked into Taiwanese computer networks after Taiwan’s president called for equal PRC-Taiwan global representation (Laris 1999), Taiwan has continually been under attack by PRC OCOs. As such, both presidents preceding Tsai, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou, have launched a total of four successive cybersecurity programs (Jing 2019). In Chen’s “Phase 1 Mechanism Program” (2001-2004), he created the National Information and Communication Security Taskforce (NICST) to establish categorizations for various cyber threat levels and basic cybersecurity protection systems for 3,713 Taiwanese government agencies. Chen followed up his initial Program with the “Phase 2 Mechanism Program” (2005-2008), bringing educational institutions into the cybersecurity protection systems, expanding the number of agencies covered to 6,797, and establishing the National Security Operations Center (N-SOC) modeled off the US National Security Agency’s SIGINT-reporting equivalent.

Ma succeeded Chen with the “Phase 3 Development Program” (2009-2012), implementing dozens of action plans to improve cybersecurity information sharing and readiness, engaging civil society in cybersecurity, and establishing the Government Information Sharing and Analysis Center (G-ISAC). Within G-ISAC, Ma hoped to develop early warning and standardized cyber incident response procedures (National Institute of Cyber Security 2023). In Ma’s second term, he initiated the “Phase 4 Development Program” (2013-2016), reforming N-SOC with private sector input, encouraging Taiwanese cybersecurity industry development, increasing cybersecurity incident simulations, and expanding cybersecurity talent initiatives and international exchange. However, while admitting that Taiwan continues to face PRC OCOs, Ma himself conceded that closer cross-strait ties during his tenure led to “occasional incidents” of Taiwan’s secrets being leaked to the PRC (Mishkin and Pilling 2013). Furthermore, during Ma’s second term, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) warned that PRC OCOs targeting Taiwan had begun expanding beyond stealing information to gradually destroying critical infrastructure (Kan 2013). As such, closer PRC-Taiwan economic ties under Ma seem to have increased complex interdependence (Keohane and Nye 1977). From a constructivist lens, it would naturally follow that Taiwan’s cybersecurity policies may be less stringent and enforced during Ma’s tenure (Checkel 1998).

While Ma made some steps toward improving Taiwan’s cybersecurity landscape, Tsai took office amidst “severe” cyberattacks from the PRC (Tiezzi 2014) as Taiwan was becoming a “testing ground” for sophisticated PRC OCOs (Gold 2013). Given Tsai’s rejection of the 1992 Consensus and attempt to distance Taiwan from the PRC, the PRC has targeted Taiwanese government agencies alone with thousands of daily cyberattacks (Maizland 2023), up from cyberattacks every few days during the Ma administration (Tiezzi 2014). Furthermore, as Tsai sought to lessen Taiwan’s dependence on the PRC, she faced the dilemma of balancing cybersecurity with economic development and trade, given that Ma’s tenure catapulted the PRC to Taiwan’s largest trading partner (International Trade Administration 2022) and source of tourists (Glaser et al. 2018). Given Tsai’s firm convictions on Taiwanese sovereignty, a constructivist lens can again be applied to frame Tsai’s cyber policies. As such, it would logically ensue that the policies of Tsai’s administration assiduously attempt to diversify Taiwan’s economic ties and reduce its vulnerability to PRC cyber intrusions. Even more concerningly, Ma’s administration left an apparent lack of organizational and legal effectiveness in Taiwan’s cybersecurity apparatus. While NICST was supposed to be the central interagency cybersecurity governance mechanism, its secretariat was relegated to an ad-hoc level within the Executive Yuan. Moreover, Ma’s existing government cybersecurity regulations were only executive orders, and cybersecurity legislation was nonexistent.

Tsai Ing-wen’s First Term

After beginning her term, Tsai began focusing on strengthening Taiwan’s cyber infrastructure through her “Phase 5 National Cyber Security Program (2017-2020)” (NICST 2017). Given concerns over the neglected state of Taiwan’s cybersecurity, Tsai more than doubled Taiwan’s cybersecurity budget from $1.5 billion NTD ($48 million USD) to $3.7 billion NTD ($119 million USD) (Executive Yuan 2018). With an increased budget, Tsai reorganized NICST’s secretariat into a higher-level Department of Cybersecurity (DCS) in August 2016 and pushed the Cyber Security Management Act (CSMA) through the Legislative Yuan in May 2018 (Jing 2019). However, the first cracks already began appearing, with DCS falling 552 people short of its 1,224 full-time staffing goal (Liberty Times 2018). Along with the DCS under the Executive Yuan, Tsai also completed the cyber “Iron Triad” with the National Information and Communications Security Office (NICSO) under Taiwan’s National Security Council and National Communications and Cyber Security Center (NCCSC) under the National Communications Commission (Jing 2019). Through the “Iron Triad,” Tsai facilitated the effective delegation of cybersecurity advising under NICSO, cyber policy implementation under DCS, and critical infrastructure protection under NCCSC. As such, the Executive Yuan could more effectively oversee and mandate cybersecurity measures within government agencies, affiliated industry partners, and critical infrastructure operators (Legislative Yuan 2018). Each cyber task force could play to its parent agency’s comparative advantages, solidifying a constructive cyber defense framework. In the military realm, Tsai created the fourth branch of Taiwan’s armed forces in July 2017, the Information, Communication, and Electronic Force (ICEF) Command. As the first of its kind in the world, Tsai tasked ICEF with coordinating innovative OCO identification, tracking, and response within Taiwan’s military, government, and commercial industries (MND 2017). Furthermore, Tsai began encouraging interagency collaborations (Jing 2019) between Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Economic Affairs, and Ministry of Science and Technology (now the National Science and Technology Council) (Legislative Yuan 2023) to develop cybersecurity education programs via industry-academic partnerships, competitions, and internships (羅正漢 2018). To counter digital disinformation, Tsai created anti-disinformation task forces within the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB), Ministry of National Defense (MND), and NSB, and amended laws to combat intentional fake news propagation (Dickey 2019). She also encouraged public-private partnerships with social media apps like Line (Lange and Lee 2020) and civil society groups like Doublethink Lab to expose PRC disinformation campaigns (Shen and Wu 2019). Furthermore, Tsai and the DPP pushed the Anti-Infiltration Act through the Legislative Yuan two weeks before the 2020 presidential election, criminalizing political funding and support from “hostile external forces” (Legislative Yuan 2020). However, the bill sparked furious KMT dissent over free speech concerns and was weaponized by PRC rumor mills as a DPP power grab. In response, Taiwan’s Premier Su Tseng-cheng posted a meme clarifying the law’s purpose and parameters, borrowing from Digital Minister Audrey Tang’s “humor over rumor” playbook (Quirk 2021). Besides the KMT, however, reporters have also raised legitimate concerns over potential online censorship enabled by the law (Aspinwall 2020). Thus, in the Anti-Infiltration Act’s legal implementation, Tsai must tread carefully to preserve Taiwan’s democracy by ensuring legitimate free speech and privacy are protected. Portraying Taiwanese individuals and political parties as Chinese trolls may inadvertently play into the PRC’s narratives regarding democracy’s shortcomings and create a highly censored environment in Taiwan.

PRC OCOs followed Tsai into office, starting right after she won Taiwan’s 2016 presidential election. Less than a week after Tsai’s victory, the PRC began its relentless disinformation barrage. Bypassing the Great Firewall, PRC netizens spammed Tsai’s Facebook page with over 35,000 comments indicating Taiwan is part of China (Huang 2016). The following year, Taiwan’s NSB attributed disinformation efforts regarding Tsai’s pension reforms on Line—Taiwan’s most popular chat app—to PRC content farms (Liberty Times 2017). PRC actors claimed that Tsai would freeze pension payments for citizens traveling overseas, which Tsai’s Pension Reform Committee later had to refute (Presidential Office 2017). In 2018, the PRC spread disinformation on PTT—a popular Taiwanese online bulletin board—about stranded Taiwanese travelers being rescued by the PRC’s consulate in Osaka, which caused Taiwan’s top diplomat in Osaka to commit suicide (Horton 2018). Soon after, PRC hackers altered the DPP’s website before the 2018 midterm elections to display simplified Chinese characters insinuating that Tsai would invite the US military to Taiwan if the DPP won (Liberty Times 2018). Even more insidiously, PRC-affiliated entities, potentially the PLA’s Strategic Support Force (SSF) and United Front Work Department (Quirk 2021), helped promote Han Kuo-yu’s Kaohsiung mayoral campaign and catapult him to victory (Huang 2019). Whether patriotic PRC netizens, paid “wumao” trolls, or PLA SSF soldiers, the founders of Han’s largest unofficial Facebook fan page had simplified Chinese names and fake identities, and likely paid for social media advertisements to increase Han’s fan page following. At the same time, a DPP legislator’s Facebook page was flooded with over a million hate comments after he criticized Han, and Han’s DPP opponent in Kaohsiung was bombarded with hundreds of hate comments whenever he tried live-streaming on Facebook (翁子竣 2018). Aside from disinformation, four PRC-linked hacker groups attacked at least ten Taiwanese government agencies and four Taiwanese information services companies with government customers from 2018 to 2020. Unfortunately, Taiwan’s MJIB revealed that the hackers accessed the emails of around 6,000 officials, obtaining personal citizens’ data (Behr 2020). Incidents like these highlight the PRC’s 2015 shift from focusing exclusively on government targets to both public and private ones (Pan and Willis 2023), likely to undermine Tsai’s cybersecurity credibility and private sector support.

While Tsai made substantial steps to improve Taiwan’s cybersecurity by increasing the allocated budget, upgrading executive and legislative cyber infrastructure, encouraging interagency collaboration, and establishing public-private anti-disinformation partnerships, her first term cyber record has been mixed. Tsai failed to do enough to combat PRC OCOs as they continued to evolve, leading to severe PRC APTs slipping through Taiwan’s cyber defense. However, although the PRC seemed to have successfully used Han’s 2018 Kaohsiung mayoral election as a testing group for their election interference techniques, it seems like Taiwanese voters were savvier during the 2020 election after they were provided more education on recognizing disinformation and its consequences. Furthermore, Taiwanese so-called “memetic warfare” techniques seem to have been quite effective in neutering PRC disinformation and increasing truth propagation (Blanchette et al. 2021). Overall, although the frequency of PRC OCOs declined from the beginning to the end of Tsai’s first term, their success rates have increased as the OCOs have become more difficult to detect (Yu 2018).

Tsai Ing-wen’s Second Term

As Tsai transitioned from her first to second term, the PRC hit Taiwan with 1.4 billion cyberattacks against Taiwan from September 2019 to August 2020 (Lin and Hetherington 2022). During the 2020 presidential election season, a likely Beijing-backed content farm in Malaysia emerged to promote pro-CCP narratives, alleging the CIA manipulated Taiwan’s election. Soon after Tsai won the 2020 election, the content farm pivoted to discrediting her administration, not only alleging that Tsai faked her LSE PhD, but also inflating Taiwan’s COVID-19 case statistics to insinuate Tsai mishandled Taiwan’s pandemic response (Monaco, Smith, and Studdart 2020). While cyber incursions remained a threat by the beginning of Tsai’s second term, Taiwan seemed to have dulled the effects of PRC disinformation campaigns alone. Thus, the PRC began ever more aggressive information operations featuring sophisticated technical and psychological OCOs in combination with diplomatic, military, and economic pressure, exerting pressure across the entire DIME framework (JCS 2018).

Tsai’s “Phase 6 National Cyber Security Program (2021-2024)” cites three main objectives to build Taiwan into a safe and resilient smart country. First, the Program seeks to make Taiwan the leading Asia-Pacific cybersecurity research and training hub by attracting global talent, increasing cybersecurity research, and training domestic talent. Second, the Program aims to construct a proactive cyber defense infrastructure in collaboration with international partners to detect and mitigate threats early. Third, the Program calls for more public-private cybersecurity partnerships, sharing awareness, best practices, and capabilities among both sectors (NICST 2021). Remarkably in lockstep with the plan, Taiwan’s cybersecurity sector far outpaced the corresponding 2.8% global growth average, expanding by 11.9% between 2020-2021 (Yang 2022). Nonetheless, Tsai’s most transformative change by far was consolidating Taiwan’s digital communications, cybersecurity, information, internet, and media under the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA), of which the DCS became a subsidiary entitled the Administration for Cyber Security (ACS) (MODA, n.d.). However, considering that the MODA was charged with the Executive Yuan’s entire digital portfolio, including governance, infrastructure, and economic and national transformation, its jurisdiction and mandate became extremely broad. Financial and human resources initially dedicated to the DCS may be reshuffled to favor MODA mission components other than the ACS, and inefficiency, conflict, duplication, groupthink, and waste can become commonplace. Inherently, cybersecurity requires agility (NIST, n.d.), and consolidating all digital functions under MODA may add unnecessary bureaucratic bloat atop all levels of the cybersecurity risk management cycle: identification, assessment, mitigation, and monitoring (US Department of Energy 2012). At its heart, MODA’s mandate is to model good digital governance, but it is unclear whether it even has the authority to create and implement digital governance regulations, not to mention how it plans to do so while preventing the privacy and human rights violations that plagued Taiwan’s authoritarian past (Robbins and Tang 2022).

Tsai’s second term featured significant PRC OCOs targeting Taiwan’s public and private sectors. In 2021, PRC-affiliated cyber groups began infiltrating Taiwanese financial institutions with APTs, exfiltrating data from corporate systems (Symantec 2022) and making unauthorized transactions on the Hong Kong stock market (CFR 2017). That same year, PRC hackers infiltrated civil society groups in Taiwan, focusing on academic and governmental networks (CFR 2021). When US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022, however, the PRC began unprecedented technical and psychological cyber assaults on Taiwan in coordination with the entire DIME framework. On the cyber technical side, PLA and MSS-affiliated hackers carried out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on four Taiwanese government websites, flooding them with traffic to make them inoperable. These attacks aimed to demonstrate the Taiwanese government’s inability to prevent disruption of its services, thereby shattering the public illusion of security (Collier 2022). Specifically, the attacks targeted the official websites of Taiwan’s Presidential Office, the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (Taiwan’s largest airport) (Paganini 2022). These attacks aim to compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data and systems while disrupting Taiwan’s economy and critical infrastructure. Simultaneously, the PRC’s cyber psychological operations in Taiwan intended to humiliate Taiwan’s government and induce fear in the broader public. After Pelosi’s visit, PLA SSF-affiliated actors defaced National Taiwan University’s website to display, “There is only one China in the world” (Huang 2022), and hacked the monitors of over 6,000 7/11 stores and multiple train stations to display vitriolic anti-Pelosi and anti-US messages (Xiao and Boscaini 2022). In response to the DDoS attacks, Taiwan’s MODA announced it would begin integrating decentralized Web3 technology into its own website to guard against future attacks (Haldane and Shen 2022). However, the MODA has not announced any plans to implement the same standard government-wide, perhaps due to bureaucratic constraints. Aside from technical protections, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education began incorporating media literacy into its teaching guidelines, requiring all schoolchildren aged 6 to 18 to learn methods to identify disinformation (Sass 2022). Following Tsai’s DCS reorganization under MODA, PRC cyberattacks have been able to target all aspects of society, including but not limited to government, critical infrastructure, healthcare, manufacturing, technology, and media (CFR 2023). By early 2023, Taiwan began facing an incredible 15,000 cyberattacks per second (Wu and Kao 2023), indicating that malicious actors may be taking advantage of the DCS’ bureaucratic transition into a sub-administration of MODA.

Although Taiwan’s cybersecurity industry may be growing exponentially in the face of growing cyber threats from the PRC, Taiwan needs to manage and deploy domestic public and private cyber talent more effectively. So far, the MODA realignment appears to cause more bureaucratic headaches than meaningful progress. If the MODA’s bureaucratic inertia continues, it may be best to revert back to the dedicated DCS and pre-existing “Iron Triad” framework that Tsai established in her first term, which would also reduce ethical concerns over digital information centralization. Given that Taiwan is still in dire need of cyber talent, Tsai should also focus on reforming Taiwan’s reserve ecosystem and allow cyber experts to hone their information security skills in the government. If the reserve forces are successfully reformed, elite private sector cyber talent may be more inclined to apply their skills in public service. As for research, however, Tsai seems to have successfully cultivated a public-private cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan centered around the Cybersecurity & Smart Technology R&D Building (Ministry of Economic Affairs 2023), supplemented with university branch offices researching information security (Chung 2023). Nonetheless, major cyber R&D successes from the hub are yet to be realized (National Science and Technology Council, n.d.). Tsai also vowed to deepen global cyber partnerships (Kyodo News 2023), and seems to be making some progress in 2023 via high-level international Taiwan trips and legislation such as the US Department of Commerce Cybersecurity Business Development Mission visit (International Trade Administration 2023) and US Congress’ Taiwan Cybersecurity Resiliency Act respectively (Rosen 2023). Furthermore, on global cyber talent recruitment, Tsai has successfully attracted significant multinational cybersecurity companies like Cisco to create talent cultivation centers in Taiwan (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2021). Yet, increased PRC pressure on Taiwan’s legal status has made multilateral cyber engagement and recruitment through bodies like Interpol and the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (Interpol 2012) challenging, forcing Taiwan to pursue more time-consuming unofficial bilateral cyber relationships instead.

Conclusion

While she fortified Taiwan’s cyber defenses much more than her predecessors, Tsai needs to continue improving Taiwan’s cyber policies and implementation to live up to her lofty promise that “cybersecurity is national security.” In her first term, Tsai dramatically doubled Taiwan’s cyber budget, created new civilian and military cyber agencies, encouraged public-private partnerships, and passed Taiwan’s first cybersecurity legislation. However, PRC technical and psychological OCOs continued successfully targeting Taiwan’s government, critical infrastructure, industry, and elections. Throughout Tsai’s second term, she set even loftier goals to make Taiwan an Asia-Pacific cyber hub, innovate more proactive cyber defenses, and dramatically expand public-private collaboration. Tsai also consolidated Taiwan’s digital affairs under the MODA, giving it a triple mandate of economic development, cybersecurity, and digital governance. Nonetheless, PRC OCOs continued targeting all aspects of Taiwanese society at an unprecedented scale, and the centralized MODA faced significant ethical and regulatory dilemmas, indicating that some of Tsai’s second-term goals may have been too ambitious. Overall, Tsai constructed meaningful cyber frameworks throughout her first and second terms in office, but to optimally deploy Taiwan’s cyber talent pool, she must limit inefficiencies and red tape within her cyber policies.

Given how Taiwan is the world’s top target of cyberattacks (Wu and Chao 2023), much of it from the PRC, Tsai has had to create many experimental and unprecedented cyber policies throughout both her terms. Especially for Taiwanese partners like Japan, which has only recently started to bolster its cyber defenses (Yamaguchi 2022) while hovering at less than half of Taiwan’s cyber defense budget previously (Pryor and Le 2018), Taiwan’s frontline experience combating PRC OCOs will be invaluable. Even for the US, which has more than ten times Taiwan’s cybersecurity funding (White House 2022), Taiwan is an essential cyber partner, given that PRC OCOs are frequently tested in Taiwan first before targeting the US (White 2018). Moreover, Taiwan itself must properly mitigate PRC OCOs to successfully thwart potential cross-strait contingencies, which would likely begin with cyber salvos disrupting critical communications infrastructure (Sabin 2023). Tsai has prioritized cybersecurity amidst acute and growing PRC cyber threats, but work remains to fully address gaps, mitigate emerging threats, and balance ethical free speech and privacy concerns. If Tsai can optimally identify top talent, technology, and partnerships while mitigating disinformation and maintaining ethical principles, Taiwan and its allies will effectively counter most, if not all, PRC OCOs.

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Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Taiwanese officials are being targeted by PRC offensive cyber operations | Image generated with the assistance of DALL·E 3

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Near the Ukrainian border and in Crimea – a peninsula forcibly annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014 – the buildup of Russian military forces is a point of growing concern for US and European officials. Faced with a potential Russian invasion as soon as early 2022, the Biden Administration has developed a package of harsh economic sanctions and is prepared to apply diplomatic pressure in reaction to Russia’s aggressive actions in the region. Russia’s military buildup near the Ukrainian border has reminded US and European officials that Russia can also pose sophisticated challenges, even though China is the most significant strategic threat to the US moving forward. Beyond the immediate threat Russia poses to the sovereignty of Ukraine, there are much broader global consequences, making it critical that the US has a strong long-term strategy. The perceived firmness of the US’s response to Russia’s increasing military presence – one that the US Department of Justice states is larger than the 2014 invasion – will inform other authoritarian governments of the US’s hard limits as the world enters a new era of great power competition. The U.S’s current course of action in Ukraine has the opportunity to affect the actions of its most important strategic priority – China, and specifically the Chinese’s campaign for dominance in Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Taiwan has reported that China has flown great numbers of military planes into its air space recently. These actions, paired with increasingly aggressive rhetoric from China’s authoritarian government, concern US and European officials that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could materialize shortly, which would likely result in an all-out war between the US and China. During both the Trump and Biden administrations, the US has intensified its support of Taiwan and pledged to supply Taiwan with defensive weapons. Because of the US’s outspoken backing of Taiwan and China’s attempts to intimidate Taiwan, the peace and stability of the entire region have been compromised. With this potential threat looming, the US must take decisive action in Ukraine with the goal of deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in mind to avoid the unfavorable situation of fighting a two-front war – in Ukraine and Taiwan.

Global Issue 2019

Written by: Jun Tao Yeung, University of Hong Kong

Introduction

Since Tsai Ing-wen and the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) scored a landslide victory in the 2016 Taiwanese general election, cross-strait relations between mainland China and Taiwan have deteriorated to a large extent. Beijing insisted that the so-called “92 consensus” – “one China, different interpretations” – is the basis of all communications across the strait.^[1] Taipei was unwilling and unable to endorse the proposal, and argued that all developments in cross-strait relations must be based on the ‘existing political foundations’ with the constitutional order of the Republic of China (ROC) being respected. Clearly, Beijing did not accept this. 

Since then, Beijing has from time to time warned Taiwan that it would resort to attacking Taiwan if it declares de jure independence.^[2] Beijing took initiatives in various occasions to assert its sovereignty over Taiwan and isolate it from the international stage. Departing from the strategy of peacefully developing cross-strait relations emphasised by the previous president Hu Jintao, President Xi Jinping confirmed that he was not willing to pass the “Taiwan issue” on to the next generation.^[3] Hostile military actions were taken around the island several times, including conducting live-fire military drills at the Taiwan Strait.^[4] At least three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies established ties with Beijing during Tsai’s administration – Gambia, Panama, and the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe.^[5] The fact that Taiwan has been excluded from World Health Assembly for three consecutive years indicated the narrowing of Taiwan’s participation in the international community.^[6] Beijing is trying to be more aggressive towards Taiwan than previously. 

Experts in international relations must ask themselves: why is Taiwan so important to China such that Beijing has to emphasise its forceful attitudes towards Taiwan independence advocates? Compared to the mainland’s population of nearly 1.4 billion^[7] and area of 9,388,211 km², Taiwan is just a very small island with a population of 23.58 million^[8]and area of 35410 km² ^[9]. The military power of Taiwan is totally outweighed by that of the mainland.^[10] Given the military superiority enjoyed by the mainland over Taiwan, the latter certainly constitutes no military threats to the former. Then, why is Beijing so eager to unify the island which is extremely small compared to the mainland upon which it bases its rule?

Both realist and liberalist perspectives in the field of international relations fail to explain why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is eager to declare its sovereignty over Taiwan. The realist perspective argues that mainland China and Taiwan are two strategic competitors, competing with each other through either balance of power or balance of threat.^[11]However, it cannot explain why the mainland still escalates its military actions towards Taiwan when the island no longer constitutes any tangible threat. The liberalist perspective holds a firm belief that the social and economic cooperation between the mainland and Taiwan will lead to political integration. However, it fails to explain why the two sides have remained hostile towards each other recently.

This essay attempts to argue that the main audience of Beijing’s Taiwan policy is neither Taiwan nor the international community, but the people in the mainland instead. In this essay, I find that the major purpose of Beijing in standing firmly against the Taiwan independence movement is to legitimise the one-party rule of CCP over the mainland China instead of unification. The first part will provide a brief background on different sources of legitimacy employed by authoritarian regimes. Next, the background of nationalism in the history of modern China will be discussed. Third, the role of how nationalism affects Beijing’s attitude in its territorial disputes with its neighbouring countries will be analyzed. Finally, the means by which the CCP creates a nationalist image by standing firmly against the Taiwan authority will be examined.

Legitimising Authoritarian Regimes

Legitimacy has long been a headache for authoritarian regimes. In order to sustain long-term existence, simply relying on repression and coercion is insufficient.^[12] Without societal support, the regime needs to employ a large military force in repressing dissidents and vast resources on monitoring citizens, incurring a large cost to the regime. Legitimacy refers to the rightfulness and justification of the authority in ruling a territory. With legitimacy, the authority can prove to the citizens why they should consent to be subordinate to the authority and observe the rules set by such authority. The authority can then secure societal support. This makes governance more effective and less expensive, and in turn makes the authoritarian regime more enduring and sustainable.

Authoritarian regimes usually suffer the problem of a legitimacy deficit that democratic governments do not.^[13] In a modern democracy, the institutional arrangement, which is usually popular voting, guarantees that popular support is the prerequisite for the ruler to stay in power. It solves the problem of legitimacy, as the ruled public decides who will be the ruler. However, an authoritarian regime is one that implies the institutional arrangement excludes the ruled public from deciding the leader. Political participation by ordinary citizens is excluded. Therefore, the ruler does not have the direct endorsement of the ruled public and can hardly claim to represent the public. 

In order to survive for a long period of time, an authoritarian regime can not only rely on coercive apparatus suppressing any revolts and dissidents, but they also need to overcome the legitimacy deficit to prevent the questioning of its legitimacy by the public.^[14] The CCP, as an authoritarian regime in East Asia, suffers from the problem of a legitimacy deficit which its democratic neighbours such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan do not share. It lacks regular and universal elections that allow citizens to select their leaders and vote the noncompetitive officers out of office. Civil liberties and political participation are also limited which prevent the citizens from voicing their opinions against the government. Therefore, the CCP has to resort to various means in legitimising itself in order to claim that it represents the 1.4 billion Chinese people under its rule. 

Traditionally, the CCP has adopted ideological adaptation as its major source of legitimacy by framing itself as leading the class struggle and creating a brand of communism ideal for China.^[15] According to the Chinese constitution, the “highest ideal and the ultimate goal” of the CCP rule is to achieve communism in China. The achievement of communism is the major reason why the CCP’s one-party rule is a must for China and any opposition to it must be suppressed. However, this created a dilemma for the CCP when it initiated market reforms in the late 1970s.^[16] As part of these reforms, the CCP replaced the original communist policy with quasi-capitalist economic policies, moving away from the communist ideal it aimed to establish towards establishing a capitalist society. The state no longer controls all significant industries and economic sectors in the country.^[17] Private enterprises are allowed to be established and play an important role in propelling economic growth. The CCP even amended its ideology in various ways in order to justify the economic reform. In 2002, the “Three Represents” slogan promoted by former Secretary General Jiang Zemin was added to the Constitution, which suggested that the CCP not only represents the workers and farmers, but also the new “advanced productive forces’ of urban economic and social elites. In 2004, Article 11 of the Constitution was amended to guarantee the protection of the rights, interests and legality of individual and private enterprises by the state. These actions show that the CCP is moving away from the communist ideology it once claimed. Ideological adaptation can therefore no longer provide sufficient legitimacy in justifying the CCP’s one-party rule. 

In view of this, the CCP also tries to justify its rule by its economic performance.^[18] Performance legitimacy has been widely adopted by authoritarian regimes in justifying their rules. In performance legitimacy, the regime establishes its legitimacy by achieving certain concrete goals, such as strengthening national power and economic growth. The CCP has adopted the strategy since the market reform in the late 1970s.^[19] The CCP also openly states its ‘Two Centenary Goals “ by the years 2021 and 2049.^[20]  By the year 2021, which marks the centenary of the establishment of the CCP, China would have doubled its GDP and GDP per capita from the levels of 2010 and transformed China into a prosperous society. By 2049, the centenary of the founding of the PRC, China would have the GDP per capita at the level of moderately developed countries and realised modernisation. Since the market reform, China achieved an economic miracle enviable to many.^[21] Statistics find that the Chinese economy experiences an average annual growth of 9.7% since 1970. Besides this, the size of China’s GDP rose from the eighth in the world in 1980 to the second in 2010, surpassing many successful economies, such as Germany, France and Japan. The economic growth achieved by China in the past several decades does legitimise the CCP’s rule to a large extent. 

However, the CCP government is well aware of the shortcomings of performance legitimacy. If the government can no longer fuel economic growth as enormous and rapid as before and fails to provide the social economic welfare expected by its citizens, the regime will fail to legitimise itself.^[22] An especially alarming example is the fall of Suharto’s regime in Indonesia during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.^[23] In the 1980s, Suharto began to rely on performance legitimacy by bringing economic prosperity to the country. He was successful at the beginning, doubling the GDP per capita between 1984 and 1996. However, when the Asian financial crisis enveloped the region and dealt a hard blow to the economy in 1997, Suharto lost power in a popular uprising. This reveals the undeniable fact that performance legitimacy cannot guarantee survival of a regime given that no economy grows forever. In 1989, the crisis of economic legitimacy led to a nationwide demonstration, which caused one of the most serious legitimacy crises in post-1949 history of China. The economic reform also caused serious social problems such as rising income disparities, regional development imbalances, deficits in the provision of public goods, and growing employment.^[24] The CCP noticed that it could not rely on its economic performance as the sole source of legitimacy and must seek other bases of legitimacy. Had the CCP solely relied on economic performance, it would have been very unlikely that it would still hold power when its economic growth decelerated in recent years^[25]. 

In view of the shortcomings of both ideological legitimacy and performance legitimacy, the CCP regime realised that nationalism is the strongest weapon in legitimising its rule over the country. Capitalising on the history of modern China and boosting the nationalist atmosphere, the CCP successfully employed nationalism to legitimise its rule by standing firm in various territorial disputes and exploiting the Taiwan agendum. 

Nationalist Narratives Created by the CCP

The historical memory in the 19th and 20th centuries shared by millions of Chinese provides a hotbed for the rise of nationalism in China. To many Chinese, the narratives of the history of the 19th and 20th centuries are filled with national shame and humiliation.^[26] Since the first Opium War (1839-1842), China experienced a continuous period of invasions by foreign imperialists. The period between the first Opium War and the Second World War marked the weakest period of China in its history. China suffered foreign invasions in various external wars, including the First Opium War, the Second Opium War (1856-60), the Eight Nation Allied Army’s invasion (1900), Japan’s Twenty-one Demands (1914) and the War of Resistance against Japanese invasion (1937-1945). In these invasions, China surrendered its territories to foreign powers as either colonies or semi-colonies. With this history, the CCP included four features in its nationalist narrative templates: (i), China was invaded by imperial powers, (ii) enormous crimes were committed against China by these imperial powers, which included forcing China to accept a series of unequal treaties, compromising Chinese sovereignty, (iii) some heroic Chinese bravely resisted the invasion of imperial powers in spite of the failure of the weak and corrupt government to do so, and (iv) the CCP successfully led the Chinese to win the eventual and ultimate victory against imperialists and restore the national spirit.^[27] All these point to the fact that the CCP is the true savior of the nation from foreign invasion and humiliation. 

Making use of the historical memory of the century of national shame and humiliation, the CCP narrates that it has a historical role in saving the Chinese nation and restoring the national strength. The preamble of the Constitution states that the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was a “glorious revolutionary tradition” that overthrew the imperialism that made China a semi-colonial country.^[28] It emphasises that the CCP, under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, ignited such a revolution. Besides, the leaders of the CCP also in various occasions emphasise the historical role of the CCP in revitalising the nation.^[29] The CCP Secretary General Xi Jinping pledged for a “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049, which means that China will once again appear as a global power by that time. The nationalist mission and agenda of the CCP justify its exercise of the sovereignty of China, consolidate the popular support of its rule and build its legitimacy. 

The CCP benefits from the nationalist narratives and nationalist legitimacy two main ways. First, it successfully demonises any foreign criticisms on its political system by branding them as an attempted humiliation of Chinese sovereignty. This invalidates all foreign criticisms on its rule. One example is that the CCP manipulated the history of the destruction of Yuanmingyuan, an old summer palace in Beijing for the Qing dynasty, in creating its historical narratives. Yuanmingyuan was burned to the ground by British and French troops in 1860, and many antiques in the palace were transported to western countries.^[30] During the 1980s, the CCP began to construct the historical legacy of the palace by creating the Yuanmingyuan Ruins Park and included it firmly in the CCP political agenda. In the early 1990s, the CCP launched the Patriotic Education Campaign to remind the Chinese people of the humiliation by foreign powers, allowing them to be demonized. This successfully triggered nationalist sentiment among Chinese.^[31] An ultra-nationalist blogger Wei Yahua wrote a blog called “Is the Humiliation of the Burning of Yuanmingyuan Repeating Itself?”. In this blog, he argued that foreign powers did not respect the sovereignty of China and always entered the nation unhindered. In a blog entitled “The Regret of Yuanmingyuan, the writer reminded his fellow Chinese not to forget the past of the nation, saying that history would repeat itself otherwise. The effect of the manipulation of such national sentiment is clearly depicted in later diplomatic conflicts with foreign countries.^[32] When the US-led NATO army accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999, an article in the People’s Daily newspaper echoed the bombing with the burning in Yuanmingyuan. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, some French demonstrators disturbed the Olympic torch relay as a protest against human rights records in China. Xinhuashe Zhongwen Xinwen News Agency soon issued an article criticising the hypocrisy of the French protesting by arguing that their actions against the Yuanmingyuan only makes their human rights claims invalid.

It can be seen clearly that the nationalist legitimacy of the CCP rule demonises all foreign criticisms against CCP rule. When any foreigners criticise or protest against the CCP’s authoritarian rule, the CCP simply resorts to two types of logic. First, the CCP argues that the foreigners must apologise to the Chinese people for the humiliation and invasion in the past before they criticise the CCP’s rule. Second, they frame the foreigners’ criticism as another attempt to intervene in Chinese internal affairs and compromise Chinese sovereignty. In order to preserve Chinese national dignity, the CCP must not surrender to foreign criticism. These two methods successfully demonise foreign criticism and secure the popular support for the CCP’s authoritarian rule. This was clearly depicted in the Google-China dispute in 2010.^[33] On 12 January 2010, Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond announced that Google was considering the option of shutting down in China as the Chinese government did not allow freedom of speech on the web. To the surprise of many, the Google-China dispute did not prompt any soul-searching among the Chinese or raise awareness of their lack of political freedom. Instead, the Chinese took the dispute as another instance of foreign powers attempting to build a hegemony over China. As a result, many nationalist slogans resulted from the netizens, such as, “Drive away Google, drive away imperialistic America’s hegemony! Strengthen our China.” The nationalist sentiments shift public attention away from the reflection on the Chinese political system to the topic of humiliation.

Nationalist sentiment also gives the CCP a strong bullet in rejecting any call for democratic transition within the territory. When there is any dissent within the territory urging an end to the authoritarian rule of the CCP towards a democratic transition, the CCP can simply announce that the democratic movement is a veil of another foreign intervention. In 2014, Hong Kong people launched the Umbrella Movement in protesting against Beijing’s policy in forbidding universal suffrage in Hong Kong. In rallying support of the CCP’s rule, Beijing put the blame on foreign interference to hostile governments in driving the movement. The Foreign Ministry released a statement attributing blame to the foreign media for urging foreign governments to interfere in Chinese home affairs.^[34] This kind of propaganda successfully rallied mainland Chinese to condemn the movement.^[35] Pro-movement Hong Kong celebrities such as Chapman To Man-chak, Anthony Wong Chau-sang and Denise Ho Wan-sze were said to betray the Chinese blood for giving their support of the movement, banning them from performing in the mainland.  After the movement, Denise Ho was never invited to any performance in the mainland, while Anthony Wong Yiu-ming had two shows in the mainland “indefinitely postponed” by concert organisers.^[36] A talk at the Chinese University of Political Science and Law in Beijing by lyricist Lin Xi, who wrote the lyrics for the song Hold Up Your Umbrella to support the movement, was cancelled. 

The CCP employs similar tactics in handling the claim of the political dissidents for democratic transitions. When certain political dissidents call for democratic transitions, the CCP simply dismisses the claims by blaming foreign interventionists. This was the case in Liu Xiaobo dispute in 2010.^[37] Liu was a political dissident in mainland China and also a co-author of Chapter 08, which called for an independent judiciary and freedom of expression in China. In 2009 he was charged with having “the goal of subverting our country’s people’s democratic dictatorship and socialist system” and was imprisoned for 11 years. In 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The chairman of the Nobel prize committee Thorbjorn Jagland called for the immediate release of Liu. The foreign ministry of China then criticised the committee for interfering with China’s internal affairs and infringing upon China’s legal sovereignty. In July 2015, the Chinese authorities apprehended more than 100 lawyers and activists and accused them of being involved in “criminal gangs.”^[38]In response to the criticism of the detentions by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Beijing dismissed the claims as another instance of foreign interference in its internal affairs. These two routine responses show that Beijing can deny any democratic transition, accusing activists of being backed by foreign agencies and undermining Chinese sovereignty. 

CCP’s Attitudes in Various Diplomatic Conflicts

In order to prove itself as the leader of the revolution that revitalises the national pride and spirit of China, the CCP must display a firm stance against foreign countries when conflicts between China and foreign countries appear to infringe upon the exercise of Chinese sovereignty. This firm attitude can be seen in the nationalisation of the Diaoyu Islands by Japan in 2012 and the border conflicts in Tibet region in 2017.

The Diaoyu Islands (The Senkaku Islands) have been a long dispute in Sino-Japanese relations.^[39] Both countries claim the islands as their own territories, despite the fact that the territory is under practical control of Japan. Then Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced his plan to nationalise the islands. The nationalisation led to large-scale demonstrations in China, resulting in damages of property worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Japanese owned stores and factories. Beijing even initiated military actions around the islands, including the regular dispatch of Maritime Surveillance Agency (MSA) ships in the surrounding waters and deployment of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). In September 2012, Beijing increased the scale of law enforcement patrols around the islands. The Chinese law enforcement activity in the disputed area was formalised. The action was unprecedented and much firmer than before. 

The territorial conflict between China and India in 2017 is another example of the CCP showing its firm attitude against any foreign intervention in its own territory. China and India have a long history of territorial disputes in the Tibet region.^[40] Disputed territories in Tibet include the eastern sector and the western sector. In 1962, China waged a war against India in the disputed territories in response to India’s establishment of military posts there. Despite the fact that China withdrew its army within one month after the war started, the territorial dispute has remained unresolved. In 2017, China planned to build a road on the border, which India claimed would give China access to India’s strategic positions.^[41]Indian border guards then created a human wall in the border and prevented Chinese workers from building the road. Beijing retained a firm stance against India by sending troops to the border region which resulted in a stand-off between the two sides and stopped 57 Indian pilgrims from entering Nathu La pass in Sikkim on their way to a holy Hindu site in Manas Sarovar lake in Tibet. Beijing also demanded India to unconditionally withdraw the troops. Finally, the two countries resolved the conflict by withdrawing all troops from the border. 

Both incidents are territorial disputes where China engaged China and neighbouring countries. In the two disputes, the Chinese authorities stood firmly in asserting sovereignty over the disputed territories by deploying troops to the disputed areas. Such action is necessary for the CCP to legitimise its rule by claiming that it rejuvenates the national spirit. By standing firmly against foreign powers during the dispute, the CCP can claim to the domestic audience that it is capable of protecting the nation and is therefore the only legitimate government in the territory. Any attempts to overthrow it must be cracked down upon. 

Taiwan in Chinese Nationalism 

Taiwan is in a difficult position regarding Chinese nationalism due to historical reasons.^[42] Nationalism is a relatively modern concept and only found its way to China in the late-Qing period (1842-1912). It had not had its first Chinese translation until 1901 when the Chinese scholar Liang Qichao referred nationalism to the Chinese phrase minzu zhuyi. The doctrine of nationalism was not imported to China without difficulties. The revolutionary Sun Yat-sen acknowledged that there had never been the existence of a Chinese national identity and noticed that members of Chinese nation were like a “heap of loose sand.” The building of the Chinese nation and the Chinese national identity only took place in the 1930s when Taiwan was occupied by Japan. Taiwan was therefore excluded from the process of Chinese nation building. 

In the 1920s and 1930s, many Taiwanese revolutionary organisations had the objective of establishing Taiwan’s independence from Japan, rather than reunification with China.^[43] At that time, the national identity of the Taiwanese people was not yet established. In 1949, Kuomintang (KMT) lost the civil war within mainland China and retreated to Taiwan. The KMT had a strong historical and social lineage with the mainland.^[44] It believed that there was only one China, which is the Republic of China (ROC), and both Taiwan and the mainland were part of this ROC.^[45] The KMT also bore the ultimate mission to liberalise the mainland which it lost to the CCP during the civil war. The KMT government instructed the public education system to promote the Chinese identity, displaying maps and flags of the ROC and teaching Sun Yat-sen’s “three principles of the people”. During the KMT’s rule in Taiwan before the democratic transition, the KMT tried to build up the Chinese national identity awareness among the Taiwanese people and down play the pan-Taiwanese identity. 

Despite this, the pan-Taiwanese identity still begins to emerge and replace the Chinese national identity, which first motivated the CCP to assert its sovereignty over the island. In the 1980s, Taiwan was transformed from a one-party authoritarian system to a multiple-party democracy, with the KMT and the DPP as the two dominant parties. The DPP was a pro-independence party and aims to replace the Chinese national identity with the Taiwanese one.^[46] In 2000, Chen Shui-bian won the presidential election and became the first non-KMT president of Taiwan. During his eight years in office from 2000 to 2008, he promoted a “de-Sinification” series, which included the promotion of Xiangtu Wenxue(native literature) and adding the word “Taiwan” to the passport jacket. The school curricula were also amended to emphasize the unique cultural and historical characteristics of Taiwan. 

Taiwanese people experienced a significant change in their identity recognition.^[47] According to a survey conducted by the Institute in Political Science at the National Sun Yat-sen University in 2015, 74% of Taiwan’s people identify themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. This echoes with the study of the National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center, which showed that the percentage of Taiwan’s people who identified themselves as Taiwanese increased dramatically from 17.6% in 1992 to 59.3% in 2016, while the percentage of people identifying themselves as Chinese fell from 46.4% to 33.6%. Both surveys indicated that a majority of Taiwan’s people do not identify themselves as Chinese. Besides, the Taiwanese people’s support of unification also decreased significantly.^[48] Various surveys by Opinion Research Taiwan, the Election Study Center of National Chengchi University and TEDS concluded that the percentage of people supporting unification fell from 56.9% in 1992 to 15.8% in 2016 whereas the percentage of people who would rather desire for the status quo increased from 30.6% to 52.3% in the same period. All these results point to the fact that most Taiwanese people do not view the island as part of China and do not value unification as a top priority.

The CCP is worried that the various Taiwan opinion polls may encourage the DPP to declare formal independence. If the DPP really does so, it translates to the CCP’s failure in unifying the territory and thus undermines the CCPs’ nationalist legitimacy. Besides, it would encourage secessionist movements in other parts of China, including the Tibetan independence movement and the Uyghur independence movement, which would make it much harder for the CCP to maintain social stability in the related regions. Therefore, leaders in Beijing cannot afford any risk of Taiwan seeking formal independence and continue to openly warn the Taiwanese government on the consequences of declaring independence. In 2016, Secretary General Xi Jinping announced his zero tolerance policy for any separatist movements in the Chinese territory, which to his understanding included Taiwan.^[49] In 2019, Wang Zaixi, a former deputy director of the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office warned Taiwan that the Chinese authorities would accelerate the reunification of Taiwan if the island’s authorities continued its support of the independence movement. To the CCP, Taiwanese independence is too big of a risk, as it brings into question the notion that the CCP will rebuild the Chinese nation and restore the national spirit. 

Second, the continuing existence of Taiwan’s democracy makes it embarrassing for the CCP to maintain its one-party authoritarian rule. Since the end of martial law in 1987, Taiwan underwent a series of democratic transitions, which transformed Taiwan into a mature democracy.^[50] In the 1980s, the KMT government was under great pressure to forgo its authoritarian rule. In 1986, the DPP was established to become the biggest opposing political party to the KMT on the island. This also marked that the KMT government, under the leadership of Chiang Ching-kuo, began to ease its grip on opposition parties. In 1996, Taiwan held its first direct presidential election. In 2000, Taiwan experienced its first power transition. The opposition DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian became the first non-KMT president of Taiwan and the KMT lost the presidency for the first time on the island since 1945. In 2008 and 2016, Taiwan experienced two other power transitions in peaceful ways. These three power transitions prove that Taiwan democracy is as mature as most Western democracies. 

The continued democratisation further distinguishes the political experience in Taiwan from the mainland.^[51] This is one of the factors that contributes to the increase in the percentage of Taiwanese people in support of the status quo rather than reunification. It also provides an ironic contrast to the authoritarian rule in the mainland, putting political pressure on the CCP in transforming from one-party authoritarian rule to a democracy. In 2016, Taiwan’s then President Ma Ying-jeou urged Beijing to move towards a democratic style of development and voice support for pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.^[52] In 2013, Chen Guangcheng, a legal activist in the mainland who left during a diplomatic crisis, praised the democratic rule of law in Taiwan.^[53] In 2019, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement urging Beijing to apologise for cracking down on protests in Tiananmen in 1989 and push for democratic reforms proactively.^[54]Taiwan increasingly became an agent of democratisation on the mainland and posed a threat to its authoritarian rule.^[55]To prevent the questioning of its political system by Taiwan, the CCP must insist that Beijing is the only legitimate government ruling the Chinese authority and the Taiwanese authority is illegitimate in criticising the political system of the mainland. By emphasising that the Taiwanese authority is not the legitimate government on the island, the CCP can simply dismiss any call for democratic transition in the mainland. 

Third, the de facto independence of Taiwan is also a humiliation to the military force of CCP. After the KMT government retreated to Taiwan, the CCP tried to reunify the island various times. During the last stage of the Chinese Civil War, the CCP’s People Liberation Army (PLA) attacked the Quemoy islands, the outlying islands in Fujian province.^[56]Surprisingly, the KMT army defeated the PLA in the Guningtou Battle. The KMT’s victory in the battle was important in protecting the retreat of the KMT government to Taiwan and the safety in Taiwan Strait. It also thwarted the CCP’s attempt to further annex Taiwan. In August 1958, the CCP began an intensive artillery bombardment against the Quemoy islands.^[57] The action was believed to be the prologue of the CCP’s invasion of Quemoy and Matsu. With the help of the US’s naval units, the KMT government again successfully protected the islands. The military failures of the CCP in occupying Quemoy was a humiliation to the CCP and also raised doubts on the CCP’s ability and capability in unifying Taiwan and restoring the Chinese nation. Under this background, the CCP must exercise military actions in waters surrounding Taiwan to highlight its military superiority over Taiwan in order to prove its ability in unifying the island and serving as the only legitimate government. 

Conclusion

As an authoritarian regime, the CCP’s one-party rule faces the problem of a legitimacy deficit in the mainland. Neither ideological adaptation nor economic performance can provide sustainable legitimacy for its rule. Instead, nationalism provides a much stronger source of legitimacy in justifying the CCP’s one-party rule. The CCP makes use of the historical memories among the Chinese in the 19th and 20th centuries and creates the historical narratives that the CCP leads the Chinese to resist imperialism and restore their national spirit and pride. In various territorial disputes, the CCP stands firmly against neighbouring countries in affirming its nationalist spirit. Most importantly, the CCP remains firmly on its “one China” policy and insists that the Taiwanese government is illegitimate in order to affirm that it is the only legitimate government in rejuvenating Chinese nationalism. Through exploiting nationalism, the CCP successfully rejects and dismisses any call to move towards democracy and abolish authoritarian rule. 

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^[35] “Beijing Mouthpiece Calls for pro-Occupy Celebrities to Be Banned from Mainland.” South China Morning Post, October 26, 2016. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1623015/beijing-mouthpiece-calls-pro-occupy-celebrities-be-banned-mainland.

^[36] Qin, Amy, and Alan Wong. “Stars Backing Hong Kong Protests Pay Price on Mainland.” The New York Times. The New York Times, October 24, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/world/asia/hong-kong-stars-face-mainland-backlash-over-support-for-protests.html.            

^[37] “China’s Growth Deceleration: Causes and Future Growth Prospects.” DOC Research Institute, March 26, 2019. https://doc-research.org/2019/02/china-growth-deceleration-causes-future-growth-prospects/.

^[38] “Chinese Police Detain More than 100 Lawyers and Activists in Weekend Sweep.” South China Morning Post, August 4, 2016. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1838240/chinese-police-detain-more-100-lawyers-and-activists.

^[39] S Hafeez, Sanaa Yasmin. “The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands crises of 2004, 2010, and 2012: a study of Japanese-Chinese crisis management.” Asia-Pacific Review 22, no. 1 (2015): 73-99.

^[40] Malone, David M., and Rohan Mukherjee. “India and China: conflict and cooperation.” Survival 52, no. 1 (2010): 137-158.

^[41] “What’s behind the India-China Border Stand-off?” BBC News. BBC, July 5, 2017. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40478813.

^[42] Hughes, Christopher. Taiwan and Chinese nationalism: national identity and status in international society. Routledge, 2013.

^[43] Hughes, Christopher. Taiwan and Chinese nationalism: national identity and status in international society. Routledge, 2013.

^[44] Li, Yitan and Zhang, Enyu, “Cross-Strait Relations after the 2016 Taiwan Presidential Election: The Impact of Changing Taiwanese Identity”, Journal of Chinese Political Science (2016): 1-23, 20 June, 2019 http://www.wpsanet.org/papers/docs/WPSA2016%20Li%20and%20Zhang.pdf

^[45] Li, Yitan, and Enyu Zhang. “Changing Taiwanese Identity and Cross-Strait Relations: a Post 2016 Taiwan Presidential Election Analysis.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 22, no. 1 (2017): 17-35.

^[46] Li, Yitan, and Enyu Zhang. “Changing Taiwanese Identity and Cross-Strait Relations: a Post 2016 Taiwan Presidential Election Analysis.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 22, no. 1 (2017): 17-35.

^[47] Li, Yitan, and Enyu Zhang. “Changing Taiwanese Identity and Cross-Strait Relations: a Post 2016 Taiwan Presidential Election Analysis.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 22, no. 1 (2017): 17-35.

^[48] Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng. “Cross-Strait relations in the aftermath of Taiwan’s 2016 elections.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 22, no. 1 (2017): 1-15.

^[49] Wong, Sue-Lin. “China’s Xi Vows Zero Tolerance for Separatist Movements.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, November 11, 2016. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-sunyatsen/chinas-xi-vows-zero-tolerance-for-separatist-movements-idUSKBN1360N4.

^[50] Li, Yitan, and Enyu Zhang. “Changing Taiwanese Identity and Cross-Strait Relations: a Post 2016 Taiwan Presidential Election Analysis.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 22, no. 1 (2017): 17-35.

^[51] Li, Yitan, and Enyu Zhang. “Changing Taiwanese Identity and Cross-Strait Relations: a Post 2016 Taiwan Presidential Election Analysis.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 22, no. 1 (2017): 17-35.

^[52] “Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou Calls on Beijing to Move towards Democracy.” South China Morning Post, July 20, 2018. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1613552/taiwan-president-ma-ying-jeou-calls-beijing-move-toward-democracy?_escaped_fragment_=&edition=hong-kong.

^[53] Ramzy, Austin. “Chinese Activist Praises Taiwan’s Democracy.” The New York Times. The New York Times, June 24, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-praises-democracy-in-taiwan.html.

^[54] Al Jazeera. “Taiwan Urges China to ‘Repent’ for Tiananmen Square Crackdown.” China News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, June 3, 2019. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/taiwan-urges-china-repent-tiananmen-square-crackdown-190603061620801.html.

^[55] Ohlendorf, Hardina. “The Taiwan Dilemma in Chinese Nationalism: Taiwan Studies in the People’s Republic of China.” Asian Survey 54, no. 3 (2014): 471-491.

^[56] Zhang, J. J. “Of Kaoliang, bullets and knives: Local entrepreneurs and the battlefield tourism enterprise in Kinmen (Quemoy), Taiwan.” Tourism Geographies 12, no. 3 (2010): 395-411.

^[57] Xiaobing, Li, Chen Jian, and David L. Wilson. “Mao Zedong’s Handling of the Taiwan Straits Crisis of 1958: Chinese Recollections and Documents.” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 6, no. 7 (1995): 207-25.

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Small Introduction

I am a student studying politics and laws a the University of Hong Kong. My research interest is the modern history of mainland China and Taiwan. 

Written by: Abby Chu, University of Toronto

In a dramatic break from decades of diplomatic protocol, on December 2, 2018, US President-elect Donald Trump accepted a phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. This seemingly innocent telephone conversation between two democratically elected presidents of nations with similar liberal values caused an international and diplomatic uproar, particularly from China. For decades, Beijing has forced countries around the world to embrace the One-China Policy, which states that there is only one China, and that Taiwan is a part of that China. In 1979, Washington acknowledged China’s claim, officially switching diplomatic recognition of “China” from Taipei to Beijing. Shortly after the phone call between Tsai and Trump, China made its displeasure clear, emphasizing that “the ‘one China’ policy is the cornerstone of a healthy China-U.S. relationship,” citing the potential of the phone call to damage that relationship.^[1]Trump’s fielding of a phone call from any other democracy in the world would not have garnered nearly as much coverage or international significance. Yet, his call with Taiwan only furthered claims that Trump was unhinged.^[2]

This incident exemplifies the delicateness and complexity of Taiwanese politics, particularly surrounding its relationships with the US and China. Taiwan’s democratization in the 1980s has put itself in a vulnerable stalemate that must be understood not merely in domestic terms but rather through geopolitics, . While democratization has allowed Taiwan to gain unofficial allies from other democratic nations, democratization has also stymied Taiwan’s further liberalization and autonomy, due to China’s insistence on the One-China policy and Taiwan’s eventual reincorporation back into mainland China. 

One must understand the complex history of Taiwan to account for why its political status is so hotly debated in the present day. Taiwan was a Japanese colony up until October 25, 1945, when it reverted back to China in the aftermath of World War II. However, the beginning of the Taiwan sovereignty problem began in 1949 when the head of the Kuomintang (KMT) government of the Republic of China (ROC), Chiang Kai-Shek, and his followers fled from mainland China to Taiwan, going into exile after the Mao-led Communist Party of China (CPC) gained control of the mainland, establishing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and effectively ending the Chinese Civil War between the KMT and CPC, although no official conclusion has been declared. From the perspective of Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT, however, the war was far from over, and Chiang continued to proclaim his regime in Taiwan as the official government of China, claiming that his government still controlled mainland China. The goal at the time was not to remain in Taiwan forever, but to rebuild the strength to reconquer the mainland and achieve reunification.^[3]

Chiang’s declaration was aided by the United States’ support in recognizing his government as China’s legitimate government, which provided international legitimacy, and was thus supported by most of the world’s countries. The United States took this position mainly because of its hostility toward the PRC because of its relationship with the Soviet Union, guaranteeing its support for the ROC’s position in the international community. Its support, both material and diplomatic, ensured that the KMT government maintained the majority of its pre-1949 legitimacy as the sole representative of China, despite having lost the mainland to the PRC.^[4]  

The KMT swiftly imposed martial law on Taiwan once Chiang and his followers landed on the island, and all political power was consolidated within the KMT in an era known as the White Terror.^[5]In the long run, the KMT aimed for a progressive change from centralized rule to a constitutional democracy. This was in keeping with the KMT’s ideology based on Sun Yat-sen’s “Three Principles of the People,” which mixes Chinese tradition with principles of Western democracy and nationalism. That is, the party was committed to the promise of something more but without a timeline, both in Taiwan and on the mainland. In the meantime, Chiang and the party were focused on consolidating and maintaining their rule against internal threats to the island, such as a nationalist uprising by the very people they had abruptly imposed their rule upon. Additionally, Taiwan faced external threats, such as that of PRC military invasion of Taiwan. In order to garner the support of members of the KMT government, as well as citizens with ROC identities, they sought to bring economic prosperity to the island.^[6]

Civilians had little political freedom under martial law, as the KMT refused tolerate any opposition to its rule. During this period, Chiang’s government presided over economic development and reform programs, substantially raising Taiwanese standards of living. Simultaneously, Chiang’s government also employed education and popular culture as propaganda to erase leftover Japanese cultural influences and to replace traditional Taiwanese identities by encouraging a homogenized Chinese national identity. Furthermore, Mandarin was enforced as the national language, and the KMT referred to Taiwan as a Chinese “province.”^[7]All of these actions were taken to assimilate the Taiwanese locals into the ROC, and to further assimilate them when it finally came time for the KMT to recover the mainland, which was thought to rightfully belong to Taiwan.^[8]

As the KMT authoritarian regime claimed to represent the one “Free China,” local elections were held, a distinctive feature of its version of authoritarianism,^[9]and expansion of local elections instituted in the 1920s, by the Japanese colonial government. These actions projected an image of a progressive government in a time when KMT dissenters faced harsh punishments that violated human rights and certainty would have violated civil rights had the country not been under martial law. Elections also acted as a vehicle to lure people into the system. However, because potential threats to KMT rule would have been suppressed by the government before elections, elections effectively were tools of KMT propaganda rather than symbols of liberalization and democratic advance. Finally, the elections were a tacit acknowledgement by the government that stabilizing the ROC regime in Taiwan took immediate precedence over recapturing the mainland, and that there was a need to make the locals feel represented.^[10]

In the long run, the KMT’s commitment to eventual democratization and liberalization left the party increasingly vulnerable to open criticism from dissidents and even the public over the prolonged continuation of martial law, despite its accepted legitimacy by many of the people due to Taiwan’s economic progress. Critics argued that this situation was proof that the KMT was fundamentally undemocratic, unable to relinquish its control, and uncommitted towards any semblance of democratization whatsoever. While economic development was one of the KMT’s greatest achievements, it also opened the party to the beginning of its political demise. As Taiwan’s socioeconomic status rapidly improved, people expected democratization to simultaneously occur, pushing the government toward more political reforms.^[11]

The 1970s and 1980s were critical eras in Taiwanese history as democratization seemed within grasp. With Chiang’s advancing age in the 1970s, questions around appointing his successor became increasingly pressing. With his impending death, KMT forces worked to discreetly paving the way for his son, Chiang Ching-kuo to succeed him.^[12]While the typical KMT manner of responding to turmoil threatening its governance was suppressing dissidents and further tightening its grip on all aspects of civilians’ daily lives, Chiang Ching-kuo as president slowed moved away from a strictly dictatorial grip on the nation to a more reconciliatory and reformist – albeit relatively limited– style of governance by the end of his tenure in 1988. He worked toward greater popular political participation in the KMT party and in politics overall, tolerating some political dissent and opposition in order to legitimize political liberalization.^[13]

Despite the domestic potential for liberalization throughout Chiang Ching-kuo’s time as president, the ROC’s international status and recognition was in grave danger despite the international community’s apparent support for democratization. The PRC spent much of the 1970s recovering from Mao’s failed Cultural Revolution, working to establish diplomatic ties with countries around the globe cementing its government as the rightful representative of China. This led to countries switching official recognition from the ROC to the PRC, further diminishing the KMT’s hopes of recovering the mainland and–more importantly at this point– undermining Taiwan’s international status.^[14]Perhaps most devastating to ROC, the United States, a long-time ally, began engaging in conversation with the PRC in 1971, and in 1972, US President Richard Nixon famously shocked the world when he visited the mainland for a week which ended with a jointly issued Shanghai Communiqué, despite the US and PRC not yet sharing formal diplomatic relations. These events signaled that a dramatic change in US-PRC relations was to come.^[15]

Prior to Nixon’s visit, his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, made two visits to the PRC in 1971. In advance of Kissinger’s second visit in October, Nixon sent Ronald Reagan, then the Governor of California, to Taiwan to meet Chiang Kai-shek. Shortly after Reagan’s visit to Taiwan and Kissinger’s visit to the mainland, the ROC was expelled from the United Nations as the representative of China, and numerous countries followed suit and indicated that they were going to switch recognition of China to the PRC. For Taiwan, this threatened its newfound economic prosperity domestically, and led to a growing feeling of isolation internationally as its status was plunged into limbo.^[16]

Hostile to the rest of the world as a result, the ROC government issued a defiant statement post-Nixon’s visit reasserting its place as the rightful representative of China and its intent of toppling the illegitimate PRC regime. And although Taiwanese leaders knew in advance that the US intended to break diplomatic ties with them and switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing, it was still a shock when it finally happened in 1979. In a subtle message to the US, Taiwan suggested they would look elsewhere for new friends in the aftermath of Washington’s betrayal, and did not rule out “shaking hands with the devil,”^[17]meaning they were not opposed to turning to the Soviets, which was even more significant in the context of the ongoing Cold War.^[18]

\Quite paradoxically, as Taiwan’s diplomatic fortunes declined, its economic development flourished, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, strong and sustained economic growth meant that the living standard in Taiwan continued to grow. However, this had an unintended side effect in that it strengthened the growing voices of the opposition to Chiang Ching-kuo’s still single-party, authoritarian regime. Internationally, economic trade and aid became the most important component in Taiwan’s foreign relations and maintaining its relevance. By the late 1980s, Taiwan had consistently pursued a policy of “flexible diplomacy” in an effort to enhance its international position. By that point, it had amassed the second largest foreign exchange reserves in the world, and was ready to channel its wealth in “assist[ing] in the development of friendly countries,” which were mainly small developing countries, in a diplomatic offensive.^[19]

In addition to Taiwan’s domestic economic prosperity, the nation transitioned to democratization with the lifting of thirty-eight years of martial law in July 1987 by Chiang Ching-kuo. In 1986, Chiang Ching-kuo suggested to the KMT Central Committee that he was ready to lift the remnants of the restrictions that defined his authoritarian rule, including martial law, the prohibition on new political parties, and measures limiting local autonomy. In the last two years of his presidency, he instituted democratic reforms that allowed freedom of speech, assembly, and press. Most importantly, opposition parties were officially allowed and tolerated by the KMT, most prominently, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).^[20]Despite that, the lifting of the martial law was accompanied by the imposition of a national security law that still restricted pro-communist sentiment and “the division of national territory.”^[21]While Chiang Ching-kuo could not resist the people’s demands for political liberalization, Taiwan’s status as the rightful representative of China was still non-negotiable, and the law acted as a warning to native Taiwanese people not to challenge the KMT’s narrative.^[22]

Juggling the people’s growing demands for further self-determination amidst the emerging distinct Taiwanese identity, and continuing to modernize Taiwan’s political structure was the daunting task first faced by Chiang Ching-kuo’s successor, Lee Teng-hui, upon Chiang’s death in 1988. Lee’s ascension to the ROC presidency was significant not only because it was the end of the Chiang dynasty governing Taiwan, but because he was the first ROC president to have been born on the island. He was not one of the KMT elites that came with Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan from the mainland and does not share the same attachment and nostalgia for the mainland as his predecessors did.^[23]Originally, Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT’s legitimacy came from their claim to represent those from all of the Chinese provinces, including those on the mainland. A native-born Taiwanese’s ascension to the presidency meant that the rationale behind the ROC’s political structure in the Chiang dynasty era had lost its vital source of authority, potentially throwing the nation into disarray as open criticism against the government grew.^[24]

If Taiwan’s domestic politic was the sole determinant of Taiwan’s future, pro-self-determination, pro-democratization, and perhaps even pro-independence would result. Throughout Taiwan’s history, the national goal has rapidly shifted from the ROC resolving to win back the mainland to seeking an aim of autonomy. While there has been no official relinquishment of the ROC’s claim to mainland China, a separate sense of Taiwanese identity has emerged that is stronger than a claim to the hostile mainland. Unusual to Taiwan’s case, its desire for sovereignty do not solely arise from the people, but also are borne of the international circumstances Taiwan finds itself in. However, one must not overlook the relevance of Taiwanese domestic politics in understanding whether democratization in Taiwan was a success or failure.

Based on the Three Peoples of the People, the KMT throughout its existence has committed to eventual democratization and pro-capitalist domestic and foreign policies, and shunned communism.^[25]This led to the economic reforms that began under Chiang Kai-shek, and also led to the gradual loosening of political restrictions during Chiang Ching-kuo’s tenure, which was continued by Lee. An unintended side effect of the KMT slowly relinquishing its total control is that it led to the rise of a spirited opposition, which helped drive the calls for democratization and autonomy. 

Any such change would require a fundamental transformation of the country’s political system.^[26]While Chiang Ching-kuo allowed a major opposition party to form, it was during Lee’s tenure that Taiwan “entered an era where sovereignty resides in the people,” and the country’s institutions truly democratized.^[27]Whereas there used to be a contentious divide between the Mainlanders and the Taiwanese regarding Mainlanders forcing their will upon the Taiwanese and holding all power and privilege in society, that issue was greatly diminished as native Taiwanese began filling elected offices at the local and national levels as a result of political liberalization. The KMT mainlander elites who controlled the government throughout the Chiangs’ rules were sidelined, and the party’s commitment shifted from Chinese nationalism to the emergence of a unique Taiwanese identity. There remained, however, some influential KMT conservatives that were uncomfortable with the apparent move away from the foremost priority of reclaiming the mainland.^[28]

What is important to remember is that Taiwan’s history did not begin when Chiang Kai-shek and his forces landed in Taiwan, nor is the Taiwanese population solely consisted of KMT mainlanders. As Lee identified, it is formed of “the offspring of early settlers from the continent, those who moved to Taiwan with the KMT and their offspring, and those descended from the indigenous people.”^[29]Domestically, Taiwan’s separate identity and increasingly democratic system gradually emerged under sustained economic growth and social stability fostered by the Chiangs. It became increasingly clear that most people had had no wish to “‘return’ to [the] still-poor and authoritarian China.”^[30]

Unlike the PRC, Taiwan has become a rare and recent democracy in Asia, which could have only been achieved after economic development stabilized and unified the country, as achieved by the two Chiangs. The reasoning behind that being that when the economy prospers, other problems can be dealt with.^[31]Taiwan’s economic success is such it is commonly referred to as one of the four “Asian Tigers.” Not only has it been the catalyst for democratization domestically, it has been the means through which Taiwan has formed strong ties with numerous countries despite the lack of diplomatic recognition, through its pursuit of flexible diplomacy. Political reform has also been important in establishing these economic ties because Taiwan shares many political and economic similarities with many of the world’s nations and is far more stable and reliable than the PRC. Economic trade is also the main form of cross-Strait relations with the PRC – Taiwan’s economic feats are something that even the PRC cannot deny and wants to share in.^[32]This will continue to be its primary means of developing relations and solidifying its relevance in its international community, until the Taiwan problem is resolved.

An important step in consolidating Taiwan’s democracy was the 1996 presidential election, the first direct election by the people in the nation’s history. While Lee still prevailed in the election, it was because the people willed it, and was not an inherited position.^[33]This was a great shift from the martial law-era elections, that merely functioned as KMT propaganda. Thus, the KMT liberalized alongside Taiwan’s greater political liberalization, reflecting the KMT’s shift from a party comprised of elites to broad-based party based around reform and Taiwanese-domestic issues.^[34]The election signified Taiwan’s political structure transitioning from a one-party authoritarian system to a multi-party system, with two major political parties, not unlike the United States.

Another sign of democratic consolidation was the peaceful transfer of power from the KMT to the DPP, led by Chen Shui-bian, in the aftermath of the 2000 election, which had the potential to plunge the country into volatility had the KMT not accepted the result. In doing so, the DPP for the first time, were the “administrators instead of the revolutionaries.”^[35]This also marked the end of the KMT’s nearly fifty-year rule and was the first time in Taiwan’s history that the KMT was not in power. The DPP’s victory also indicated that the Taiwanese favored a further shift away from mainland reunification favoring the outlook that Taiwan was an independent nation. Historically, the DPP has been more liberal and pro-independence leaning as compared to the conservative KMT.

A transfer of power once again occurred in 2008 with the victory of the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou, and again in 2016 with the victory of the DDP’s Tsai Ing-wen. Furthermore, in 2016, the DPP swept both the presidency and the majority in the Legislative Yuan for the first time.^[36]This, without a question, confirms that Taiwan’s identity and focus has shifted from mainland China to Taiwan itself, affirming the popular Taiwanese belief that the Chinese Civil War is over. However, the threat of Beijing permanently hovering over Taiwan has prevented the nation from declaring independence. Despite that, Taiwan functions as an independent and sovereign state in every other way. Judging by Taiwan’s positive diplomatic relations, most countries would acknowledge Taiwan as a sovereign state, establishing full bilateral relations with the island if there would be no repercussions from Beijing in their doing so.

From the PRC’s perspective, the Taiwan issue is a domestic issue that does not, and should not, involve the rest of the world. The PRC maintains that it should not have to convince other nations of China’s intrinsic claim to sovereignty over. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. The most important aspect of the PRC’s claim to Taiwan is the “one-China” principle, with its interpretation being that Taiwan is part of PRC territory, and the Taiwanese government is not an autonomous government but a local one. Thus, Taiwanese officials are portrayed as the reason why cross-Strait tensions exist, and as obstacles in preventing peaceful reunification. 

The CCP leadership has long portrayed Taiwan as part of China citing its ethnically Chinese population as justification. However, this narrative is false and greatly limits Taiwan’s say in its own destiny. In fact, until the arrival of Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan had never been governed by Chinese rule, thus PRC rule is, too, alien to the island. In fact, throughout its entire history, the PRC has never possessed jurisdiction over Taiwan. Regardless, Beijing views itself as the ROC’s successor, and thus heir to all of its territory and roles in international organizations, including Taiwan. How the rest of the world views and deals with Taiwan reflects Beijing’s interests rather than Taiwanese interests and global stature, thus distorting the reality of the situation.^[37]

Paramount to the PRC is how this issue should be resolved, as anything seen as failure could decentralize the centralized state. If Beijing were to agree to on Taiwan “leaving” China and becoming a sovereign state, it would be tantamount to the PRC, a tightly controlled nation, admitting failure. It would also leave the CCP vulnerable to losing its grip on the nation and to internal rebellion. Within the PRC, relinquishing Taiwan would be akin to failing to “protect the territorial integrity of China,” an essential responsibility of the Chinese government. A political leader doing so would be career-ending and almost certainly lead to political exile.^[38]

Fortunately, the Chinese perspective has a very different outlook regarding time as compared to the American perspective, its main rival. American leaders tend to view events with a more short-term and urgent lens due to presidential elections occurring every four years, thus necessitating the need for progress in order to remain in office. On the other hand, Chinese leaders view events with a far longer-term perspective, especially as its rule is not subject to popular elections like the Americans. Therefore, they are far more willing to wait for things to resolve themselves and operate under the belief that Taiwan will eventually come back to them.^[39]When KMT forces initially fled to Taiwan, Mao and his forces lacked the military capacity to take Taiwan back.^[40]Additionally, Beijing believed that were an independence movement to gain traction, Chiang Kai-shek would take the appropriate steps to immediately subdue it.^[41]Consequently, the Chinese have since settled for a strategy of establishing a credible threat for which one day could justify invasion if necessary, and to focus on modernizing the nation and improving its global position. As Mao stated, “we can do without Taiwan for the time being, and let it come after one hundred years.”^[42]

What was more pressing is how the PRC could achieve its goal of restoring its international stature and pre-eminence in an era of globalization, where it has become almost impossible for one to isolate itself from the rest of the world. As the Cold War progressed and it became increasingly clear the Soviet Union was falling apart, the PRC’s primary focus shifted towards gaining superpower status and filling the void left by the Soviet Union, and this was the logic behind its diplomacy and foreign relations. For it to attain superpower status, it first had to focus on developing its economic strength, requiring decades to do so.^[43]

Modernizing the Chinese economy was no easy feat and included many missteps along the way, not allowing the PRC to dwell too much on the Taiwan issue, save for ensuring it did not declare independence and continue to isolate it diplomatically. If anything, over time, with Taiwan’s economic affluence, it becomes even more beneficial for the PRC to successfully reabsorb it, affording the PRC access to Taiwan’s economic and technological advances and their ability for use to aid the PRC’s own expansion.^[44]Under Mao, the PRC relied on a principle of self-reliance, leading to the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution to consolidate its power. Eventually, this thinking was discarded in favor of the “open door” policy initiated by Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, allowing China to open its doors to the rest of the world for foreign investment. Foreign capital and support were critical in China’s modernization and industrialization.^[45]

Similar to in Taipei, Beijing leaders thought that economic development had to be dealt with first, both for domestic and foreign policy reasons. Domestically, economic development would unite the Chinese population behind the Communist ideology. In terms of foreign policy implications, China’s international position and bilateral relations would be strengthened. While Beijing and Taipei may have shared similar goals around economic reform, they do not share similar values regarding political reform. Throughout China’s opening up to the world and implementation of economic reforms, it seemed to the rest of the world that China possessed the potential to follow Taiwan’s political path towards liberalization, in turn facilitating reunification and resolving the Taiwan issue. Yet, as the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre proved, while China might be willing to liberalize its economy, it was unwilling to tolerate any talk of democracy and decentralization.^[46]

In the aftermath of the Tiananmen crisis, China still worked to maintain friendly relations and economic ties with other nations to limit damage to its reputation. Simultaneously, the PRC worked to reimagine Taiwan as an enemy and splitist, in order to further isolate it diplomatically. Particularly after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, China felt even more pressured to reincorporate Taiwan. Otherwise, losing Taiwan could spur Tibet and Xinjiang to leave China as well, which could very well lead to the PRC’s own disintegration, and the loss of its emerging superpower status.^[47]

China has so strongly emphasized to the world the illegitimacy of Taiwan and the danger it poses to regional security in order to build the credibility needed if it ever carried out an invasion. It is important for it not to be seen as the aggressor to avoid any retaliation from other countries, yet still dangles the possibility of military invasion against Taiwan. However, it must be alarming as China today is positioned in a world where international law and norms evolve in a direction where humanitarian intervention is justification enough to intervene militarily, even if state sovereignty is acknowledged, as seen in the 1995 NATO intervention in the Bosnian War. Realistically, if Beijing were to invade Taipei, it would attract the intervention of other nations, particularly from Washington.^[48]

From a US perspective, Taiwan is an important ally in the region, yet its importance must also be considered in geostrategic terms. Maintaining a balance of people in the region has long been an essential interest and responsibility for America. The US is Taiwan’s most important and powerful ally, as Taiwan overwhelmingly depends on American support. Each time the US adjusts policy toward Taiwan, there is a palpable effect on both the Taiwanese leaders and the public.

When KMT forces initially fled to Taiwan in 1949, then-US President Harry Truman did not care to directly associate the US with Chiang Kai-shek’s regime by providing military support to aid it in the Chinese Civil War. However, this changed with the outbreak of the Korean War when Truman ordered the US Seventh Fleet to patrol the Taiwan Strait, asserting American global policing power and imposing the US military directly between the mainland and Taiwan to maintain peace between the PRC and ROC.^[49]

Over the course of the Korean War, the US saw the geostrategic importance in supporting the ROC, especially as the PRC entered the war on the enemy’s side in November 1950. Thus America resumed bilateral relations and provided Taiwan with economic and military support to guarantee its security. This was strongly influenced by strong anti-communist sentiments within the US, present within Truman’s successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower.^[50]While the ROC benefited from US support, the ROC provided the US with a regional ally to contain communism. As a promoter of democracy, the US saw it as its duty to contain the spread of communism, prevent Chinese aggression, and to maintain the balance of power in the region. 

The shift in the global political climate in the 1970s came at a time when the PRC was becoming a growing regional threat. Thus resulting in the ROC possessing more relevance to the US when considered mainly in the Sino-American context. Nixon’s visit to the mainland marked the beginning of a radical departure in American policy toward Taiwan, culminating in the de-recognition of the ROC as the sole representative of China, and the normalization of diplomatic relations with the PRC by the end of the decade. 

American de-recognition gave new meaning to Taiwan’s democratization in the international sphere, providing a basis for continued (unofficial) American support; the US saw in Taiwan a regional ally with shared values and a symbolic success of American democracy in Asia, exemplifying the benefits of its presence in the region. It also gave the KMT party in Taiwan continued motivation to continue the democratization process because they know that this shared bond would be crucial in continued US support, no matter its form.^[51]While it may have appeared that the US abandoned its ally by switching recognition to the PRC, it has openly supported the ROC and taken steps to ensure the survival of the island. When switching recognition, it simultaneously adopted the Taiwan Relations Act to ensure the continued security and survival of the Taiwanese people, unthreatened by PRC aggression.^[52]

However, Taiwan’s democratization put the US in a unique position where it is supportive of a democracy while simultaneously rejecting it officially in favor of a volatile, authoritarian regime as it has to consider its priorities in terms of geopolitical considerations. Additionally, the very democracy it supports is the direct cause of the increase in cross-Strait tensions. Thus, while democratization has strengthened US-ROC relations, it has also complicated them. Ideally, the PRC would follow Taiwan’s path and become a stable, liberal and democratized power. Realistically, however, it may be a while before that hope is realized.^[53]

Despite the switch in recognition, the US remains committed to defending Taiwan in the event of an unprovoked PRC invasion. Not only does the US protect Taiwan’s security and democracy, but it also protects the balance of power for the entire region. It is evident that were it not for the American protection of Taiwan, China would handily try to invade not only for reunification purposes but to assert its power and influence. Were it not for the threat of PRC aggression, the US may have never inserted itself into the situation and it would truly have been the domestic issue that the PRC has viewed it as all along. From an American perspective, Taiwan is certainly closely tied with China in terms of culture, history, and geography.^[54] Its issue is how readily the PRC is to use force to attain its goals.

Throughout the ROC’s existence in Taiwan, America has reinterpreted their relationship numerous times, whether it be a strategic island worth defending against mainland aggression and to maintain a regional presence, to being part of the larger Cold War battleground. America’s involvement in Taiwan has enlarged the Chinese Civil War to that of a global scale. 

While the PRC and the US both claim a stake in the direction of Taiwan’s future, the reality is that neither can have its way entirely, and accommodations must be made. When placed into the larger global context, the reality is that Taiwan’s future is determined by the nature of the Sino-American relationship and ever-evolving balance of international power. Furthermore, the reality is that Beijing has evolved greatly since the beginning of the Chinese Civil War into a global superpower that acts as a geostrategic rival to the US.

As Taiwan so crucially determines the state of Sino-American relations, the US has learned to deal with the Taiwan so as to minimally provoke the mainland and and ensure stability for Sino-American relations. Whereas the US emerged from World War II and the Cold War as a dominant global superpower, China has increasingly stepped up as a replacement superpower for the dissolved Soviet Union to challenge the US and ensure the world is not unipolar. Accordingly, the PRC has also had to make accommodations to the US leading to a stalemate regarding Taiwan. It is to Taiwan’s great misfortune that it has found itself in the middle of this situation, with seemingly no end in sight.

Within the context of the Cold War between the Americans and Soviets, the US thought that the Soviets would be more responsive and cooperative to negotiations had they heard of an establishment of Sino-American diplomatic. From its perspective, the potential US-PRC relationship was also framed within the global Cold War context. Accounting for their mutual fear of the Soviet Union, American leadership assumed that their relationship would be an alliance of convenience.^[55]

What the US never fully realized was how important the PRC viewed the issue of Taiwan. To the PRC, Taiwan was not one of several issues that obstructed a direct US-PRC relationship, but the most crucial issue, and one that had be resolved (in the PRC’s favor) before a relationship could be established. To the Chinese, it was as important to them as the USSR was to the Americans. As Chinese Communist mouthpiece, People’s Dailyestablished, Taiwan “has been China’s sacred territory since ancient times,” indicating that losing Taiwan would add to China’s humiliation at the hands of the Western imperialists, particularly after they had already once lost Taiwan to Japan in 1895.^[56]

Therefore, the Chinese have refused to waver on the Taiwan issue, demanding the “principle” be resolved before normalization of relations could be discussed. Prior to the establishment of direct US-PRC contact, this message was sent through indirect channels. During the “Warsaw Talks” in 1970, Chinese diplomats repeated those demands, claiming it was their “oft-stated ‘principled position’ that Taiwan was the crucial issue preventing an improvement in the US-PRC relationship,” but left it up to the Americans to “create the conditions” to resolve the issue. Furthermore, in a later message delivered to the US by Romania, China reiterated its position, demanding the US withdraw its forces from Taiwan. From a Chinese perspective, if the Americans could not make this conciliatory gesture, it signaled a reluctance to build a relationship with them.^[57]

However, as time went on and direct US-PRC contact was established, the PRC demonstrated an ability to be flexible if a “common basis in principle can be found,” particularly regarding the “timing with which a commitment to principle is given concrete expression.” While the US continually tried to broaden the discussion to a number of topics, the PRC continually insisted on Taiwan being the priority.^[58] 

Both Kissinger and Nixon repeatedly reassured the Chinese, through their Premier Zhou Enlai, that they would not support an independence movement in Taiwan. Yet, Zhou was not entirely convinced about their stance, especially coming from a proclaimer of global democracy and from America’s historical willingness to support self-determination. At this point, Nixon had determined that while America did support democratization, for the sake of geostrategic stability, Taiwan could not stand in the way of his rapprochement with the PRC. In the end, “we have to do what’s best for us.”^[59]Evidently, this sufficed for the Chinese. While America refused to have the withdrawal of support from Taiwan be a precondition for their meeting, its reassurance about not supporting a Taiwanese independence movement was commitment enough in the meantime for the Chinese.^[60]

Both the Americans and Chinese had so much at stake in their discussions that both were prepared to compromise, and Taiwan, for the most part, was pushed aside in favor of developing Sino-American relations. The Chinese came to accept that the US would not leave Taiwan alone overnight, but the American concession of withdrawing part of its troops, especially after peace had been brokered in Vietnam, had Mao exclaiming that the US was evolving. China’s position on the resolution of the Taiwan issue changed from being a precondition for the establishment of direct US-PRC relations, to one that could proceed in parallel to the normalization of relations. China’s concessions were made with the understanding that America’s Taiwan policy would eventually evolve. Behind the scenes, the Americans promised that further progress regarding Taiwan’s resolution “within the framework of one China” and full restoration of diplomatic relations with the PRC was to come after Nixon’s re-election.^[61]Unlike the Chinese who were willing to wait, American officials had to think in terms of election cycles. What they did not consider, was the change in power that was to come in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.^[62]As a result, the Chinese held Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, at arm’s length over the normalization process until progress was made on the Taiwan issue.^[63]

The PRC was also placated by the issuance of the joint 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, where the US, carefully with its wording, “acknowledged” that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.”^[64]It was the issue of Taiwan that nearly prevented the communiqué from being issued at all. With this communiqué, America was publicly changing its policy towards China, which is inseparable from its Taiwan policy. Washington was extremely careful to avoid using the word “recognize,” which would have implied that it accepted Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.^[65]While US policy was drastically changing, it could not go so as far as to publicly abandon Taiwan altogether. Not only would this have been unpopular for Nixon domestically, it would have also damaged America’s global reputation and its relationship with allies.^[66]The issue that prevented further progress, as Kissinger articulated to Zhou, is that the Chinese sought “clarity, and I am trying to achieve ambiguity.”^[67]

Unfortunately for the Taiwanese, the KMT government were woefully unprepared for the possibility that American allegiance would shift from it to the mainland. Stubbornly, Chiang Kai-shek refused to consider any alternative possibility that would allow the ROC and PRC to coexist peacefully, stating “there is no room for patriots and traitors to live together,” and assumed that the US would defend Taiwan and its interests always.^[68]If independence had been a path the KMT wanted to pursue initially in the 1950s and 1960s, perhaps the US might have gone along with it, and with the US, much of the international community as well.^[69]But by the 1970s, any possibility of pursuing this path was gone. It had not occurred to the KMT that the very same leaders that recognized Taiwan’s importance early on within the context of the early Cold War and the Korean War were being replaced by a new generation of leaders that were less affected by those events, and gone with it was Taiwan’s importance over China.^[70]

The diplomatic isolation that Taiwan faced in the aftermath of derecognition and the change in US policy to favor China over it did not necessarily mean Taiwan was completely shunned by the rest of the world. Like America, most of the rest of the world used ambiguous language to accommodate China’s imposition of the “one-China policy,” which forced countries to recognize either Taipei or Beijing. However, Taiwan’s democratic consolidation, a rare occurrence in Asia, has made the island stand out and gain substantial diplomatic strength among the world’s key powers, many of whom are democracies as well.^[71]As democratization occurred and a separate Taiwanese identity emerged, long-standing assumptions about its eventual reunification with the mainland became collapsed. However, due to the geopolitical constraints Taiwan finds itself in, it is unable to experience the benefits of democracy. It is especially disappointing that in the era dubbed the Third Wave of Democratization, a democratic Taiwan is not treated as a real nation diplomatically and is only treated so in terms of economic matters by all of the key democracies. Despite their shared democratic values, they chose the authoritarian CCP regime and accepted the CCP discourse that Taiwan was the “troublemaker.”^[72]Evidently, what matters more is Beijing’s superpower status, essentially giving it veto power over Taiwan’s international status.^[73]  

The tense stalemate Taiwan presents to US-PRC relations as a result of its democratization continues today, and leaves Taiwan unable to move closer to legal independence and autonomy due to the PRC threat despite already functioning as a de facto independent state. Although the PRC continually threatens military invasion and the US has committed to defending Taiwan under circumstances, at the moment, it would be a war that neither side wants. To Beijing, American support of Taiwan is the single largest obstruction to a stable US-PRC relationship, and raises suspicions about American goals in the region beyond maintaining peace. Reunification is a fundamental national interest, and a battle they cannot lose. Yet, the Americans have long had a vested interest in Taiwan’s history since the days of Chiang Kai-shek, and Taiwan’s democratization has been “a shining example of successful American internationalism,” and encapsulated its hopes for China to liberalize in the long-run.^[74]Additionally, to both parties, Taiwan is important in maintaining the regional stability and balance of power. Thus, Taiwan is caught up between the two powers and is the core reason Sino-American relations are not better, and why compromise between the two superpowers are so difficult.^[75]

While Beijing is willing to wait, if the improvement of cross-Strait economic ties as seen in the twenty-first century does not draw the Taiwanese back towards the mainland, the only option left is the threat of force. Unless dramatic changes occur within Beijing’s leadership, its structure, and its ideology, it will continue to dwell on the Taiwan issue, which also motivates retaliatory behavior on its part on other fronts.^[76]America’s hopes for the PRC to liberalize as the ROC did is unlikely to happen anytime soon. While the PRC under the reform-minded Deng may have given hope to the outside world of it liberalizing, the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre more than illustrated that reforms were to be strictly limited to economic reform. Furthermore, China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, has taken steps in recent years to consolidate and centralize his and his party’s powers. Significantly, in 2018, he took the steps and successfully abolished the two-term limit on China’s (and his own) presidency and declined to name a successor. This signals Xi’s intention to remain in power, without opposition nor rivals, for potentially the rest of his lifetime, if not for a significant period of time.^[77]

China under Xi has experienced a growing sense of self-regard, and brags that global problems cannot be solved without it, especially given its veto power on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). For example, it used its veto vote in 1999 to prevent the continuation of the UN peacekeeping mandate in Macedonia, in retaliation for Macedonia establishing diplomatic ties with Taiwan.^[78]While China is still largely guided by the geopolitical realities of the world, it has grown increasingly assertive in its pursuit of regional hegemony in recent years. Traditionally, this would clash with the American need to maintain a balance of power. However, under the current baffling Trump presidency, there is no telling what could happen.

At least for the foreseeable future, the mainland will continue to deny the legitimacy of Taiwan as a sovereign state, leading to a denial of Taiwanese sovereignty by the rest of the world. Its failure for recognized lies not in its democratization’s rejection by the international community, but in external, international factors beyond Taiwan’s control such as the shift in the international power and the role of Taiwan in the context of Sino-American relations. 

As long as Beijing maintains its hegemonic position and its Chinese Civil War-era mentality, peace is unlikely to come to both the region, and to Taiwan. Without the recognition of Taiwan’s sovereignty, its survival as an autonomous nation in the long run cannot be guaranteed. While its democratization has allowed Taiwan to maintain substantial commercial and economic relations with much of the world and given Taiwan legitimacy in the eyes of key democracies, it falls short of full bilateral diplomatic ties. While China still hopes Taiwan will return to the mainland, the DPP’s success in the 2016 election reflects otherwise. For now, Taiwan’s democratization leaves its status in the crossfire of ongoing geostrategic stalemate between the US and the PRC and as an unsettled issue because no one is willing to compromise; from Taiwan’s perspective, “it is neither independent nor is a part of China.”^[79]

^[1]Collinson, Stephen, Nicole Gaouette, Elise Labott, and Laura Smith-Spark. “China Lodges Complaint over Trump-Taiwan Call.” CNN. December 04, 2016. Accessed April 08, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/donald-trump-taiwan/.

^[2]Ibid.

^[3]Shelley Rigger. 2011. Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 63-65.

^[4]Hung-mao Tien. 1989. The Great Transition: Political and Social Change in the Republic of China. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 217.

^[5]Rigger, 64-65.

^[6]Denny Roy. 2003. Taiwan: A Political History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 103-104.

^[7]Rigger, 64.

^[8]Rigger, 63-65.

^[9]Ibid, 66.

^[10]Ibid, 64-68.

^[11]Roy, 103-104.

^[12]Rigger, 69-70.

^[13]Thomas Omestad. “Taiwan Democracy’s Next Step.” New York Times (1923-Current File), Jan 18, 1988. http://myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/110599379?accountid=14771(accessed February 13, 2019).

^[14]Rigger, 69-70.

^[15]Margaret MacMillan. 2006. Nixon in China: The Week that Changed the World. Toronto: Viking Canada, 292-311.

^[16]Ibid, 289-291.

^[17]Ibid, 291.

^[18]Ibid, 289-291.

^[19]Telegram to AIT Washington D.C. from AIT Taipei. “Taiwan’s International Position.” 23 Oct. 1989. Found U.S. State Department Freedom of Information Act site.

^[20]Rigger, 70.

^[21]“Taiwan Loosens the Reins.” New York Times, Jul 18, 1987, Late Edition (East Coast). http://myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/426555201?accountid=14771.

^[22]Ibid.

^[23]Yun-han Chu and Hyug Baeg Im. “The Two Turnovers in South Korea and Taiwan.” In Democracy in East Asia: A New Century. 2013, ed. Larry Jay Diamond. 2nd edition. ed. Baltimore : John Hopkins University Press, 108-109.

^[24]Tien, 216-217.

^[25]Ibid, 1.

^[26]Ibid, 216-217.

^[27]Teng-hui Lee. 1999. The Road to Democracy: Taiwan’s Pursuit of Identity. Tokyo: PHP Institute, Inc, 60.

^[28]Roy, 225-226.

^[29]Lee, 62-63.

^[30]Robyn Lim. “Taiwan and Asia-Pacific Security.” In Taiwan’s Security in the Post-Deng Xiaoping Era, edited by Martin L. Lasater and Peter Kien-ong Yu. London: Portland, OR, 2000, 98.

^[31]Lee, 126.

^[32]Edward Friedman. “Chineseness and Taiwan’s Democratization.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 16 (2009). http://www.jstor.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/44289294, 61.

^[33]Lee, 197-199.

^[34]Roy, 225-226.

^[35]Ibid.

^[36]“Tsai Ing-wen Elected Taiwan’s First Female President.” BBC News. January 17, 2016. Accessed April 08, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35333647.

^[37]Friedman, 58.

^[38]Roy, 241-242.

^[39]Richard H. Solomon. Report on “Chinese Political Negotiating Behavior, 1967-1984.” December 1985. Found on U.S. State Department Freedom of Information Act site, 124-125.

^[40]Lim, 95.

^[41]MacMillan, 247.

^[42]Solomon, 124.

^[43]Telegram to White House Washington D.C. from American Embassy Beijing. “Looking Forward: Your Return to China.” 13 Feb. 1989. Found U.S. State Department Freedom of Information Act site.

^[44]Friedman, 61.

^[45]Maurice J. Meisner. 1986. Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic, 471.

^[46]Lim, 98.

^[47]Friedman, 61.

^[48]Lim, 113-115.

^[49]Tien, 228-230.

^[50]Ibid, 230-232.

^[51]Jocelyn Coffin. “Rhetoric and Reality: Taiwan’s Democratization and Its Effects on US-Taiwan Relations.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 24, no. 1 (2017) http://www.jstor.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/44439663, 2-3.

^[52]Lee, 129.

^[53]Ibid, 131.

^[54]Lasater, 287.

^[55]MacMillan, 239-240.

^[56]Ibid, 240.

^[57]Solomon, 32.

^[58]Ibid, 37.

^[59]MacMillan, 249.

^[60]Ibid, 247-249.

^[61]Ibid, 250.

^[62]Ibid, 248-251.

^[63]Solomon, 17.

^[64]Ibid, 89.

^[65]Ibid.

^[66]MacMillan, 295-296.

^[67]Ibid, 252.

^[68]Ibid, 288-289.

^[69]Tien, 232.

^[70]MacMillan, 288-289.

^[71]J. Bruce Jacobs (2018) Myth and Reality in Taiwan’s Democratisation, Asian Studies Review, DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2018.1543253, 2.

^[72]Friedman, 59.

^[73]Ibid, 63.

^[74]Roy, 243.

^[75]Ibid. 

^[76]Ibid, 243-244.

^[77]Chris Buckley and Adam Wu. “Ending Term Limits for China’s Xi is a Big Deal. Here’s Why.” New York Times, Mar 10, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-term-limit-explainer.html.

^[78]Lim, 102.

^[79]MacMillan, 326.

Bibliography:

Buckley, Chris and Adam Wu. “Ending Term Limits for China’s Xi is a Big Deal. Here’s             Why.”New York Times, Mar 10, 2018.             https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-term-limit-         explainer.html.

Chu, Yun-han and Hyug Baeg Im. “The Two Turnovers in South Korea and Taiwan.” In Democracy in East Asia: A New Century. 2013, ed. Larry Jay Diamond. 2nd edition.        ed. Baltimore : John Hopkins University Press.

Coffin, Jocelyn. “Rhetoric and Reality: Taiwan’s Democratization and Its Effects on US-  Taiwan Relations.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 24, no. 1 (2017): 1-12.           http://www.jstor.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/44439663.

Collinson, Stephen, Nicole Gaouette, Elise Labott, and Laura Smith-Spark. “China Lodges          Complaint over Trump-Taiwan Call.” CNN. December 04, 2016. Accessed April 08,        2019. https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/donald-trump-taiwan/.

Friedman, Edward. “Chineseness and Taiwan’s Democratization.” American Journal of    Chinese Studies 16 (2009): 57-67.             http://www.jstor.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/44289294.

Jacobs, J. Bruce. “Myth and Reality in Taiwan’s Democratisation.” Asia Studies Review  (2018): 1-14. DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2018.1543253

Lasater, Martin L., and Peter Kien-hong Yu. 2000. Taiwan’s Security in the Post-Deng     Xiaoping Era. London: Portland, OR.

Lee, Teng-hui. 1999. The Road to Democracy: Taiwan’s Pursuit of Identity. Tokyo: PHP Institute, Inc.

MacMillan, Margaret. 2006. Nixon in China: The Week that Changed the World. Toronto:           Viking Canada.

Meisner, Maurice J. 1986. Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic.

Omstead, Thomas. “Taiwan Democracy’s Next Step.” New York Times (1923-Current     File), Jan 18, 1988. http://myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/login?url=https://search-             proquest-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/110599379?accountid=14771       (accessed February 13, 2019).

Rigger, Shelley. 2011. Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse. Lanham:             Rowman & Littlefield.

Roy, Denny. 2003. Taiwan: A Political History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Solomon, Richard H. Report on “Chinese Political Negotiating Behavior, 1967-1984.”     December 1985. Found on U.S. State Department Freedom of Information Act site.

“Taiwan Loosens the Reins.” New York Times, Jul 18, 1987, Late Edition (East Coast).     http://myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-    com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/426555201?accountid=14771.

Telegram to AIT Washington D.C. from AIT Taipei. “Taiwan’s International Position.” 23          Oct. 1989. Found U.S. State Department Freedom of Information Act site.

Telegram to White House Washington D.C. from American Embassy Beijing. “Looking Forward: Your Return to China.” 13 Feb. 1989. Found U.S. State Department            Freedom of Information Act site.

Tien, Hung-mao. 1989. The Great Transition: Political and Social Change in the Republic of      China. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University.

“Tsai Ing-wen Elected Taiwan’s First Female President.” BBC News. January 17, 2016.    Accessed April 08, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35333647.

Written by Anna Lipscomb

Abstract:

Cuisine is an integral part of a nation’s culture and identity, as it captures the essence of its history, traditions, and values. In an era of increasing movement, globalization, and technology, food can be easily shared with others across the world, giving rise to “gastrodiplomacy” as an increasingly popular cultural diplomacy tool used by states to promote nation-building and nation-branding. However, it remains a relatively understudied topic in academia. This paper analyzes three case studies of gastrodiplomacy efforts in Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan in order to answer the following question: How do gastrodiplomacy efforts by these three Asian countries compare and contrast to one another? While gastrodiplomacy is typically associated with cultural diplomacy, this paper finds that effective implementation and levels of success are heavily influenced by domestic and international interests, as well as political and social conditions of a nation. It argues that while South Korea and Taiwan attempt to replicate Thailand’s relatively successful gastrodiplomacy campaign, they face obstacles such as lack of public support and political controversies. Ultimately, these challenges encourage new approaches to gastrodiplomacy, as countries attempt to redefine their gastrodiplomacy efforts.

Introduction

In February 2002, The Economist coined the term “gastrodiplomacy” to describe a new effort by the government of Thailand to promote Thai cuisine across the globe, marking the start of state-sponsored food promotion campaigns which scholars such as Paul Rockower have sought to explain. Paul Rockower describes gastrodiplomacy as “winning the hearts and minds through stomachs.”[1] Other scholars including Mary Jo Pham have expanded on this definition, adding that gastrodiplomacy is a “government’s practice of exporting its national culinary heritage as part of a public diplomacy effort to raise national brand awareness, encourage economic investment and trade, and engage on a cultural and personal level with everyday diners.”[2] While the state is the primary actor in gastrodiplomacy, private organizations, businesses, and people are also relevant to the discussion.

The state refers to the government which is frequently initiating, directing, and funding gastrodiplomacy efforts. Private organizations and businesses include restaurant owners and food brands who promote food and gastrodiplomacy activities. In some countries such as South Korea, the government and private sector may have a close relationship. During the Lee Myung-bak administration, which was “self-proclaimed pro-business,” the South Korean government sought to collaborate more closely with the private sector as it undertook its globalization efforts.[3] The “people” refer to domestic and foreign publics. The domestic public includes citizens whose support and public opinion may sway government actions and hold decision makers accountable. The foreign public is the receiving party of another country’s cuisine.

First, this paper will provide an overview of states’ domestic and international rationale for participating in gastrodiplomacy. Then, it will compare and contrast gastrodiplomacy campaigns in Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan by providing background, explaining implementation, and analyzing the outcomes. Thailand’s campaign is relatively successful and viewed as a model of gastrodiplomacy, while South Korea and Taiwan attempted to follow its footsteps but have fallen short.

Previous research analyzes gastrodiplomacy campaign execution through either a large cross-comparison, as done by Juyuan Zhang, or a focused study on an individual country such as Paul Rockower and Mary Jo Pham. Zhang examines the branding themes and message appeals of gastrodiplomacy campaigns in Japan, Malaysia, Peru, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand and finds that each presents its respective cuisine as healthy, exotic, and natural.[4] Rockower discusses the function of national cuisine as a “niche” area for middle powers to promote its values, as well as specific efforts that Taiwan has undertaken to follow Thailand’s gastrodiplomacy model.[5]^,[6] Mary Jo Pham explains the benefits of the South Korean gastrodiplomacy campaign in spreading its national brand and encouraging investment and tourism.[7]

However, few studies take into account the broader, unique socio-political conditions and controversies that exist in each country that may have influenced the success of the campaigns. Socio-political conditions and controversies will refer to the current social and political factors that influence effective policymaking and implementation. In many cases, these current factors are influenced by a nation’s history. For example, Thailand was chosen as a case given the global attention and recognition it has received from global audiences for its gastrodiplomacy campaign, serving as a backdrop for future gastrodiplomacy campaigns in Asia. However, it is important to note that the inception of this campaign was influenced by socio-political motivations that will be explored further in this paper. From a historical perspective, Thailand has never been colonized by a Western power; it was invaded by Japan in 1941 but entered into an alliance and did not become a colony of the Japanese empire.[8] Thailand was previously a constitutional monarchy but now has an interim military-affiliated government following a 2014 military coup.[9] South Korea and Taiwan were selected because they initiated their gastrodiplomacy campaigns within two years of each other— in 2008 and 2010, respectively. They also share additional similarities with each other: both are former colonies of Japan, are semi-presidential (Taiwan) or presidential republics (South Korea), and are recognized as “East Asian Tiger” economies for their rapid economic growth and increased standards of living.[10]^,[11] All three countries may be categorized as middle powers. Rockower describes middle powers as neither great nor small powers, but “face the fundamental challenge of recognition in that global publics are either unaware of them, or hold negative opinions – thus requiring the need to secure global attention.”[12] The previously mentioned similarities are intended to highlight areas in which South Korea and Taiwan, and to a certain extent, Thailand, might share common ground and experiences that shape the way they perceive their position relative to others in the international sphere. However, they still face unique challenges that influence their diplomacy choices.

This paper provides a broader perspective than just a single country but also allows more in-depth analysis on each campaign than Zhang’s six-country approach. Her approach focused primarily on multiple countries’ marketing strategies and overlooked the broader socio-political conditions that influenced such strategies. The paper will also synthesize these three cases together and look for common themes as well as unique challenges. Finally, this paper will conclude with the lessons and implications from each of these cases.

Why Gastrodiplomacy?

Since a nation’s cuisine is being promoted to foreign audiences, gastrodiplomacy may seem to be a predominately outward-looking practice. There is, however, also a strong domestic component. Pham’s definition of gastrodiplomacy specifically focuses on governments’ role in promoting culinary heritage as public diplomacy abroad, but states must also convince private actors and citizens within a country of the value of gastrodiplomacy and the notion of a unified national cuisine. In an age of globalization, cuisine represents historic identities and associations between food, places, and people at national, regional, and local levels.[13] As a result, cuisine is a unifying factor that reflects a country’s nostalgia for its past and its government’s national attempts at identity-building in the present. However, national cuisine may also be a dividing force, as a gastrodiplomacy campaign may promote just one image of “authentic” cuisine. Nevertheless, gastrodiplomacy can still evoke a sense of national pride and unity around food. For example, South Korea’s Global Hansik campaign intentionally portrays Korean cuisine in a selective, nostalgic light, reminding Koreans of a time before industrialization and modernity.[14] Promoting Korean cuisine abroad is reflective of the promotion of a constructed Korean identity at home.

Gastrodiplomacy also benefits a nation’s domestic economy, especially its tourism industry. Prospective tourists are exposed to other nations’ cuisines at restaurants in their home countries. Their dining experiences can foster a positive association between the cuisine and the culture it represents, thus driving consumers’ desires to visit those places.[15] The official tourism websites of Thailand (tourismthailand.org), South Korea (english.visitkorea.or.kr), and Taiwan’s official tourism (eng.taiwan.net.tw) all feature easy-to-navigate information about food tours and food information. As of December 2018, The Tourism Authority of Thailand provides a tool for users to search for recommended restaurants based on “lifestyle” (street food, all you can eat, romantic dining, and Michelin), category (containing specific preferences such as waterfronts, gay-friendly, or budget restaurants), cuisine, destination, price, and tourism standards (such as Halal), and keywords.[16] It also features two structured food tours called “Chiang Mai Cafe Hopping” and “Famous Bites in Bangkok Old Town.” Meanwhile, the Korea Tourism Organization dedicates an entire tab to “Food” with an introduction to Korean food, what and where to eat, how to cook, recommended food columns, and dining for vegans, vegetarians, and halal customers.[17] Finally, as of December 2018, the Taiwan Tourism Bureau features similar information on Taiwanese cuisine (gourmet guide, snack guide, local specialities, and Taiwan’s Michelin restaurants), as well as planned snack/night market/food tours in cities such as Lugang, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Keelung, Hsinchu, Taichung).[18]

The structures of these three websites reveal differing motivations. Instead of limiting them, the Thai site expands the options that tourists have available to them in terms of food. The Korean site, on the other hand, is more focused on educating people on Korean food. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese site seems to be a mix of both with information on Taiwanese food culture and planned activities to experience Taiwanese cuisine in Taiwan.

Since gastrodiplomacy focuses on building a nation’s image through the spread of its cuisine, it fits under the broader notion of “cultural diplomacy,” which is the cultural exchange among different nations and peoples in order to promote better understanding of one anothers’ similarities and differences.[19] Gastrodiplomacy fulfills this purpose because people in all countries can relate to cuisine even though cuisines may vary from one place to another. For example, Korean food may seem foreign to an American audience, but gastrodiplomacy can lead foreigners to develop an appreciation for it when they learn more about it. The use of cultural diplomacy to advance state interests is particularly useful and expected behavior of middle power states. According to Mary Jo Pham, gastrodiplomacy allows middle powers, such as South Korea, to distinguish themselves in the eyes of foreign consumers by creating a “positive” and “palatable” image of their national brand.[20] Paul Rockower echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that gastrodiplomacy provides an opportunity for under-recognized, middle power nations to increase their cultural visibility and enhance their national brand.[21] Cultural visibility is particularly significant to the case of Taiwan because it lacks diplomatic recognition from most countries.

Investing in food promotion abroad offers an opportunity for nations to spread awareness of their cuisines as well as meet a rising demand and growing international market. Studies show that Millennials spend 44% of their food dollars on eating away from home, meaning that gastrodiplomacy can access this generation and their spending power.[22] Furthermore, the Strategy for Globalization of Korean Food (Plan) by the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries reports that in 2009, the global food market was worth $438 billion, which is more than both the automobile and IT service industries.[23] As a result, gastrodiplomacy campaigns create an incentive to not only spread culture globally but also tap into the booming food industry.

Finally, developing a national, cultural brand allows nations to empower their diasporic and ethnic communities abroad who may help fulfill gastrodiplomacy objectives or unite around a shared national cuisine. When the South Korean government implemented its gastrodiplomacy campaign, members of the Korean diaspora community were also opening restaurants and developing Korean food (such as Korean fusion) abroad.[24] Engaging diasporic communities and national cuisine abroad also contribute to economic growth, as restaurants and chefs abroad purchase specific ingredients for their dishes.[25]

Case 1: Thailand – First Model of Gastrodiplomacy

In the discourse of gastrodiplomacy in Asia, Thailand serves as one of the earliest examples and as an ideal case study due to its relatively successful promotion of its cuisine abroad from the early 2000s through the present.

Origins of the Thailand’s Gastrodiplomacy Campaign

Thailand’s gastrodiplomacy began in early 2001 as part of a Thai government’s effort to brand Thailand as the “Kitchen to the World” and “The food basket of Asia.”[26] At the time, there were only around 5,500 Thai restaurants abroad, but this plan sought to increase the number to 8,000 restaurants by 2003.[27] Under the name of the “Global Thai Campaign,” this gastrodiplomacy campaign was just one of multiple national projects related to food, fashion, health, culture, and tourism aimed to create a positive image of Thailand abroad and draw attention away from negative stereotypes associated with Thailand’s sex tourism.[28] Therefore, the Global Thai Campaign is placed in a political, post-colonial context, in conjunction with other culture-promoting initiatives, to change Thailand’s image abroad and market itself as an ideal travel destination and unique culture. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, and Ministry of Labor were among the government ministries involved in the implementation of the campaign.[29]^,[30]

Execution of Thailand’s Gastrodiplomacy Campaign

Thai gastrodiplomacy has been implemented in multiple ways, however, one theme has remained consistent: the role of the Thai government in conceptualizing and enforcing its campaign abroad. Multiple groups in Thailand were involved in the implementation including the Export Promotion Bureau, Ministry of Commerce, media and advertising organizations, as well as finance and education support.[31] First, it created “Thai Select”, which certifies overseas Thai restaurants as “authentic” and of “high quality” based on inspections and criteria such as being open for at least a year, operating at least five days a week, being certified by Visa or American Express credit card companies, employing Thai chefs with Thai cooking backgrounds, using materials and equipment from Thailand, and offering at least six Thai dishes on the menu.[32] These standards reveal the government priorities regarding Thai restaurants— to be operational and accessible, convenient for foreign audiences (who may prefer to use credit card payments), and “Thai” in its employee demographics, educational backgrounds, methods, and food offerings. This gives the Thai government more control over the image and quality that restaurants abroad are projecting and ensures that the restaurants receiving government funding and loans align with the image of Thailand that the government hopes to project. Likewise, it also helps promote standardization and consistency across Thai restaurants.

Another method used by Thailand to promote its food abroad is by training Thai chefs to work abroad, which had been supported by special visa arrangements with other countries so chefs could get work visas. For example, New Zealand has a special visa issued specifically to chefs from Thailand to promote Thai food. The “Thai Chefs Work Visa” allows Thai citizens who are also qualified, experienced Thai chefs to work in New Zealand for up to 3 years and are eligible for a one year extension.[33] The Thai Chefs Work Visa is a sharp contrast to the visa process in other countries such as the United States, where there is not a specific visa for chefs – let alone from Thailand— and can vary depending on the nature of the job. Efforts by the Thai government to facilitate training and sending chefs abroad not only allow Thai citizens to experience another culture, but it also provides opportunities for those who may have received culinary training from government programs to go abroad and spread Thai cuisine.

Results of Thailand’s Gastrodiplomacy Campaign

Overall, Thailand’s gastrodiplomacy campaign is highly-regarded for its ability to increase the number of Thai restaurants abroad from around 5,500 in 2001 to over 13,000 in 2008.[34] According to Sarunya Lertputtarak, this increased presence of Thai food and culture abroad can provide a good cultural experience by foreigners and increase tourists’ intentions to visit or revisit Thailand.[35] Likewise, through interactions between tourists and restaurant owners, Thai restaurants positioned themselves as spaces to teach Thai culture and treat customers in a polite, friendly manner that increased customer satisfaction towards Thailand and Thai food.[36] This success has inspired other nations to use national cuisine to advance their interests, while also spurring broader, deeper engagement via gastrodiplomacy between Thailand and other countries.

Even though Thai gastrodiplomacy began in 2001, it continues to be a priority today. In May 2018, the Bangkok Post reported that the ‘Kitchen of the World’ campaign is getting a reboot, citing the Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak’s speech at the Thaifex: World Food of Asia convention emphasizing the need to boost food exports and get Thai food products up to international safety and hygiene standards, as well as continue supporting Thai restaurants abroad.[37] The continued advancement of Thai cuisine abroad and increasing food exports can be observed in the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Thai missions abroad. Using the featured stories under “Social & Culture News” on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, multiple trends emerge that provide insight into Thailand’s gastrodiplomacy efforts.[38] Figure 1 in Appendix A shows a time-series graph of the number of articles published per month under this category of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand’s website, as well as a list of the articles found. Articles were selected based on keywords such as “food,” “gastronomy,” and “cuisine.”

From the period of January through December 2018, over 36 news releases contained keywords such as “food” and “gastronomy” in conjunction with events, festivals, and other activities related to Thai missions abroad. At the time of this research, only posts from 2018 could be retrieved on the site. Over half of them of them were published in the months of May (20%) and June (34%). Given that these two months are popular times for travel and tourism, it may suggest that Thailand is purposely promoting itself abroad in the early summer in order to appeal to prospective tourists abroad. The scope of these events range from the Thai Ambassador to Kuwait giving an interview on the TV program “With Ambassador” to introduce Thai dishes to the Kuwait audience to Thai night markets and street food in the United Arab Emirates.[39]^,[40] At least seven engagements were in collaboration with other countries or groups such as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the ASEAN Bazaar, held in the residence of the Thai ambassador in Buenos Aires or at the ASEAN Food and Culture Festival in Brasilia.[41]^,[42]

A majority of the recent efforts mentioned are not in the United States or Western European countries— many were instead in countries such as Brazil, Japan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Poland.[43] Given that the early campaign focused more on the United States and other Western countries, current activities suggest that the Thai government is broadening and deepening the scope of its gastrodiplomacy campaign beyond Western countries and restaurants to other nations. 

One factor that may have influenced this shift from Western to non-Western countries as a target of Thai gastrodiplomacy efforts are the worsening relations between Thailand and Western countries following Thailand’s 2014 military coup and resulting military government. On May 22, 2014, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement condeming the Thai military on the suspension of its constitution and seizure of government, expressing concerns for the detainment of senior political leaders, freedom of press, human rights, and democracy.[44] He also emphasized the negative implications that the coup will have for the U.S.-Thai relationship and relationship between the two militaries.[45] The Secretary-General of the United Nations also issued a statement expressing its concern for the situation in Thailand, urging parties to refrain from violence and preserve human rights.[46] Finally, the Council of the European Union issued its conclusions on Thailand, explaining that it has re-evaluated its engagement with Thailand, suspended official visits to and from Thailand, and refused to sign the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement until a democratically elected government is restsored.[47] The impact of this diplomatic fallout from the 2014 military coup in Thailand and establishment of a military government on Thai public diplomacy efforts warrant further attention in future studies.

Case 2: South Korea

Origins of South Korean gastrodiplomacy

Inspired by the success of Thailand and other gastrodiplomacy campaigns in the region, South Korea officially announced the Global Hansik[48] Campaign at the 2008 Korean Food Expo with the objective of promoting Korean food as a leading ethnic cuisine in the world by 2017.[49] In 2009, steps were taken to implement it with the Hansik Foundation Act and Hansik Globalization Development Agency, in which 36 members from government, academia, and food industry executives including former First Lady Kim Yoon-ok took part.[50] Similar to Thailand, South Korea’s gastrodiplomacy campaign was an intra-governmental effort but key ministries were the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.[51]^,[52]

Furthermore, the campaign was consistent with other political goals at the time such as former President Lee Myung-bak’s “Global Korea” strategy, which sought to forge closer ties between the government and the private sector, increase South Korean soft power abroad, and advertise South Korea as a global brand.[53] The Global Hansik campaign fits within the scope of Global Korea because it advances those goals as the private business expertise and activities assist in the execution of the Hansik campaign abroad.

South Korean gastrodiplomacy also serves as a means of nation-building and promoting a selective interpretation of the Korean identity. Royal court food from the Joseon dynasty was selected as the representative of Korean foodabroad due to its historical significance as traditional cuisine passed down over generations and containing ingredients from many parts of the country, as well as its ability to forge Korean nationalism by creating a refined image of a sophisticated, noble Korea.[54] Kim also asserts that using court food from the Joseon dynasty allows the South Korean government to bypass darker periods of Korean history such as Japanese colonial rule, American occupation, the Korean War, and the division of Korea and instead promote a more positive image.[55]

The Implementation of the Global Hansik Campaign

The Global Hansik campaign was implemented in a similar manner to that of Thailand. Like Thailand’s campaign, it focused on the health aspects of national cuisine. The South Korean government branded Korean food with the following characteristics: natural ingredients and recipes, health and well-being through organic, fermented, and environmentally-friendly food such as kimchi and soy sauce, and low calorie diet using mainly vegetables and seafood as opposed to meat.[56] Although meat-heavy Korean food such as Korean barbecue exist and are popular abroad, it seems that the South Korean government is instead choosing to focus the attention of the campaign on the healthier aspects of Korean food.

Like Thailand, South Korea has also hosted multiple overseas events to promote its cuisine. For example, in 2011, the Korean Food Foundation^[57] (now known as the Korean Food Promotion Institute) collaborated with nine NYC Korean restaurants to drive a food truck around New York City and give out free Korean lunches.[58] This event brought Korean food to new American audiences who might not otherwise try Korean food themselves. The Global Hansik campaign also created the “K-Food Supporters Alliance” which invites foreign university students in Korea to participate in food tastings, food tours, and other cultural events with the hope that they will return to their home countries and spread their knowledge of Korean food and culture.[59]

A defining characteristic of Korean gastrodiplomacy is that it capitalizes on the growing popularity of the Hallyu wave (Korean wave), which is responsible for the mass spread of Korean pop culture, music, and film/TV across the world and enhanced South Korea’s image as a culture producer and exporter.[60] Around the same time as the gastrodiplomacy campaign, the South Korean government also invested heavily in building up and exporting K-pop. In the 2013 fiscal year, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism allocated 319 billion won (USD $286.4 million) to support Hallyu assistance and grants, with 8.7 billion won (USD $7.8 million) specifically for promoting Hallyu, revealing the importance that the South Korean government places on Hallyu and K-pop.[61] Therefore, the Global Hansik campaign is in addition to the broader Korean wave that can benefit from the growing awareness of Korean culture as a result of Kpop.

For example, Hansik.org, the main website of the KFPI, features a ‘K-Food Collaboration Album’ of Korean food-themed music by Korean artists such as Jay Park, Electro Boyz and Big Star, Teen Top, and ZEA:A available for the public to download.[62] The site also has interviews and video clips with K-pop idols promoting food such as “Super Junior promotes Korean Bibimbap.”[63] Zhang refers to the use of local celebrities and figures as the “opinion leaders strategy.”[64] Drawing a connection between Korean entertainment and the government gastrodiplomacy campaign reveals government-business collaboration as government pays the Korean entertainment industry to use its global popularity and name brand recognition to help in the campaign.

Korean gastrodiplomacy and Hansik campaign is also reflected in Korean TV and film culture as well. An early example of using television to expose audiences to Korean food was the  2003 Korean drama “Jewel in the Palace” (Dae Jang Geum), which was exported to over 91 countries and showed traditional Korean cooking and culture.[65] More recent shows include Let’s Eat (Siksyareul Habsida) (2013) and Flower Boy Ramen Shop (Kkotminam Ramyeongage) (2011). Using tools such as social media and TV shows may prove to be an effective way to promote Korean cuisine abroad because it is creating interest “organically” through culture and the Hallyu wave rather than through state-sponsored efforts.[66] A study by Kim et al. found that Korean TV food dramas increase international viewers’ recognition of Korean food and Korean traditional culture and leads to an improved perception of South Korea’s national image after directly experiencing Korean food.[67] The Korea Tourism Organization has collaborated with notable chefs and Korean entertainment stars to develop food tours and combine Korean food culture with TV.[68] Packaging Korean food alongside Korean pop culture creates indirect associations between the two and can be another inspiration for foreigners to travel to Korea to try Korean food. While some of the celebrities featured may be top Korean chefs, many of them are not in the food industry but instead film, music, and TV stars who are not necessarily experts in Korean cuisine.

Gastrodiplomacy Results

Promoting Korean cuisine to the world with celebrity promotions and advanced cooking classes comes at a hefty price of nearly $1 billion.[69] Although the stated key objective at the start of the Global Hansik campaign was to raise Korean cuisine as among the top five ethnic cuisines in the world by 2017, determining whether the campaign met this is a challenge as critics argue it is unmeasurable. Financial Times correspondent Christian Oliver’s criticized the Hansik campaign for lacking breadth and argued that Korea is “seeking to quantify the unquantifiable” since no objective, official international ranking system exists to determine the most popular ethnic cuisines and whether South Korea is among them.[70] Without an effective method of measuring progress and achievement, the South Korean government is, in a sense, seeking to fulfill an unreachable goal, which could jeopardize the gastrodiplomacy campaign if the large amount of resources cannot be justified or defended politically.

While the impact of the campaign on the global scale is unclear, it still made an impact on a more local level. A survey by the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs found that the percentage of New Yorkers who were aware of Korean food increased from 24.2% in 2011 to about 64.3% in 2016.[71] It also found that more Korean restaurant franchises have opened up overseas, from 234 restaurants by 41 chains (2012) to 732 restaurants by 73 chains (2016).[72] While these numbers look promising, they do not reveal the inefficient allocation of time and resources associated with the project. The South Korean National Assembly Budget Office (NABO) reported that around 23 billion won (USD $20.65 million) had been spent on it, and that after the campaign was pushed, similar projects by different organizations arose, leading to inefficiency and a waste of funds.[73] The Global Hansik campaign cost the South Korean government a large amount of money that was being used ineffectively and only yielded limited results, which negatively influences domestic public opinion towards the project and makes it difficult to justify its costs for the continuation of gastrodiplomacy activities.

Finally, political controversy and corruption charges against South Korean politicians and business conglomerates have negatively impacted the image and effectiveness of the Global Hansik campaign as well. Although the campaign started under the Lee Myung-bak administration, it continued under Park Geun-hye. After she was arrested and jailed for corruption, others close to her were also investigated and charged including Cha Eun-taek, an influential figure in the Korean culture scene as an ad film director who had produced some content for the Hansik campaign.[74] These arrests, although not directly related to the Global Hansik campaign, created a negative public perception toward the Ministry of Culture and related departments. Former president Lee Myung-bak was also indicted for embezzlement and bribery, and former First Lady Kim Yoon-ok, who was a leading figure in the Hansik campaign, also faced investigation.[75] Given the large role that Lee and Kim played in promoting Korean globalization and the spread of Korean culture and cuisine abroad, these scandals exacerbate the criticisms of Korean gastrodiplomacy and overshadow its achievements.

Despite the controversies of its first campaign, South Korea shows signs of a re-launch of its Global Hansik campaign, with the appointment of Yoon Suk-ja as the new Chairperson of the Korean Food Promotion Institute in 2016. Before assuming this role, she already had a strong culinary profile from her experience as a teacher at multiple culinary institutes, involvement in overseas fairs and major summits, and success of her book, The Beauty of Korean Food: With 100 Best-Loved Recipes, which has been published in eight languages.[76] Among her priorities are standardizing the names of Korean dishes in major languages, promoting both traditional court food and more creative, “contemporary” foods, and educating Korean chefs who can be sent overseas.[77] The previous experience from the old campaign offer knowledge and lessons about global markets that can be useful. The 2009 Strategy for the Globalization of Korean Food found that some of the cultural factors and obstacles that Korean restaurants serving foreigners abroad faced included having an excessive number of side dishes, unsanitary communal utensils, communication difficulties, and the lack of images and explanations of items on the menu.[78]

Todd English, an American celebrity chef told The Korea Herald, “[The Global Hansik campaign] was too ethnic. It wasn’t fun. People (American consumers) didn’t understand it… It was too serious, you got Americans the wrong way.”[79] English explains that Korean food should market its health benefits and encourage more Korean fusion. Lee Chang-il, the deputy director of the Food Industry Promotion Division in the Ministry of Agriculture, says that “Korea should give its campaign to globalize its food more time to succeed” and assures that the government will continue to globalize Korean food and support the private sector in globalizing Korean food without telling it what to do.[80]

Case 3: Taiwan

Origins of the Taiwanese Gastrodiplomacy Effort

Inspired by the success of the Global Thai campaign, the Republic of China (Taiwan) government also initiated its own gastrodiplomacy efforts under the Ma Ying-jeou administration. According to Taiwan Today, an English-language publication of the Government Information Office of the Republic of China, Taiwan’s Ministry of Economy Affairs proposed a plan passed by the Executive Yuan to invest NT $1.1 billion (US $35.8 million) from 2010 to 2013 in order to “internationalize local” and “localize international” Taiwanese food.[81] This plan was also expected to boost Taiwanese tourism, attract nearly NTD $2 billion (USD $65 million) in private investments, establish 3,500 local and overseas restaurants, and create 50 new brands and 10,000 jobs.[82] It was sponsored by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, but other players such as the Taiwan Tourism Bureau, which is an organization under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, also played an important role.

Like the other two countries mentioned before, Taiwan forges its middle power identity through cultural diplomacy, but faces a unique issue of weak diplomatic recognition. Historic controversy between the People’s Republic of China (China) and the Republic of China (Taiwan) has left Taiwan in a precarious political situation where it lacks formal diplomatic relations and allies with a majority of countries. As a result, it relies heavily on public diplomacy to bypass its diplomatic isolation and continue to spread its value and culture abroad.[83] Gastrodiplomacy offers Taiwan an area to distinguish itself from Mainland China and educate foreign audience about Taiwanese culture. As a result, Paul Rockower explains that gastrodiplomacy in Taiwan seeks to “brand its own cuisine as a healthy, light alternative to the heavy image associated with Western versions of Chinese food.”[84]

Execution of Taiwanese Gastrodiplomacy

The NTD $1.1 billion (USD $35.8 million) investment in gastrodiplomacy funds the  Taiwanese gastrodiplomacy campaign that involves hosting international gourmet festivals, sending Taiwanese chefs to international culinary competitions, establishing Taiwanese restaurants in overseas shopping malls, department stores, and airports, and establishing a Taiwanese food foundation.[85]

One of the most successful Taiwanese chains is Din Tai Fung, known for its xiaolongbao (soup dumplings). Even before Taiwan’s gastrodiplomacy efforts, Din Tai Fung already achieved international success and recognition with chains across the world and recognition by the New York Times. It has over a hundred chains in 13 different countries (Taiwan, Japan, United States, Mainland China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines).[86] Another example is 85°C Bakery Cafe, a Taiwanese bakery chain, which was founded in 2003 and now has over 1,000 locations worldwide.[87] Both were already recognized internationally prior to Taiwan’s gastrodiplomacy campaign, yet still served as an ideal for aspiring Taiwanese restaurants opening abroad.

Similar to South Korea, Taiwan also saw a large number of food-themed film and TV dramas both before and after it launched its gastrodiplomacy efforts. This ranges from shows such as Love Recipe 料理情人梦(2011), Happy Michelin Kitchen 幸福三顆星 (2012) to more recent films and TV programs including Café. Waiting. Love 等一個人咖啡 (2014), Pleasantly Surprised 喜歡·一個人 (2014), Love Cuisine 料理高校生 (2015), and The Perfect Match 極品絕配 (2017). Compared to the South Korean TV shows, Taiwanese television programs are not as closely linked to the government. Following the end of martial law in the late 1980s, Taiwan’s broadcasting and entertainment programs was increasingly liberalized.[88] In order to support the Taiwan film and TV industry, the Taiwan government provides subsidies, gives credit guarantees, and established an investment framework for public-private sector investment.[89] While the extent to which the Taiwan government invested in food dramas for gastrodiplomacy-related purposes remains unclear, the shows reveal that Taiwanese cuisine has become a part of packaging Taiwanese culture and the Taiwanese identity to local Taiwanese audiences and foreign audiences through entertainment culture.

Results

Taiwanese gastrodiplomacy succeeded in attracting more tourists because of its cuisine. According to the 2017 Survey Report on Visitors Expenditure and Trends in Taiwan by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau, 67.78 (68 persons per hundred) of respondents said that “gourmet food or delicious snacks” was one of the top reasons that attracted visitors to go sightseeing in Taiwan, followed by scenery (60 persons per hundred), and shopping (26 persons per hundred).[90] Likewise, 81.98 (82 persons per hundred) of respondents indicated that night markets were the #1 spots they visited, especially Shilin Night Market (46) and Raohe Night Market (14).[91]

These numbers have increased since 2011, when the reasons why inbound visitors decided to take a sightseeing trip to Taiwan was for scenery (61 persons per hundred), food (41), and customs/culture (35).[92] Night markets were also the main spot visited for tourists (74) with Shilin Night Market (47) and Kaohsiung Liouhe Night Market (25) as the most popular night markets. In terms of the ranking of activities of inbound visitors in 2011, shopping was ranked as #1 (83 persons per hundred), followed by night market sightseeing (74) and historical relics sightseeing (36).[93]

These statistics reveal that even in 2011, Taiwan was already well-regarded for its food, as night markets and Taiwanese food were large parts of the inbound tourist experience. However, the number and percentage of tourists that came to Taiwan for these reasons increased based on the data from 2017. Since Taiwan’s gastrodiplomacy campaign began in 2011, and gastrodiplomacy efforts can benefit the inbound tourism industry, it seems that Taiwan’s gastrodiplomacy efforts improved during this time period.

The success and popularity of Taiwanese night markets inspired seasonal night market events overseas such as 626 Night Market in Arcadia, California, which was founded in 2012 by Jonny Hwang, the OC Night Market in Orange County, the NorCal Night Market in the San Francisco Bay Area, and many others in places such as Koreatown, Monterey Park, Long Beach, Philadelphia, Minneota, New Jersey, New York, Vancouver, and Atlanta.[94] These night markets have “authentic” Asian street food, as well as creative, photogenic Asian fusion foods that drew attention on social media and Instagram.[95] The Taiwanese government, particularly the Taiwan Tourism Bureau, has been particularly active in taking advantage of these opportunities to promote these night markets by acting as a sponsor, as well as giving out prizes and plane tickets to Taiwan at these night markets.[96] Witnessing the power of social media in promoting these overseas night markets, the Taiwan Tourism Bureau also took advantage of Instagram to spread awareness of its brand with the hashtag #timefortaiwan. Appendix B contains photos from the Instagram account of Taiwan Tourism Bureau, North America (ttb_na) at the 626 Night Market, where it raffled away prizes and plane tickets if people took a picture and posted it on Instagram. The Taiwan Tourism Bureau has separate accounts for different regions such as North America, Singapore (traveltaiwansg), India (ttb_in), Australia and New Zealand (ttb_aunz), abd Turkey (ttbturkey), which suggests targeted, localized messages to each region.

Despite its efforts to distinguish itself from the Mainland, Taiwan has faced challenges in determining its culinary identity. On one hand, gastrodiplomacy – in particular, with bubble tea – has enhanced Taiwan’s culinary image abroad and had some tangible economic and political benefits. In the Philippines, Chatime, a Taiwanese tea house franchise, opened its first store in the Philippines in 2011, and is now operating over 40 stories in Metro Manila as well as almost 400 stores in nine different Southeast Asian countries.[97] Not only has this expansion benefited Taiwanese investors and overseas recognition for Taiwanese tea, but it is also taken as a successful exam by the Tsai administration to promote its “New Southbound Policy” which encourages Taiwanese investors to invest more in Southeast Asian countries and avoid over reliance on Mainland China.[98]

Despite the success of milk tea and Taiwanese brands like Din Tai Fung and 85°C Bakery Cafe, Taiwanese gastrodiplomacy efforts have struggled in defining its cuisine. May Chang, a chief executive at the Foundation of Chinese Dietary Culture, told BBC in a June 2015 interview that it is hard to find one type of food to represent Taiwan given that a strong sense of a ‘Taiwanese’ identity only started to emerge since 2000, and given that Taiwan’s history is closely tied to mainland China and Japan.[99] This socio-political uncertainty can cause confusion as Taiwanese cuisine is seeking to distinguish itself from Chinese cuisine, yet may actually share many similarities with it.

Although 85°C Bakery Cafe is considered a “successful” example of Taiwanese food making an international impact. However, it was caught in the crossfire between China and Taiwan when Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen visited a branch in Los Angeles in August 2018.[100] Since Tsai is a part of the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan, which has historically advocated Taiwanese independence, cross-Strait relations between Taiwan and Beijing have been increasingly tense since her inauguration in 2016. After this visit, Chinese companies and netizens responded with Chinese food delivery apps such as Meituan-Dianping and Ele.me removing the chain from their apps, investors selling their shares of 85°C’s parent company Gourmet Master leading to a 9.8% drop in stock, boycotting the 600 branches in China, and hacking its Chinese site.[101] In response, 85°C affirmed its “firm support” of the 1992 Consensus which states that Taiwan and China are “one China”, thus sparking criticism in Taiwan for giving into Chinese demands.[102] Such a controversy reveals a unique challenge that Taiwan faces in promoting its cuisine overseas. While their most successful chains spread Taiwanese culture and food abroad, they are not exempted from the political realities that limits Taiwan’s reach and puts them into conflict and confrontation with the Mainland.

Comparing Gastrodiplomacy Campaigns

Gastrodiplomacy and Identity

The theme of national identity runs consistently across the three gastrodiplomacy campaigns in Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan. Gastrodiplomacy involves national identity as national governments make conscious decisions when selecting dishes or types of food to brand itself with and creating a united image of the national cuisine. This may cause controversy as government-promoted national cuisine becomes a representative of that country, thus uniting the country but also failing to take into account the diversity within society. In South Korea, royal court food from the Joseon Dynasty is chosen because of its tradition as well as the fact that it is untouched by the darker episodes of South Korea’s recent history such as Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War. As a result, South Korea’s gastrodiplomacy becomes a part of the government’s plan to enhance its image as a middle power and reflects its view towards its own past and historical memory that presents Korea as a place of tradition, culture, and strength.

Meanwhile, Thailand’s gastrodiplomacy campaign was treated as an opportunity to rebrand itself from negative associations of Thailand as a place of sex tourism to a country of rich culture, unique foods, and tourism. It ensures that a more consistent image of Thailand is presented at restaurants abroad by offering incentives such as the “Thai Select” certificates and funding to restaurants that met government-approved standards. While variations still may exist across different Thai restaurants, these types of standards help maintain foreign audiences’ expectations as they may find similar menus, dishes, and hospitality. As Thailand’s campaign becomes increasingly successful abroad, it is a source of pride for Thailand and a source of envy to other countries.

Taiwan’s gastrodiplomacy efforts are closely related to its attempts to understand and its own national identity in the midst of diplomatic uncertainty and tension with Mainland China. Taiwan’s historic ties with Mainland China, Japan, and its own indigenous populations mean that some of its cuisine share characteristics with other countries, thus impacting some of its claims to being “authentically Taiwanese” food. Nevertheless, aspects of Taiwanese food culture such as night markets and bubble tea have reached considerable popularity among international audiences.

Common Techniques and Strategies

All three campaigns promoted their cuisine at international food events and festivals both within their country and overseas. In some cases, these were Embassy or Consulate General-hosted events, which Thailand continues to do throughout the year. While early efforts by Thailand seemed to target the West, now most of the recent food promotion events happen in non-Western countries like Kuwait, Moscow, or Morocco.[103] For South Korea, many of the efforts by the Korean Food Promotion Institute seem to exclusively target urban, international cities with the help of partners in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Tokyo, Yanbian (a Korean autonomous prefecture in Mainland China), Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, Paris, Sydney, Auckland, and Jakarta.[104] In others, it may involve government participation in local events such as the Taiwan Tourism Bureau’s sponsorship of and participation in the 626 Night Market in California. Taiwan’s efforts seem to be in the West but also in Southeast Asia, perhaps given its plans to orient away from a dependence on Mainland China. They have all also developed educational materials and provided funding to train chefs in the national cuisine so that they can work at restaurants overseas, and constantly send top chefs to international cooking competitions.

The use of pop culture in advancing or representing national cuisine and food culture was used heavily by South Korea and, to a lesser degree, Taiwan. The South Korean government directly employed celebrities in the Korean entertainment industries to sing or appear in videos related to Korean food and gastrodiplomacy. Although the Taiwanese entertainment industry is not as far-reaching on the international stage as that of  South Korea, it still indirectly added to Taiwan’s gastrodiplomacy efforts as more Taiwanese food-themed television series and films were being made and exported to other countries. Furthermore, the effectiveness of tying a close association between Korean pop culture stars and the Global Hansik campaign is unclear. The Korean government invested a great deal of money to produce content filled with celebrity endorsements, but doing so could impact the authenticity of the promotions. Furthermore, many of these videos were promoted on the food sites of Hansik.org or the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism websites, which could limit the visibility and reach of these materials.

Websites were an important component of each campaign, but only South Korea’s website is still live. In 2011, the Republic of China’s (Taiwan) Government Information Office launched a food culture website (http://taiwanfoodculture.net) which was available in Chinese, English, French, Japanese, and Spanish.[105] The website is now defunct. Although the government-created website is no longer operating, other information on Taiwanese cuisine and gastrodiplomacy is available from private organizations. For example, the Foundation of Chinese Dietary Culture (FCDC), a private foundation founded in 1989 that promotes Chinese dietary and culinary culture, maintains regular information about ongoing activities, events, and scholarships on its website in English and Chinese (www.fcdc.org.tw).[106] Given that FCDC was established before Taiwan’s gastrodiplomacy efforts, it already had an established mission and expertise that has allowed it to continue. Thailand also had a website (www.thaikitchen.org) to accompany its gastrodiplomacy efforts. Like Taiwan’s website, however, it is also defunct.

Of the three campaigns, only South Korea’s gastrodiplomacy website (hansik.org) is still running. This site was an important component of the Global Hansik campaign and was run by the Korean Food Promotion Institute, a public institute established by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and provides extensive information about the stories behind specific Korean dishes, popular Korean recipes, and Korean restaurants in different countries. The website is available in six different languages (English, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, French, and Spanish). Many of the pop culture materials related to South Korea’s gastrodiplomacy efforts such as the K-Food music playlist and celebrity interviews are also posted on this site. Based on the activity under the “KFPI News” section, the website was frequently updated and active throughout 2016 and 2017; however, activity has since waned – only two updates have been posted on February 9, 2018 related to the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.[107]^,[108]

Interestingly, none of the three sites were hosted on government sites even though they were launched by their respective governments. This might be an attempt to separate the image of national cuisine from the larger government influence behind the campaign. In other words, promoting culture and cuisine too obviously may come off as propaganda or as unnatural to foreign audiences. Even though the national government may have a huge influence on gastrodiplomacy campaigns, the website is playing it down. Furthermore, Taiwan and Thailand’s websites had simple domain names that explained what they were about – “taiwanfoodculture” and “thaikitchen” – which are easily understandable names for foreign audiences. South Korea, however, chose “hansik” which means “Korean food” in the Korean language instead of promoting it under an English translation or name.

Unique Challenges

Despite enormous amounts of money and resources, Taiwan and South Korea fell short of their objectives and failed to reach the same level of success as Thailand in their gastrodiplomacy efforts. In addition to a lack of measurable indicators of success, Taiwan and South Korea each faced unique controversies and obstacles that made it difficult to succeed.

Although Taiwanese gastrodiplomacy has benefited the perception of Taiwan and helped the Taiwanese tourism industry, the strong political and nationalistic implications of promoting “Taiwanese” cuisine can hinder its success. The recent controversy with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s visit to 85°C Bakery Cafe and the companies subsequent defense and assurances of the “One China” principle of the 1992 Consensus raise the questions as to whether or not a Taiwanese restaurant can safely be “Taiwanese” without endangering its business and reputation among Chinese audiences. Furthermore, the most successful Taiwanese chains such as Din Tai Fung and 85°C Bakery Cafe were already famous internationally long before the government gastrodiplomacy campaign started. Few other Taiwanese franchises have achieved global success since then, making it difficult to determine the level of success or failure of the campaign in terms of enhancing the profile of new Taiwanese brands. Even the success of established brands struggle to avert diplomatic controversy that threatens their businesses.

South Korea’s gastrodiplomacy campaign also suffered for political reasons, specifically from the negative perceptions associated with government corruption and wasted resources. Although Park Geun-hye did not pursue the campaign as actively as her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, did, she still supported the campaign and many of her close associates worked in the Ministry of Culture and other government departments that participated in its implementation—however, the corruption and scandals within her administration implicated many key officials also created a negative perception of the gastrodiplomacy campaign.[109] As a result, internal politics and inefficient policies overshadowed the positive efforts and intentions of the campaign.

In 2008, the Korean government started a project to open an upscale, state-run Korean restaurant in Manhattan and ended up spending almost 80 billion won (USD $71.8 million); however, five years into the project, the plan fell apart and was considered to be a “money-losing operation.”[110]  Likewise, even as new Korean restaurants were opened up abroad during the Global Hansik campaign, many of them ultimately closed down. As of December 2018, of the 40 Korean restaurants in New York listed under “World of Korean Restaurants” on Hansik.org, 11 of them have closed down.[111] The open or closed status was determined by cross-referencing the listed restaurants from Hansik.org on Yelp. These challenges ultimately led to a sense of distrust and lack of faith in the campaign, as well as the enormous amount of money and resources that made it inefficient.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Asian gastrodiplomacy campaigns provided an opportunity for Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan to enhance their national and cultural brands to international audiences. While they adopted similar strategies such as funding overseas restaurants and hosting food promotion events, the three campaigns achieved varying levels of success in reaching their objectives as a result of unique socio-political factors at home. Thailand, which is home to the original gastrodiplomacy campaign, achieved the greatest level of success in boosting its international image and food profile that it continues to promote today in non-Western countries. Meanwhile, Taiwanese cuisine has also managed to promote its brand – most notably bubble tea and night markets – to other countries, but still struggles to promote a national identity while in the position of overwhelming diplomatic isolation. Finally, South Korea has devoted enormous amounts of money and resources to promote Korean cuisine and link it to the Hallyu wave, but struggled to justify its purpose and level of success to the Korean public when people questioned its value.

Investment in gastrodiplomacy efforts in Asian countries reveal the value that nations place on its cuisine as a part of its domestic national identity, as well as the representation of self that is promoted to the international community. As these campaigns require large amounts of money and resources, governments must adjust their strategies and implementation. They are held accountable by their domestic publics as well as market forces abroad. Nevertheless, gastrodiplomacy represents an increasingly important aspect of cultural diplomacy that states are learning how to utilize.

Appendix A

Number of Thai Gastrodiplomacy-Related Articles (Social & Cultural News): 2018

*Articles were included based on keywords “food”, “gastronomy”, and “cuisine”.

*At the time of this research, only posts from 2018 could be retrieved on the site.

Appendix B

A sample of photos from the Taiwan Tourism Bureau (North America) activities at 626 Night Market in Los Angeles, CA. (Taiwan Tourism Bureau (North America) Instagram – ttb_na https://www.instagram.com/ttb_na/)

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Endnotes

[1] Paul Rockower, “Korean Tacos and Kimchi Diplomacy,” USC Public Diplomacy, March 25, 2010, https://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/korean-tacos-and-kimchi-diplomacy.

[2] Mary Jo A. Pham, “Food as Communication: A Case Study of South Korea’s Gastrodiplomacy,” Journal of International Service 22, no. 1 (2013): 5, https://thediplomatistdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/jis-spring-2013-issue-gastrodiplomacy.pdf.

[3] Thomas Kalinowski and Hyekyung Cho, “Korea’s Search for a Global Role between Hard Economic Interests and Soft Power,” European Journal of Development Research 24, no. 2 (2012): 246, https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2012.7.

[4] Juyan Zhang, “The Foods of the Worlds: Mapping and Comparing Contemporary Gastrodiplomacy Campaigns,” International Journal of Communication 9, (January 2015): 568-291, Academic OneFile.

[5] Paul S. Rockower, “Projecting Taiwan: Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Outreach,” Issues & Studies 47, no. 1 (2011).

[6] Paul Rockower, “The State of Gastrodiplomacy,” Public Diplomacy Magazine 11, (Winter 2014): 11-14. http://publicdiplomacymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GASTRODIPLOMACY.pdf.

[7] Pham, “Food as Communication.”

[8] Central Intelligence Agency, “The World Factbook: Thailand,” last modified on January 8, 2019, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/th.html.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Central Intelligence Agency, “The World Factbook: South Korea,” last modified on January 8, 2019, https://www.cia.gov/librarY/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ks.html.

[11] Central Intelligence Agency, “The World Factbook: Taiwan,” last modified on January 8, 2019, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tw.html.

[12] Paul S. Rockower, “Recipes for gastrodiplomacy,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 8, (2012): 237. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fpb.2012.17.pdf.

[13] Ian Cook and Philip Crang, “The world on a plate: culinary culture, displacement and geographical knowledges,” Journal of Material Culture 1, no. 2 (1996): 137.

[14] Katarazyna J. Cwiertka, “The Global Hansik Campaign and the Commodification of Korean Cuisine,” in The Korean Popular Culture Reader, ed. Kyung Hyun Kim and Youngmin Choe (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 365, https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377566-022.

[15] Wantanee Suntikul, “Gastrodiplomacy in tourism,” Current Issues in Tourism (2017): 1-15, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2017.1363723.

[16] Tourism Authority of Thailand, “Food and Drink,” accessed December 14, 2018, https://www.tourismthailand.org/Food-and-Drink.

[17] Korea Tourism Organization, “VisitKorea – Food,” accessed December 14, 2018, https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/FOD/FOD_MAIN.jsp.

[18] Tourism Bureau, “Gourmet Guide,” accessed December 14, 2018, https://eng.taiwan.net.tw/m1.aspx?sNo=0002033.

[19] John Lenczowski, “Cultural Diplomacy, Political Influence, and Integrated Strategy,” in Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda, and Political Warfare, ed. Michael J. Waller (Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2009), 74.

[20] Pham, “Food as Communication,” 6.

[21] Rockower, “The State of Gastrodiplomacy,” 12-13.

[22] Alexandra Talty, “New Study Finds Millennials Spend 44% of Food Dollars on Eating Out,” Forbes, October 17, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandratalty/2016/10/17/millennials-spend-44-percent-of-food-dollars-on-eating-out-says-food-institute/#5574c1413ff6.

[23] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries 농림수산식품부, Strategy for Globalization of Korean Food (plan) 한식 세계화 추진전략(안) (South Korea: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, April 2009), 1.

[24] Sam Chapple-Sokol, “Culinary Diplomacy: Breaking Bread to Win Hearts and Minds,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 8, no. 2 (2013): 176, https://doi-org.libproxy2.usc.edu/10.1163/1871191X-12341244.

[25] Ibid., 175.

[26] Zhang, “The Food of the Worlds,” 7.

[27] “Thailand gastro-diplomacy,” The Economist, February 21, 2002, https://www.economist.com/asia/2002/02/21/thailands-gastro-diplomacy.

[28] Krittinee Nuttavuthisit, “Branding Thailand: Correcting the negative image of sex tourism,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 3, no. 1 (2006): 21, https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.pb.6000045.

[29] Suntikul, “Gastrodiplomacy in tourism,” 8.

[30] Zhang, “The Food of the Worlds,” 18.

[31] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Strategy for Globalization of Korean Food (plan),8.

[32] Zhang, “The Food of the Worlds,” 11.

[33] Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment, “About this visa: Thai Chefs Work Visa,” accessed December 19, 2018, https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-visa/about-visa/thai-chefs-work-visa.

[34] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Strategy for Globalization of Korean Food (plan),8.

[35] Sarunya Lertputtarak, “The relationship between destination image, food image, and revisiting Pattaya, Thailand,” International Journal of Business and Management 7, no. 5 (2012): 115.

[36] Ibid., 116.

[37] Phusadee Arunmas, “Kitchen of the World gets reboot,” Bangkok Post, May 30, 2018, https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1475441/kitchen-of-the-world-gets-reboot.

[38] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, “Social & Cultural News,” accessed December 21, 2018, http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/news3/6888.

[39] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, “Ambassador to Kuwait has given an interview on TV programme ‘With Ambassador,’” last modified on March 21, 2018, http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/news3/6888/87563-Ambassador-to-Kuwait-has-given-an-interview-on-TV.html.

[40] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, “Thai Night Market and Thai Night Street Food,” last modified on June 25, 2018, http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/news3/6888/90818-Thai-Night-Market-and-Thai-Night-Street-Food.html.

[41] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, “ASEAN Bazaar,” last modified on May 1, 2018, http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/news3/6888/88571-ASEAN-Bazaar.html.

[42] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, “ASEAN Food and Cultural Festival 2018 in Brasilia,” last modified on June 27, 2018, http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/news3/6888/90879-ASEAN-Food-and-Cultural-Festival-2018-in-Brasilia.html.

[43] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, “Social & Cultural News.”

[44] John Kerry, “Coup in Thailand,” U.S. Department of State, May 22, 2014, https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/05/226446.htm.

[45] Ibid.

[46] United Nations Secretary-General, “Statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General on Thailand,” Office of the United Nations Secretary-General, last modified May 22, 2014, https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2014-05-22/statement-attributable-spokesman-secretary-general-thailand.

[47] Council of the European Union, “Council conclusions on Thailand: FOREIGN AFFAIRS Council meeting Luxembourg, 23 June 2014,” accessed January 17, 2019, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/143330.pdf.

[48] Hansik means ‘Korean food.’

[49] Cwiertka, “The Global Hansik Campaign and the Commodification of Korean Cuisine,” 363.

[50] Yong-Chan Jeon, Global Report on Food Tourism (Madrid: World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 2012), 38, http://cf.cdn.unwto.org/sites/all/files/docpdf/amreports4-foodtourism.pdf.

[51] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Strategy for Globalization of Korean Food (plan).

[52] Ingyu Oh and Hyo-Jung Lee, “K-Pop in Korea: How the Pop Music Industry Is Changing a Post-Developmental Society,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, no. 9 (December 2013), https://doaj.org/article/81622b2dc5174a1982ffea69c2f5afb9.

[53] Kalinowski and Cho, “Korea’s Search for a Global Role,” 245.

[54] Chi-Hoon Kim, “Let Them Eat Royal Court Cuisine! Heritage Politics of Defining Global Hansik,” Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies 17, no. 3 (2017): 7-9.

[55] Ibid., 9.

[56] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Strategy for Globalization of Korean Food (plan), 1.

^[57] The Korean Food Foundation was renamed to the Korean Food Promotion Institute in 2017.

[58] Pham, “Food as Communication,” 10.

[59] Ibid., 11.

[60] Kim, “Let Them Eat Royal Court Cuisine!” 6.

[61] Oh and Lee, “K-Pop in Korea,” 116.

[62] Korean Food Promotion Institute, “K-FOOD SONG,” accessed December 15, 2018, http://www.hansik.org/en/article.do?cmd=html&menu=PEN5060000&lang=en.

[63] Korean Food Promotion Institute,“Super Junior promotes Korean Bibimbap!” last modified May 20, 2016, http://www.hansik.org/en/board.do?cmd=view&bbs_id=036&menu=pen5050000&art_id=46630&lang=en&preSearchType=ALL&preSearchWord=&searchType=ALL&searchWord=&cpage=4&row=8&seq=46716.

[64] Zhang, “The Food of the Worlds,” 15.

[65] Kim, “Let Them Eat Royal Court Cuisine!” 9.

[66] Da-sol Kim, “Sharing recipe for success,” The Korea Herald, October 4, 2018, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20181004000637.

[67] Seongseop Kim, Miju Kim, Jerome Agrusa, and Aejoo Lee, “Does a Food-themed TV Drama Affect Perceptions of National Image and Intention to Visit a Country? An Empirical Study of Korea TV Drama,” Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 29, no. 4 (2012): 323, https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2012.674869.

[68] Jeon, Global Report on Food Tourism, 36.

[69] Pham, “Food as Communication,” 16.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Hyo-sik Lee, “Korea’s ‘hansik’ globalization bears fruit,” The Korea Times, April 16, 2017, http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=227629.

[72] Ibid.

[73] Ji-sook Bae, “Hansik globalization project ‘utter failure,’” The Korea Herald, May 19, 2013, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20130519000228.

[74] Rumy Doo, “Cultural Ministry denies being ‘taken over’ by Choi, Cha,” The Korea Herald, October 30, 2016, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20161030000267.

[75] He-rim Jo, “Ex-President Lee Myung-bak indicted on embezzlement, bribery,” The Korea Herald, April 9, 2018, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180409000146.

[76] Eun-jung Kim, “New hansik ambassador vows to promote Korean culinary culture,” Yonhap News Agency, April 20, 2016, https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20160419008300320.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Strategy for Globalization of Korean Food (plan), 7.

[79] Si-Soo Park, “Don’t be ethnic in K-food globalization,” The Korea Times, October 2, 2013, http://www.koreatimesus.com/dont-be-ethnic-in-k-food-globalization/.

[80] Lee, “Korea’s ‘hansik’ globalization bears fruit.”

[81] “Cabinet passes plan to promote Taiwan’s cuisine,” Taiwan Today, June 4, 2010, https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=6,23,45,6,6&post=9474.

[82] “Cooking a prosperous future,” Taiwan Today, June 4, 2010, https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=2,23,45&post=1238.

[83] Rockower, “Projecting Taiwan,” 110.

[84] Ibid.

[85] Ibid., 126.

[86] Din Tai Fung, “全球門市・Worldwide Locations・海外店舗・글로벌 지점 鼎泰豐 Din Tai Fung,” accessed December 18, 2018, https://www.dintaifung.com.tw/eng/store.php.

[87] 85°C Bakery Café, “The 85°C Story,” accessed December 21, 2018, http://www.85cbakerycafe.com/our-story/.

[88] Ying Zhu, “Transnational circulation of Chinese language television dramas,” Global Media and Communication 4, no. 1 (2008): 66, https://doi.org/10.1177/1742766507086853.

[89] Oscar Chung, “Money Matters,” Taiwan Today, last modified on January 1, 2018, https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?post=127493&unit=20,35.

[90] Tourism Bureau, MOTC, 2017 Annual Survey Report on Visitors Expenditure and Trends in Taiwan (Taiwan: Tourism Bureau, MOTC, 2018), vii, https://admin.taiwan.net.tw/FileDownLoad/FileUpload/20180925173424069133.pdf. 

[91] Ibid., ix-x.

[92] Tourism Bureau, MOTC, 2011 Annual Survey Report on Visitors Expenditure and Trends in Taiwan (Taiwan: Tourism Bureau, MOTC, 2012), https://admin.taiwan.net.tw/English/FileUploadCategoryListE003140.aspx?CategoryID=cf41889a-05cd-48b8-961d-2a37d4ddbc74&appname=FileUploadCategoryListE003140.

[93] Ibid.

[94] Frank Shyong, “From wonton nachos to boba tea in IV-drip bags, 626 Night Market continues to evolve in its sixth year,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2017, https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-626-night-market-20170630-htmlstory.html.

[95] Ibid.

[96] 626 Night Market, “626 Night Market – Contact,” accessed December 19, 2018, https://www.626nightmarket.com/contact/.

[97] Ralph Jennings, “Taiwan Is Slowly Getting Help From Around Asia to Resist China Economically,” Forbes, August 22, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/08/22/taiwan-flies-south/#2c594f6f7d41.

[98] Ibid.

[99] Cindy Sui, “Taiwan seeks recipe for success for its cuisine,” BBC, June 17, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-33144800.

[100] Lily Kuo, “Taiwan bakery chain caught in crossfire of tensions with China,” The Guardian, August 17, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/17/taiwan-bakery-chain-caught-in-crossfire-of-tensions-with-china.

[101] Ibid.

[102] Ibid.

[103] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand, “Social & Cultural News.”

[104] Korean Food Promotion Institute, “Korean Food Promotion Institute,” accessed December 21, 2018, http://www.hansik.org/en/index.do.

[105] Grace Kuo, “GIO launches Taiwanese food culture website,” Taiwan Today, November 30, 2011, https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10&post=18819.

[106] Foundation of Chinese Dietary Culture, “About FCDC,” accessed October 14, 2018, http://www.fcdc.org.tw/english/about/default.aspx.

[107] Korean Food Promotion Institute, “Celebrity chef shares his Franco-Korean recipe for Korean boeuf bourguignon ahead of Olympics,” last modified February 9, 2018, http://www.hansik.org/en/board.do?cmd=view&bbs_id=058&menu=pen5080000&art_id=56813&lang=en&preSearchType=ALL&preSearchWord=&searchType=ALL&searchWord=&cpage=1&row=10.

[108] Korean Food Promotion Institute, “Korean Tourism Banks on PyeongChang Olympics to Boost Popularity of K-food,” last modified February 9, 2018. http://www.hansik.org/en/board.do?cmd=view&bbs_id=058&menu=pen5080000&art_id=56812&lang=en&preSearchType=ALL&preSearchWord=&searchType=ALL&searchWord=&cpage=1&row=10.

[109] Doo, “Cultural Ministry denies being ‘taken over’ by Choi, Cha.”

[110] Park, “Don’t be ethnic in K-food globalization.”

[111] Korean Food Promotion Institute, “World of Korean Restaurants [America – United States – New York],” accessed December 2018, http://www.hansik.org/en/board.do?cmd=list&bbs_id=062&menu=pen1020100&art_id=&lang=en&preSearchType=ALL&preSearchWord=&searchType=ALL&searchWord=&searchContinentCd=AM&searchNationCd=AM020&searchCityCd=AM0201&cpage=1&row=8.