But its most essential quality today is not as tangible: the IIR offers its thinkers all the institutional advantages but does not impose an institutional will on them. They are free to innovate, create, explore, criticize, break taboos, venture along new courses of action, and generally bridge the gap between the way the establishment sees the world and the way academics perceive the latest international trends.
Although it is a part of National Chengchi University, the IIR compound is apart from the main campus, nestled instead in a small valley ringed with green hills in the Taipei suburb of Mucha. It is common for researchers and staff to gather in the cafeteria at lunchtime, and the professional banter during the meal is reminiscent of the kind of interchange that goes on in the lunchroom at Harvard's East Asian Research Center. The IIR's global perspective is reinforced by the educational training of its staff. About half of the researchers have advanced degrees from the U.S., Japan, Australia, or European universities.
IIR specialists start out with the premise that change is the rule not the exception in international affairs, and turnabouts in the ROC's international status are neither impossible nor unlikely. With confidence in politics as the art of the possible, they search for ways in which the nation can improve its position on the international stage. It is then up to the practitioners to transform them into new foreign relations realities.
"International politics must always reflect the influence of realistic calculations," says Dr. Chang King-yuh (張京育), President of National Chengchi University and concurrently Director of the IIR. "The rapid growth in national strength through substantial economic and political development in the last few years are the backup for the ROC's advances on the chessboard of international politics. It's just natural for people who need friendship and help to come to you."
Chang adds that the ROC government has recently taken a more active and positive approach to foreign relations. For example, decisions about establishing or resuming bilateral or multilateral relations with other countries are now being based more on reciprocal interests and mutual respect. These objective conditions have become more important in determining external relations than the history of the ROC's previous relations with any particular country.
In mid-1989, the ROC began to score a series of successes in its foreign relations: diplomatic relations were established with Grenada and Belize, and diplomatic ties were resumed with Liberia. IIR scholars had indirect but tangible contributions to these successes. The outlook for continued strengthening of international relations is bright because of the ROC's economic progress and political stability in the midst of rapid change.
"More and more countries will look to the ROC on Taiwan for friendship, and new bilateral relationships with other nations are quite possible," Chang says.
Out of the 183 staff members at the IIR, about 100 of them are active in producing reports on foreign affairs, many of which are published in various IIR periodicals or other media. These publications are in line with the IIR's practice of offering counsel on foreign affairs—a tradition that has matured through several organizational transformations over the years.
The predecessor of the IIR was the Association of International Relations, established in 1953. The association was registered as a civic organization, but its job was to advise the government on mainland China and international issues. In addition, it began the practice of developing substantial interchanges with overseas scholars, which is still a key contribution to the IIR's work.
In the early years, researchers placed the greatest emphasis on Soviet studies, the priority of the ROC's policymakers of the time. Analytical reports were directed to President Chiang Kai-shek and various government departments for their reference. This research orientation shifted somewhat by the time the Association of International Relations was reorganized into the IIR, which became a formal academic institution in 1961 and was attached to National Chengchi University in 1975.
Pi Ying-hsien—preparing studies on international communist affairs based on "firsthand materials from the region."
"The analysis of the more remote communist countries began to claim less attention than mainland China, especially beginning with the Cultural Revolution," says Dr. Pi Ying-hsien (畢英賢), an IIR research fellow and convener of the International Communist Affairs Department.
IIR Director Chang King-yuh recounts the changes in the IIR's responsibilities: "In the early stage, a rather high percentage of IIR studies were devoted to providing information for the reference of specific government departments and giving opinions to policymakers as requested. Gradually, the IIR developed a character of its own."
Despite a limited budget and less than one-fifth of the staffing available to Academia Sinica, the IIR has placed its priorities on producing long-term, in-depth academic studies of both national and international affairs. Researchers work in one of four departments: International Affairs, Chinese Communist Affairs, International Communist Affairs, and Economic Affairs.
Professor Pi, who is a Russian-speaking Soviet area specialist, says that Soviet studies are now integrated with the study of international communist affairs. There are eight full-time research fellows in his department. "The findings of the International Communist Affairs Department do not necessarily have a direct influence on the policy process," he says. "But this does not mean that the department has reduced its research efforts in any way."
While some outsiders might think the outlook for the IIR's International Communist Affairs Department is rather dismal because the communist regimes in Eastern Europe are falling by the wayside one after another, the precise reverse of this pessimistic prognosis has occurred.
In fact, the stunning success of Solidarity in Poland, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the dramatic ending of the 41-year communist domination in Czechoslovakia, and other equally momentous events have given ROC policy makers deskloads of new options. They urgently need to re-evaluate the international political system and make fresh appraisals of the nature and implications of the great changes in global political and economic development—and determine the ROC's role in these incredibly fluid limes.
A growing number of people in Taiwan are already exhibiting an interest in visiting Eastern Europe for the purpose of doing business. As a result, there is a sudden increase in the need for information and analysis about the region. Even reporters from local newspapers are coming to Professor Pi's department for information and opinions.
Recently, the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission of the Executive Yuan (Cabinet) asked the department to produce a report on general changes in Eastern Europe and a re-evaluation of ROC policy on the region, an illustration of how top level government offices turn to the IIR as an authority on strategic analysis.
Professor Pi has been with the IIR for two decades and is proud of the independent and objective standpoint of the International Communist Affairs Department. "Although we study the view-points of overseas researchers for our reference, we usually ground our analyses on firsthand materials from the region," he says.
The department's regional studies tend to be "holistic and longitudinal," that is, comprehensive and covering a span of years. But this scholarly perspective does not always meet the needs of' enterprising businessmen, who are interested in immediate returns from trade with Eastern Europe. They are not so eager to know about abstract or general forms and directions of political and economic developments in the region. Although the IIR department is willing to provide them with information, Pi's eight-man team is fully occupied with academic research and cannot spare much time meeting immediate business needs for detailed information and services.
In contrast to Eastern Europe's practical progress in the search for liberty during 1989, the mainland China regime resorted to heavy-handed actions to crush dissent and sweep aside its promises of limited reform. Many experts in China studies were frustrated by their miscalculations about what to expect from Peking, despite years of study about the nature of the Chinese Communist regime. Many were puzzled at the seemingly irrational and unnecessarily brutal suppression of unarmed demonstrators.
Yeh Po-tang—"If the government had the power to pursue a more comprehensive mainland policy, it would not hesitate to do so."
"The logic of the Chinese Communists is different. To them, there is always an alternative to using peaceful means, but the judgment call of 'being necessary' was in the hands of Teng Hsiao-ping. In accordance with his personality, this alternative was necessary," says Professor Yeh Po-tang (葉伯堂), convener of the Chinese Communist Affairs Department.
Yeh's department has a team of 24 researchers, one of the two larger departments in the IIR (the other is the Inter national Affairs Department), and they are the main contributors to the Chinese-language monthly magazine Mainland China Studies. Their work has high visibility, for mainland China remains a highly controversial topic that interests scholars around the world.
The IIR hosts frequent international conferences on mainland China, and its monthly magazine on mainland China studies is recognized as an authoritative voice in mainland discussions. Foreign scholars are frequent contributors. Following the Tienanmen incident, the academic world has been paying even more attention to the findings published in the magazine.
The Chinese Communist Affairs Department covers all subjects concerning mainland society except economics, which is the responsibility of the IIR's Economic Affairs Department. Literature from mainland China is used to gain an understanding of the general mentality of the population and their opinions about their surroundings. When there are changes in the Peking political scene, such as the elite power struggle during and after the June crackdown, the department produces opinions on the subject for government reference.
Some important mainland China issues currently under consideration include the following: What effect will the tightening up of controls over foreign relations after the June 4 massacre have on the increasing contact between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits? What steps might the communist regime take against the challenge to its power and legitimacy from the overseas democracy movement organized by mainland students? How do changes in diplomatic strategy interact with domestic politics?
Answers to these questions will be presented in reports that will be widely circulated among ROC government agencies. But not only the government is focusing on these issues, the public has also become more interested in the government's policy toward the mainland.
For some time after the ROC's initiation of a more open policy toward the mainland, local businessmen have frequently pressed for the approval of direct trade with the mainland and have criticized the government for having an incomplete mainland policy. But Professor Yeh rejects the contention that indirect trade obstructs the smooth sailing in trade relations between both sides of the Taiwan Straits. "Our government has an overall policy direction, " Yeh says. "And if it had the power to pursue a more comprehensive mainland policy, it would not hesitate to do so."
Because of the hostile political situation existing between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, some people have wondered if the IIR research findings on mainland China were biased. "Independence in academic studies has always been a key principle for the IIR," Yeh insists. "No ideological pressures are al lowed to twist real objectivity out of shape." A good example of this attitude was demonstrated earlier last year when the IIR and Harvard jointly sponsored a seminar on democratization in the ROC [see FCR, March 1989].
Yeh adds that such objective discussions are essential. The goal of a think tank is not to propagandize the policies of the government, but to present valid analysis that will help government policymakers formulate and implement policies.
Ricky Tung—keeping an eye on mainland China's economic development while coordinating research work with other departments.
Various departments at the IIR coordinate their research efforts in order to produce more comprehensive reports. For example, the Economic Affairs Department, headed by Ricky Tung (董瑞麒), works closely with the Chinese Communist Affairs Department. Tung and his colleagues focus on global economic developments as well as mainland China's economic environment. Because of the ROC's rapid diversification of trade in recent years, including expanded indirect trade across the Straits and broader cultivation of both East and West European markets, the department has a heavy workload.
At least there is some division of labor among Taiwan's think tanks. "We spend a smaller proportion of our time on local economic studies," Tung says, "because there are other institutes that specialize in this area, such as the Chung Hua Institution for Economic Research and the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research."
The IIR' s International Affairs Department is also feeling the pressure of the ROC's higher profile in diplomatic and economic affairs. "A high priority of our department is to coordinate research activities with the central tasks of nation al diplomacy," says Sophia Su (蘇秀法), the head of the International Affairs Department. She adds that the department is frequently asked to give expert opinion on international issues to government policy makers.
The department has to be the "specialist in all affairs," which means the staff of 18 research fellows is spread fairly thin even though it is the second largest at the IIR. Nevertheless, specific issues of concern to the ROC government are placed in global context, and the department frequently presents policy options to decision makers.
"For example, the ROC must participate in more global and regional organizations in order to strengthen its international role," Su says. As a result, department researchers are paying close attention to the economic plans now well underway for a united European Community in 1992. The new structure will have far-reaching consequences on how the ROC conducts trade with the region.
The department, like others at the IIR, conducts research commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government Information Office, and other government offices. Its researchers are also regular contributors to the IIR's monthly journals and periodicals: Issues & Studies (in five languages), and Mainland China Studies, East Asia Quarterly, and America Monthly (all in Chinese).
There is a Chinese saying that "to maintain soldiers for 1,000 days is to be always ready for the moment." In many ways, this is relevant to one of the primary missions of the IIR—to be always ready to support the needs of the government with sophisticated analysis of international issues. Unfortunately, the role is an expensive one.
"There is no short cut to academic development," says IIR Director Chang King-yuh. "It takes 10 years for a tree to grow, while a sound academic program may require much more time before it takes root. Investment in education is long-term, and there is no guarantee of instant benefits."
The Institute of International Relations' library and conference hall.
Whether the issue is the quality of public education or the level of research sophistication in the country's premier institutions, funding is always a key underlying concern. IIR researchers and staff are finding that the ROC's expanding international role is driving their workloads into realms of near impossibility. The research infrastructure is in need of an overhaul.
Professor Pi says that more funding means more staff, which would allow researchers to specialize more and sort out the complexities of specific fields. "We want to be specialists instead of generalists," he says.
"If budget and staff can't be increased," Chang says, "the only thing the IIR can do is raise the pace of productivity. As a result, the nature of the institute probably won't change very much in the near future. The IIR's influence on policymaking will remain conceptual, and the job of evaluation will still fall on the 'users'—people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government offices." Clearly, the quiet setting in suburban Mucha is destined to remain one of the centers of intellectual action in Taiwan.