Taiwan Today

European Perspectives on Taiwan provides a much-needed overview of Europe’s historical connections with Taiwan and contemporary relations between the two polities. Edited by Jens Damm and Paul Lim, the volume comprises 11 chapters by Taiwan- and Europe-based scholars that are preceded by an editors’ introduction and a foreword by Michael Kau (高英茂), professor emeritus of political science at Brown University in the United States and Taiwan’s representative to the EU from 2006 to 2008. In its entirety, the book reads as a history of Taiwan, a survey of its diplomatic relations and an indication of the importance of European connections. As Kau correctly suggests in his foreword, viewing Taiwan studies within a European context offers the chance to “discern more conceptual dimensions of Taiwan’s position in the international arena and explore more imaginative and creative policy choices.”

Part I of European Perspectives on Taiwan examines European influences on the historical, political and social development of Taiwan. Ann Heylen is an associate professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei and associate fellow of the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Heylen traces both Europe’s presence in Taiwan and European understandings of Taiwan over the last 400 years. Heylen shows that Taiwan’s interactions with the world have been vital to the island’s maturation. Moreover, she demonstrates how European images of Taiwan have not only been significant indicators of larger ideologies regarding non-European peoples, global commerce and colonization, but also a means of European self-reflection. Heylen’s treatment of early European imagery of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples and of the Japanese occupation (1895–1945) is thought-provoking, those images being reflective of racial and imperialistic bias.

Yoshihisa Amae, an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies at Chang Jung Christian University in Tainan, southern Taiwan, views the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) as a prototype for nationhood. Drawing on US scholar Benedict Anderson’s concept of nationhood involving an “imagined political community,” Amae describes the PCT as “an imagined sacred community.” In the 19th century, the Presbyterian missions thrived, providing evangelism alongside medical care and education and opening the first modern hospitals and schools in Taiwan. Soon after the PCT’s founding, the Taiwanese presbyteries began to work toward autonomy from foreign missionary guidance. Separated physically from mainland China, the PCT was spared the 1949 communist takeover there. Extraordinarily literate, possessing their own media and somewhat isolated from typical Han Chinese and imperial Japanese traditions, the Presbyterians helped to nurture a distinctive Taiwanese identity.

The Presbyterian system of self-governance also gave PCT members in Taiwan their first democratic experience. As Amae explains, “While the Taiwanese people did not have any control over their destiny under Japanese colonialism and, for that matter, during the postwar martial law period (1949–1987), members of the PCT were experiencing how to manage their own affairs through democratic practices as early as 1896 with the formation of the first presbytery.” Not surprisingly given the church’s history of localization, the PCT today is still associated with the cause of Taiwanese independence.

Gunter Schubert, chair professor of greater China studies at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies at the University of Tübingen, examines cross-strait relations through the lens of Taiwan’s political evolution and democratization. An insightful overview of Taiwan’s post-World War II political history, Schubert’s article serves as an introduction that helps readers understand the complexities of EU-Taiwan relations in the chapters that follow.

Jens Damm, an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies at Chang Jung Christian University, examines Taiwanese understandings of multiculturalism as well as European influences on Taiwan. His account is a reminder of the recent growth of a multicultural view of Taiwanese ethnicity that marks a shift away from a Han-centered view. Damm traces these developments, particularly the growth of Hakka and aboriginal identities since the 1980s. As he explains, the policies of Australia, Canada and especially the European Union have influenced recent Taiwanese understandings of multiculturalism.

Part II of European Perspectives on Taiwan examines Taiwan’s geopolitical situation vis-à-vis Europe and includes concrete recommendations for EU policymakers. Masako Ikegami, a professor of political science at Stockholm University, suggests that the EU could act as a positive force to help Taiwan maintain de facto sovereignty. While Ikegami holds that the US-Japan alliance is the “pillar of Taiwan security,” she also explains that the EU has a substantive role to play. Ikegami welcomes energetic, “progressive” EU foreign relations with mainland China and Taiwan and sees the continuation of the EU’s post-Tiananmen Square embargo on selling arms and limiting exports of dual-use technologies to mainland China as key to EU policy on Taiwan.

Ikegami also recommends that the EU take a clearer stance against mainland China’s threatened use of force against Taiwan. “The more confident Beijing becomes that the EU would not support the United States in the event of a Taiwan Strait crisis, the greater the risk that Beijing will use force against Taiwan,” she warns.

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor and head of the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University and an associate researcher in the Asia Centre at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris, argues that “the political stance of the EU with regard to Taiwan’s future is identical to that held by the U.S.” Despite mainland China’s efforts to persuade Europe to take a different course, the EU’s main interests are seeing the status quo continue in the Taiwan Strait and the Republic of China (ROC) retaining effective sovereignty over Taiwan. Cabestan believes that the EU can play an even larger role in cross-strait stability given the EU’s increased global ambitions.

Part III of the volume deals with Taiwan, the EU and international organizations. Two Czech Republic-based scholars, Jana Sehnálková, a lecturer in the Department of American Studies at Charles University in Prague, and Ondřej Kučera, an assistant professor in the Department of Asian Studies at Palacky University in Olomouc, examine Taiwan’s attempts at participation in international bodies and the role of outside actors—the United States and EU—in those efforts. Sehnálková and Kučera find the case of Taiwan’s membership in the International Olympic Committee under the name “Chinese Taipei” to be a useful example of how the cross-strait dilemma might be solved. As the authors maintain, dual representation since 1984 has “led to a wider awareness in the world of the problem of having, in reality, two entities, both claiming sovereignty, in the Taiwan Strait.”

Supporting Participation

Another success came when Taiwan gained membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). That case saw Taiwan’s desire for international recognition combine with pressure from the country’s trade partners to open the door to membership. Similarly, Sehnálková and Kučera believe that the EU could work for Taiwan’s increased participation in other international bodies. They find that of all of the EU institutions, the European Parliament is the most supportive of Taiwan’s participation in international organizations.

In their chapter, Paul Lim, a professor at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Sigrid Winkler of the Institute for European Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel outline recent relations between Europe and Taiwan. As they explain, while official limitations remain, “informal relations between the European Union and Taiwan have now recovered from a low in the 1970s and are at an unprecedentedly high level.” In recent years, the EU has taken a more active role in Taiwan-related matters, including the proclamation of political statements regarding the ROC. The EU Council Presidency expressed its concerns over mainland China’s missile tests near Taiwan in 1996, while another EU Council declaration questioned the mainland’s Anti-Secession Law in 2005. In 2008 alone, the council issued five Taiwan-related declarations. Most strikingly, in 2001 and 2002, the European Parliament—as Lim and Winkler explain, siding with “small, democratic Taiwan in disputes with authoritarian China”—criticized EU member states for not granting visas to Taiwanese officials. In the authors’ view, the possibilities for an enhanced EU foreign policy bode well for Taiwan’s position in the world.

Lutgard Lams, an associate professor who works in media and cultural studies in the Department of Languages and Literature at University-College Brussels and is an associate fellow in the Department of Communication at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, looks at the Taiwan Strait issue through the ideological implications of linguistic strategies. Lams examines the English terms the ROC and mainland China use to give their views to the world, as well as the use of language by EU officials and bodies. As Lams explains, “Lexical choices are indications of the explicit and implicit ideological language usage which is a crucial factor in the cross-Strait debate.” Lams’ examination of the “foreign community’s walk on a lexical tightrope” is particularly insightful given the sensitivities of describing the ROC’s status. The name changes of this journal, for example—from the 1951 founding of the Free China Review to the Taipei Review in 2000 and on to the Taiwan Review in 2003—are indicative of shifts in official efforts to influence perceptions of Taiwan in the world.

Part IV of European Perspectives on Taiwan analyzes cross-strait relations through the lens of European integration. From that perspective, scholars and politicians consider the possibility that European examples, particularly EU integration and institutions, might provide a means of resolving cross-strait problems. Stefan Fleischauer, a research fellow at the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan at Tübingen University, looks at three possible theoretical approaches used to understand the process of European integration—neofunctionalism, intergovernmentalism and liberal intergovernmentalism—as possible remedies for the Taiwan-mainland China problem. The first approach stresses the economic rationale for integration; the second is state-centered and focuses on governmental behavior; and the third is a mixture of the other two. In Fleischauer’s estimation, the most useful point of comparison with Taiwan and mainland China is Western Europe during the 1950s. At that time, Europe had just emerged from World War II and its aftermath. Fleischauer acknowledges that there are many differences between Europe and the situation with the Taiwan Strait—particularly in the disparate ROC and mainland Chinese political systems—but argues fairly that Europe, “the one region in the world where integration has been most successful—can provide some valuable insights for cross-Strait relations; lessons which it would be foolish to disregard.”

Joseph Lee, a lecturer in business law at the University of Nottingham Business School in the United Kingdom, looks at the question of integration and the European example through a legal lens. Lee notes that European post-World War II integration occurred under a specific set of circumstances and understandings that are unlikely within the cross-strait case, warning that economic integration might have political consequences for the ROC and mainland China that were not apparent in post-World War II Western Europe.

As with any book of a similarly broad scope, European Perspectives on Taiwan raises issues that require further examination. The composition of the volume suggests that the EU’s experiences might provide solutions for some of Taiwan’s predicaments. Economic integration remains the obvious, hopeful lesson from the history of the EU, given the similar demographic conditions in the EU and ROC including extremely low birth rates and aging populations.

Popular With Parliament

Might Taiwanese business and political leaders find lessons in the innovative economies of particular nations in Western Europe instructive for increasing local productivity? European Perspectives on Taiwan gives a broad EU perspective on foreign relations, sometimes leaving the reader speculating about the viewpoints of specific countries, political parties, or even politicians. How do Taiwanese issues relate to Europe’s national, regional and political ideologies, and perceptions of self-interest? The notion that the ROC is popular within the European Parliament is particularly appealing, yet raises questions: What are the political dynamics within the individual nations or political parties that allow for a pro-Taiwan perspective? How might public diplomacy increase the ROC’s status within Europe? What is the likelihood that the EU could ever implement the progressive foreign policy toward East Asia that some of the authors envision, particularly given the economic crises in southern Europe and dependence upon mainland China for debt financing?

European Perspectives on Taiwan includes an impressive list of academic authorities on Taiwanese connections with Europe. As Kau notes in his foreword, “the book symbolizes the growing popularity and maturity of Taiwan studies in Europe and the emergence of a critical mass of scholars and specialists, for whom Taiwan is the primary focus of research and teaching.”

As in the United States and Japan, academics in Europe have paid increasing attention to Taiwan in recent years. In 2004, for example, the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) was formed, according to the EATS website, “to foster a community of interest among specialists on Taiwan working in European universities and research institutions on Taiwan-related topics in areas of the social sciences, humanities, language and culture.” As seen in the valuable essays contained in European Perspectives on Taiwan, that interest has grown into a productive endeavor that is spreading awareness of Taiwan’s unique society and accomplishments worldwide.

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Joseph Eaton is an assistant professor of history at National Chengchi University in Taipei.

Copyright © 2012 by Joseph Eaton