Given the Republic of China’s (ROC) unique status in the international community, programs that facilitate direct interactions with foreign academics and opinion makers constitute an important aspect of the nation’s diplomatic initiatives. One of the most significant and successful of these schemes is the Taiwan Fellowship, a grant to encourage overseas scholars to conduct advanced research in the country. Launched by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in 2010, the fellowship is open to foreign nationals who are doctoral students, doctoral candidates, postdoctoral researchers or professors. And in just the short time since its establishment, the program has attracted talented foreign academics to the island in droves.
During the period of the fellowship, which can last from three months to a year, recipients are awarded a monthly stipend based on their academic qualifications. Doctoral students and candidates, postdoctoral researchers, assistant professors and assistant research fellows receive NT$50,000 (US$1,670) per month, while associate and full professors as well as associate and full research fellows get NT$60,000 (US$2,000). Participants are also provided with round-trip airfare between their country of residence and Taiwan. According to MOFA, about 100 researchers have been recruited each year since the inception of the fellowship, which has an overall annual budget of around NT$30 million (US$1 million).
“The Taiwan Fellowship’s monthly allowance was rather generous, and the program allowed me to use all the research resources that Taiwan has to offer,” says Kaspars Eihmanis, a Sinologist from Latvia who lived in Taipei City for a year under the program in 2011. “I spent that year in the library and at conferences, and I came across a number of impressive scholars in my field.”
Eihmanis devoted his time in Taiwan to studying neo-Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan (牟宗三, 1909–1995). The fellowship recipient stresses that it would have been impossible to research the topic in Latvia, which he notes is “a country with an utterly meager history of Sinology and Asian studies.” Through the program, Eihmanis was able to gain access to a large amount of information about the scholar and develop a deeper insight into his work. “Even though I don’t often agree with Mou Zongsan, you have to admire the sophistication of his style of philosophizing as well as his novel ideas,” he notes.
The Taiwan Fellowship is overseen by MOFA’s Department of Policy Planning, and requires close coordination between the department and the country’s overseas offices. The diplomatic missions, which comprise embassies and consulates as well as Taipei representative offices in nations that do not have formal ties with the ROC, play a key role in the program by publicizing the fellowship in their host countries and aiding with the recruitment of researchers. The offices also process the applications, which must contain a research proposal and specify the length of time the candidates wish to spend in Taiwan under the program.
“Our overseas offices use a variety of methods to promote the Taiwan Fellowship, from simply ringing up the scholars they’re interested in to placing ads in academic journals like Foreign Affairs [a prestigious US periodical],” explains Gordon Young (楊慶輝), a section chief at the Department of Policy Planning. “Meanwhile, it’s our job to form a committee of MOFA staff and distinguished scholars to review the applications and choose the recipients.”
Young explains that the selection committee is divided into three groups, one to review applications in the fields of international relations, law and political science; another for economics and social studies; and a third for art, history, literature and philosophy. The subject of an applicant’s research must be related to Taiwan, cross-strait relations, mainland China, the Asia-Pacific region or Sinology. Furthermore, each participant must independently locate a university or research institute in Taiwan to serve as their host institution during the fellowship. Upon completion of the research period, recipients are obliged to submit a paper of at least 20 pages. Alternatively, MOFA may invite participants to present their research project at one of the quarterly Taiwan Fellowship seminars at the National Central Library (NCL) in Taipei City.
“Our objective is to emulate the success of well-known US scholarships such as the Fulbright Program,” Young says. “Although we welcome doctoral students, we focus on recruiting academics with well-established reputations because they’re more helpful in promoting Taiwan in the international arena.”
The official adds that since most fellowship recipients come from Western countries, MOFA is working to attract more researchers from regions where the ROC has comparatively fewer diplomatic contacts, such as Africa, Central Asia and South America. Young observes that more recently MOFA has also begun to target eligible researchers from countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as “we’d like them to have more interactions with and understanding of Taiwan.” And indeed, among the 104 scholars chosen for 2015, 12 hail from ASEAN member states.
Upon arrival in Taiwan, the fellowship recipients are chiefly assisted not by MOFA but by the NCL’s Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), which through its long-established research grant for foreign Sinologists has ample experience aiding overseas academics. Moreover, the NCL possesses a wealth of Sinology resources, including many ancient texts and scholarly works, and frequently holds international academic seminars.
“We have two full-time staff members assigned to the Taiwan Fellowship, and they’re generally very busy assisting the foreign researchers,” explains Keng Li-chun (耿立群), head of the Liaison Division at the CCS. “As the number of fellowship participants has exceeded 100 in recent years, they’re constantly inundated by emails inquiring about this and that.”
Keng explains that the two staffers spend a substantial proportion of their workdays helping the foreign researchers arrange interviews with local academics, though they also assist them in finding apartments, opening bank accounts and doing a host of other tasks. Overall, Keng has a very positive impression of the fellowship and the scholars who participate in the program. In her experience, the recipients gain a thorough understanding of Taiwan as well as an appreciation for the quality of the nation’s research facilities and the warmth of the Taiwanese people. “When you’ve lived in a country for a year, you comprehend it in a way that’s completely different from someone who’s merely paid a short visit,” she says.
Michal Thim, a 34-year-old doctoral student of Taiwan Studies at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, wrapped up his yearlong research stint under the fellowship at the end of December last year. The subject of Thim’s research project in Taiwan was defense reform under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), with a particular focus on asymmetric defense projects. Asymmetric warfare describes a situation in which belligerents differ significantly in terms of military power or tactics. “Not all defense-related documents are available online, so I go to the library regularly to review Taiwan’s national defense reports from the 1990s,” he explains. “And the other thing I’m busy with is arranging interviews with national defense insiders.”
The Czech national was hosted by the National Chengchi University-affiliated Institute of International Relations (IIR), the country’s largest research center dedicated to the study of international affairs. Thim notes that this allowed him to talk extensively to IIR people with policy connections, while the doctoral student also had the opportunity to interview former Deputy Defense Minister Lin Chong-pin (林中斌) at length. “Some of those defense experts agreed to talk to me, others not,” he says. “Trying to meet with Taiwan’s retired high-ranking military officers is complicated but not impossible.”
Thim, who was very pleased with his monthly stipend of NT$50,000 and his living and research conditions in Taipei, points out that although he was given a desk by the IIR, he did not have any direct obligations to the institute, such as “doing lectures.” With regard to the initial findings from his research, Thim believes that bearing in mind “the advances made by the mainland’s PLA [People’s Liberation Army], the ideas expressed in Taiwan’s national defense reports, including the transition to an all-volunteer military force, are solid, appropriate responses considering the nation’s options.”
For Gary Rawnsley, now a professor of public diplomacy in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales, the Taiwan Fellowship was not only the means he used to conduct research in the country, but also the subject he was investigating. Rawnsley, who came to Taiwan in 2011 when he was a professor of international communications at Leeds University, analyzed the fellowship program as part of his efforts to study the effectiveness of public diplomacy projects, which aim to positively influence the manner in which a nation is perceived by a foreign population. “I published a book in 2000 on what was then called ‘Taiwan’s propaganda,’ but given the profound changes that have occurred since then, I really needed to get back to Taiwan for interviews and more generally devise a new take for the revision,” says Rawnsley, referring to his book Taiwan’s Informal Diplomacy and Propaganda.
He recalls that the Government Information Office, whose core functions were transferred to MOFA and the Ministry of Culture when it was dissolved as part of a government restructuring program in 2012, was extremely helpful during his three-month research stint in the Taiwan Fellowship program. The academic also notes that he was able to use his time in Taipei to develop good contacts with the American Institute in Taiwan and British Trade and Cultural Office, which represent the interests of the United States and United Kingdom governments, respectively, in the absence of official ties.
With regard to his research findings, Rawnsley is positive that the Taiwan Fellowship is a good example of effective public diplomacy. “Given Taiwan’s challenging diplomatic environment, anything that gets people to Taiwan is good from the perspective of public diplomacy, and the Taiwan Fellowship’s personal touch is also important,” he says.
“Taiwan’s rather isolated situation is such that it should have very open arms, and I do think MOFA rightly targets not only professors and associate professors who are relatively influential in their home countries, but also doctoral students,” notes Rawnsley, adding that the fellowship program gives those who are in the early phases of their academic careers their “first taste of the country, which is hopefully a positive one, so they later become educators or other types of opinion formers with a lot of good will towards Taiwan.”
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Jens Kastner is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.
Copyright © 2015 by Jens Kastner