Reimagining Taiwan? The EU’s Foreign Policy and Strategy in Asia

Abstract

The European Union’s (EU’s) Taiwan policies have been dominated by trade and economic concerns due to the absence of a security profile and China’s insistence on Taiwan belonging to China. This neglect of a political role of the EU in East Asia is often regarded as a central strategic weakness of the EU. With a new government in office in Taiwan since 2016, Cross-Strait relations have worsened; this challenges EU’s ambitions to become a strategic actor in the region. Apart from security and economy, other political aspects of bilateral relations have remained almost unnoticed in the literature. This article addresses EU’s Taiwan policies from a different perspective. Instead of a hierarchic foreign policy exploration with security issues predominating, here, a multidimensional mosaic of EU’s Taiwan relations is analysed breadthways. From this standpoint, one can see that EU’s profile in Taiwan has increased considerably in recent years. These broadened bilateral relations may also support the EU’s wider political and strategic interests in the region altogether. The EU could help Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy align with EU’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations strategy, and thus support a rule-based strategy in the Far East.

The Gambia-Taiwan Relations, 1995-2013: Yahya Jammeh’s Forei̇gn Policy Rationality

“…Also, Taiwan allowed many recipient governments to claim ownership of projects, such as in the Gambia where Jammeh claimed to be the provider of tractors donated by Taiwan. Several other studies on Taiwan have focused on its relationship with the US (Cheng, 2013;Coffin, 2017;Liao and Lin, 2015;Tadahiro, 2021;, the European Union (Cho, 2018;Neszmélyi, 2019;Winkler, 2008;Biedermann, 2018;, its attempt for membership or participation in international bodies (Tubilewicz, 2012;Scanlon, 2017;Lindemann, 2014;Rollet, 2021), its relations with China as well as its relations with other Southeast Asian states (Ikegami, 2012;Liew and Tang, 2019). While Taiwan's foreign policy has received much scholarly attention, generally, the Gambia's foreign policy has not been widely researched.…”

Fraying at the Edges: A Subsystems/Normative Power Analysis of the EU's “One China Policy/Policies”

“…5Mengin 2002; Schubert 2003; van der Putten 2007; Winkler 2008; Lim 2012; Biedermann 2018; Reilly 2018.…”