Taiwan's Soft Power Potential

Taiwan touches your heart -- or so the old slogan of its tourism bureau tells you. Warm fuzziness aside, I've always found the slogan to be a good place to start a discussion on Taiwan's soft power. For whether Taiwan manages to touch the hearts of people outside of its borders is fundamentally dependent on whether it manages to create and employ soft power. The following are some of my thoughts on the subject, fleshed out with the invaluable help of two friends from UC Berkeley.

"Soft power", by the definition of Joseph Nye, is "the ability to get preferred outcomes through the co-optive means of agenda-setting, persuasion, and attraction". This is in contrast to "hard power" -- the coercive power of military or economic might. Taiwan is interested in soft power because, quite frankly, its hard power (particularly military power) resources are very limited. It therefore behooves Taiwan to look to soft power as it designs strategies to secure its goal of gaining a seat and voice in the international community. 

Taiwan's current soft power strategy seems involve an aggressive tourism blitz. It's a good start, but this strategy in and of itself only sets up Taiwan to be the Hawaii of China. It doesn't necessarily improve Taiwan's ability to attract, persuade, or set agendas on the international issues that matter. In short, it's not enough. But then, what would an effective strategy look like?

The Core Messages:
If Taiwan's goal is to gain a seat and voice in the international community, it needs to make sure that its country branding and public diplomacy policies broadcast two key messages:

1. Taiwanese people are warm, open, and generous. 
2. Taiwan intends to be a responsible stakeholder in the international community. 

The first message is important because, in the end, soft power is about making oneself well-liked. The second is important because it implies the notion that international participation isn't about nationalism or secessionist sentiment -- it's simply a matter of being responsible.

The Shining City on the Hill:
Taiwan has several key attributes that it can derive soft power from. It has a strong market economy,  a functioning democratic government, an attractive popular culture, free speech and press, and mostly uninhibited Internet access.

Since Taiwan is governed by the Republic of China, it is often juxtaposed against mainland China, which is governed by the People's Republic of China. Notice that a lot of the power resources listed above are those that the mainland doesn't have. What Taiwan can therefore do is use these to frame itself as the China that the mainland can strive to be --  a possible future for mainland China where a democratic system can co-exist with a reasonably stable (dare I say "harmonious"?) society. This is a variation of what Joseph Nye calls the "city-on-the-hill" effect.

Citizen Diplomacy:
Mainland China primarily uses soft power strategies that are top-down and state-driven. Taiwan should do the opposite -- put citizen diplomacy in the forefront of its strategies. In fact, I would argue that Taiwan should have its youth and students spearhead many of its policies.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that young people are generally better versed with social media and networking. The second is that things that young people say are going to sound a lot more earnest and genuine than anything that comes out of a government bureaucracy.

Student Exchange:
Based on its power resources, a long-term strategy that Taiwan can implement is what I call the "Rhodes Strategy" -- ensuring that a generation of world leaders has set foot in a country in their formative years as students. In fact, Taiwan can frame itself as a potential political future for mainland China, and then augment that "city-on-the-hill" effect by creating an elite student exchange program that teaches comparative politics in the Chinese-speaking world.

This program can be a joint-project between National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica. In it's test-pilot stage, it can form a partnership with University of Hong Kong to attract Hong Kong's top students. If this works out, I recommend branching out to other top schools, perhaps including:

• Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (U.S.) 
• Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service (U.S.) 
• Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (U.S.)
• National University of Singapore (Singapore)
• Peking University (PRC)
• Fudan Unviversity (PRC)