One Year On: Foreign Affairs - No pratfalls, some plaudits, little change for foreign ministry

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not done a bad job over the past year because it has managed to keep its 29 allies in the fold despite continued pressure from China, analysts said.

The foreign ministry has also been moderately successful at pursuing pragmatic diplomacy and in inviting input from the non-state sector.

The foreign policy initiatives put forward by the administration under President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), albeit full of innovative ideas, are in essence not a far cry from those mapped out by Chen's predecessor Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), critics observed. It is this continuity of pragmatic diplomacy that political analysts cite as one of the foreign ministry's major achievements during the past 12 months.

"Under the new government, the foreign ministry has seen a stable administrative continuity and has not suffered from any major problems compared to other ministries," said Philip Yang (楊永明), a political analyst at National Taiwan University.

Unlike domestic issues that allow lots of room for policy debates and arguments, the foreign ministry's diplomatic efforts require continuity to ensure policy effectiveness, analysts said.

Critics gave a thumbs up to many of the initiatives put forward by the Chen administration, although some said it was still premature to thoroughly evaluate the events of the past year.

In terms of personnel, for instance, the new administration showed due respect to the existing bureaucracy while injecting new blood from the academic world, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Hung-mao (田弘茂), Yang said.

Outside appointments

The appointment of capable individuals from outside the traditional diplomats' circle as Taiwan's top representatives overseas has gradually yielded dividends, some observed.

For instance, Taipei's top representative to Tokyo, Lo Fu-chen (羅福全), a former high-ranking UN official, outshone his predecessors by becoming the first senior representative from Taiwan to Japan to be invited to give a talk at the Foreign Correspondence Club in Japan on March 12.

"He was the first representative who was able to handle questions fired at him from correspondents in both English and Japanese," said Chu Wen-ching (朱文清), spokesman for the Taipei representative office in Tokyo.

Lo's efforts to garner support in Japan for Lee Teng-hui's proposed visit last month were rewarded with Tokyo's approval for the 78-year-old former president's trip to Japan to receive a medical checkup, said dissident-turned diplomat Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), Taipei's deputy representative to Washington.

Furthermore, analysts applauded the new touchstones of Taiwan's efforts overseas, especially its "humanitarian diplomacy" and emphasis on the involvement of the non-state sector in helping expand Taiwan's external relations.

Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), deputy director of the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University, saw the promotion of humanitarian diplomacy as a way to reverse the negative image of Taiwan as a practitioner of cash diplomacy.

"Taiwan has been criticized for spending an excessive amount of money to lure diplomatic allies into its fold or giving unquestioning support for dictators such as the warlord-turned-president of Liberia. ... The emphasis on the practice of humanitarian diplomacy can show Taiwan's determination to spend money on those at the bottom of the heap," Wu said.