The disappearance of eight Taiwanese businessmen in the waters off Madagascar earlier this month and their families’ attempts to contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help them locate the missing men highlighted the lack of an effective mechanism to offer diplomatic assistance to Taiwanese overseas.
During such emergencies, every second counts and the mechanism should have kicked into action immediately. The problem is action is not the strong suit of diplomats. Although diplomacy is an extension of domestic politics, the organizational structure of Taiwanese overseas missions has flaws, making it difficult for them to offer full assistance.
Following are some suggestions on how the ministry can quickly gain assistance-related information, set up a diplomatic assistance network and interpret vital information.
First, a call transfer system should be set up. This is easy to set up in overseas missions given continuing changes and improvements in telecommunications technologies. The cost of transferring calls using VoIP telephony, for instance, to the ministry or transferring calls from different departments of the ministry to the person on duty is not high. A call transfer system would allow foreign missions to operate 24/7 and thus bring the function of diplomatic assistance into full play.
A call transfer system is like the command center at fire and police stations, which allow emergency information or calls to be monitored at any time and dealt with instantly. Of course, the ministry can cooperate with these organizations only on the premise that there are officials taking emergency calls. The establishment of a call transfer service, in fact, means the establishment of a virtual diplomatic assistance command center.
Second, a virtual diplomatic assistance command center should be established. “Virtual” does not mean “non-existent,” but rather setting up a regional rescue network without spending money on a physical command center or expensive equipment. Taiwanese missions abroad can form a hierarchical and systematic network enabling emergency assistance and mobilization. It can also be done by establishing a virtual regional emergency assistance network in different time zones such as Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
As it is more difficult to quickly mobilize agencies to provide assistance overseas than at home, a virtual diplomatic assistance command center can integrate domestic and overseas assistance resources and provide diplomatic assistance. Rescue operations might not function well in some developing countries that have less developed government mechanisms for assistance because of political, economic and administrative problems. Diplomatic staffers should not use this as an excuse, but instead be even more aggressive in combining domestic and international rescue resources, thus forging official and non-official diplomatic assistance relations.
Because the nation’s diplomatic and consular staffing system is not flexible and the function of the nation’s overseas organizations is not complete, the government can take advantage of the local branches of global assistance organizations or set up and cooperate with global nonprofit, non-governmental organizations through its overseas missions to be able to respond quickly to emergencies.
In short, the government should establish a virtual diplomatic assistance command center to connect all existing networks and make use of domestic and international resources to offset the defects of the current emergency assistance mechanism.
Yang Yung-nane is a political science professor and vice dean of the College of Social Sciences at Cheng Kung University.
Translated by Ted Yang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS