The Taiwan Culture in Europe initiative has chosen a promising theme. This year’s program would highlight Taiwan’s commitment to human rights through film festivals, academic collaborations and live performances across Europe, the Ministry of Culture said.
It is a sensible choice. Taiwan’s international space is constrained, but its democracy, artistic freedom and civil society give it a language with which to speak to Europeans with unusual credibility.
Yet human rights are not merely a cultural commodity. Neither are they a label to be attached to a touring program, nor a product to be traded for reputational points.
They are a practice — and, in every democracy, an unfinished one.
That is why Taiwan Culture in Europe should be welcomed, but sharpened.
The reported inclusion of restored works that had been censored under the authoritarian regime, as well as films engaging with indigenous communities, Hakka identity, gender-based violence and queer life, suggests that the program is not merely celebratory. It recognizes that human rights can be explored through pain, memory, exclusion and social conflict.
However, the credibility of a human rights-centered cultural diplomacy effort depends not only on what it includes, but also on what it leaves out.
European institutions already have a clear framework for assessing Taiwan’s human rights record. The European External Action Service’s most recent report on human rights and democracy described Taiwan’s human rights situation as among the most advanced in Asia, but also identified concerns: slow progress toward abolishing the death penalty, the lack of a transparent legal framework for refugees and poor working conditions for migrant workers.
These are not marginal issues. They are precisely the open questions that should shape any serious conversation about human rights in Taiwan today.
The execution of Weng Jen-hsien (翁仁賢) in April 2020 illustrated the tension between Taiwan’s status as a retentionist country and efforts to beef up its reputation as a like-minded partner among European interlocutors.
At the time, Taiwan was receiving rare international recognition for its “Taiwan can help” diplomacy during the early phase of COVID-19. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen thanked Taiwan for donating millions of medical masks — an unprecedented gesture from the head of the bloc’s main executive body. Yet almost simultaneously, Taiwan carried out its first execution in several years. The European External Action Service responded by calling on Taiwan to refrain from executions, restore a de facto moratorium and pursue abolition.
The lesson is not that Taiwan’s human rights achievements are invalidated by one policy area. The lesson is that a reputation built on values is fragile when those values are presented selectively.
Migrant rights raise a similar challenge. Taiwan’s economy and care infrastructure depend heavily on migrant labor. Migrant fishers, factory workers and care workers are part of Taiwan’s society. Yet they often remain politically marginalized, legally vulnerable and culturally invisible.
It is regrettable because migrant communities in Taiwan are not only victims of structural inequality. They are also agents of cultural production. The Taiwan Literature Award for Migrants, now in its second decade, has shown that migrant workers write, remember, imagine and interpret Taiwan in ways that enrich the country’s cultural landscape.
If Taiwan wants to present itself in Europe as a human rights leader, it should show not only how Taiwanese society has expanded rights for its citizens. It should also show how Taiwan listens to those who live and work across its islands without equal political power.
This is where the current program appears to miss an opportunity. It is not enough to screen films about human rights or organize conversations with artists and cultural institutions. The conversations should also include grassroots activists, migrant worker organizations, abolitionist groups, refugee advocates, indigenous representatives and affected communities.
Human rights in Taiwan were not gifted from above. They were fought for by political prisoners, lawyers, journalists, women’s groups, indigenous activists, LGBTQ campaigners, migrant worker advocates and families who refused to be silent. A cultural diplomacy program that presents human rights without featuring these actors risks mistaking the outcome for the process.
That process is precisely what distinguishes Taiwan from authoritarian regimes. Beijing also speaks the language of rights, but as a state-centered performance. Taiwan’s advantage is different. Its human rights story is credible because it is contested. Courts, civil society groups, journalists, artists and social movements argue openly about what justice requires.
The ministry should treat the Taiwan Culture in Europe initiative not only as a showcase, but as a forum. Screenings should be paired with issue-specific discussions. Programs on indigenous experience should feature indigenous agency. Events on migrant life should include migrant writers and labor advocates. Discussions on human dignity should not avoid the death penalty.
European audiences do not need Taiwan to present itself as flawless. What makes Taiwan compelling is not that it has solved every human rights problem, but that it has built institutions and civic spaces where unresolved problems can be debated, challenged and gradually transformed.
Taiwan’s strongest human rights story is not that it has nothing left to fix. It is that, unlike authoritarian regimes, it still has the freedom to argue openly about what justice requires.
Marcin Jerzewski is head of the Taiwan office of the European Values Center for Security Policy and a fellow at Visegrad Insight.
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