Northernization for Breaking‐through International Isolation: Taiwan’s Trilateral Aid Cooperation in the Middle East Refugee Crisis and beyond

Abstract

Motivation: Taiwan, a de facto independent state, previously preferred bilateral aid focused on its diplomatic partners in response to China's efforts to isolate the country internationally. More recently, Taiwan has been active in trilateral aid co-operation with many international agencies supporting work in camps for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities in the Middle East and beyond. Purpose: The article analyses how and under what circumstances Taiwan's South-North-South (SNS) co-operation functions, which differs from the conventional trilateral North-South-South (NSS) model. We argue that Taiwan's trilateral aid is a desire for "Northernization" in the global aid hierarchy in order to break through its political isolation. Methods and approach: The research included the collection of government documents and media reports as well as field research and off-therecord interviews in Jordan and Taiwan. We visited Jordan for a month each in 2018 and 2019. Findings: Taiwan's top three partners in trilateral aid co-operation are the United States (US) and related organizations, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the Holy See. Focusing on such co-operation in the Middle East we analyse the consequences and impacts in three dimensions: following Northern norms in aid practices; diversifying aid resources to involve business and non-governmental sectors; and scaling up Taiwan-US regional and global relations. The article casts new light on the complex development geography beyond the conventional North-South axes. Policy implications: The case of Taiwan illustrates the need to question the conventional division between the Global North and Global South. It is also time for the former to include Taiwan as a reliable partner and to use its example to encourage other politically isolated countries and regions to play more important roles as responsible global stakeholders.

Introduction

“…Also, a community of Tibetans, who arrived in Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s and overstayed their visa, are presently residing in Taiwan and have either obtained Taiwanese identity cards or are still undocumented (Pan, 2015). Since 2019, Taiwan has also been active in international cooperation related to refugee protection in the Middle Eastern and the Mediterranean region, offering humanitarian assistance with trilateral aid cooperation (Wu & Chien, 2022). In Taiwan, such migrants are not protected by a formal law and their applications are often dealt with on a case-by-case basis, with rather inconsistent outcomes.…”

Politics of climate change mitigation in Taiwan: International isolation, developmentalism legacy, and civil society responses

“…The Formosa Plastics Group, one of the world's largest petrochemical conglomerates, has stirred up transnational activism in Taiwan, Vietnam, and Louisiana in the United States (Fan et al, 2022;Schütz, 2021). Taiwanese state and environmental NGOs are also going global, a phenomenon of breakingthrough international isolation that some scholars call "Northernization" (Wu & Chien, 2022). Outside of the state's foreign aid agency ICDF, the faith-based Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation has developed notable, distinct responses to global climate change (Lee & Han, 2015;Zimmerman-Liu, 2019) and has reached as many as 10 million members in more than 50 countries (Hsiao et al, 2019).…”