President Tsai’s Celebrity Marketing

Written by Hsin-I Sydney Yueh. On November 13, 2021, NBA player Enes Kanter posted a Twitter message, stating that Taiwan is “not a part of China”; this particular video elicited a warm-hearted response from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen. She said, “Thank you, Enes, for standing with Taiwan and standing up for democracy.” Kanter quoted Tsai’s reply and said he wanted to “meet the brave people of Taiwan.”

A Taiwanese Soft Power?

Written by Nissim Otmazgin. Now that Taiwan has largely shed its Cold War KMT image and has gone through a democratisation process, it can project itself as a peaceful, prosperous, and above all, democratic country that might be a good ally for pro-democracy forces across the region? Given its regional setting in Northeast Asia, how does Taiwan tap into surrounding soft power competition and promote an international agenda? 

The Youth Ambassadors and Taiwan’s Performative Cultural Diplomacy: “Some of the dancing, yeah, I don’t really understand [it]”

Written by Jess Marinaccio. Attention to cultural representation is critical to creating a more equitable Taiwan, especially given Taiwan’s settler-colony status. However, problems of cultural (mis)representation focus the Taiwan’s Youth Ambassadors project on the domestic sphere, suggesting that culture is an ineffective tool in Taiwan’s foreign affairs.

Beijing’s Rise and Taiwan’s Decline in Africa: What Does the African University Tell Us?

Written by Tobi Oshodi. China has positioned itself among many African leaders as the most strategic player on the continent; a leading development partner. As the former Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, bluntly put it: a one hour meeting with former Chinese President Hu Jintao in the executive suite of his hotel in Berlin was more useful than the G8 meeting “where African leaders were told little more than that G8 nations would respect existing commitments.”