TaiwanPlus speaks with political scientist Ian Chong about the significance of President Lai Ching-te's weeklong Pacific trip, his first diplomatic tour since taking office earlier this year.
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00:00How do you think that President Lai was able to use a level of soft power to connect with Taiwan's partners in Palau, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands?
00:08So for Lai and successive TPP governments, they've always stressed a cultural aspect as well as a democratic aspect of the relationship.
00:19I suppose in particular, Taiwan and its aboriginal peoples have a cultural connection with the peoples of the Pacific.
00:28So that was something that was stressed.
00:30I noticed there were several occasions where there were those sorts of ceremonies that seemed to suggest some of these degrees of similarity.
00:38So I think that was one aspect.
00:40But, of course, there is the other, I wouldn't say hard, but the other sort of more development, cooperation-based elements as well.
00:49This was especially apparent in Palau.
00:51But these are all different tools for foreign policy.
00:55Was there anything specific that stood out that Taiwan was able to accomplish during this trip?
01:01So I think what was notable was the emphasis on capacity building, the emphasis on helping these places develop an ability to monitor the seas,
01:13which they have jurisdiction over, because these have been areas where the PRC have put a lot of pressure on these islands and they are quite capacity constrained.
01:22So, you know, it was that sort of move was quite marked.
01:25Of course, what will be sufficient in that sort of wide, expansive ocean, I guess, remains to be seen.
01:31How is this diplomatic trip being received by the domestic audience?
01:35I haven't seen sort of any real criticism of it, which I suppose suggests that it is seen as pretty positive domestically.
01:45Of course, a lot of the attention domestically in Taiwan was drawn by Ma Ying-jeou's arrangement of the visit by these students from the PRC who seem to have Chinese Communist Party links and the sort of protests surrounding that.
02:00So in that regard, you know, perhaps Lai's visit didn't have the big positive impact that he might have hoped,
02:08but at least it didn't draw a lot of the sort of negativity that might have come about.
02:12That negativity seems to have focused around former President Ma Ying-jeou's actions.
02:19Do you believe that this was a substantive trip that set a real precedent for how Taiwan can help its allies moving forward?
02:27I would say that it is very consistent with what Taiwan, since the Tsai administration, has been doing.
02:35It's not, I don't see it as a sort of major breakthrough, but that consistency is important.
02:41It shows that Taiwan continues to be interested in how its diplomatic partners are doing.
02:47It continues to try to put itself forward as a reliable, credible, and very helpful partner.