2009年01月10日
Needed: A New Taiwanese Approach to Public Diplomacy
FP Note No.5 (Jan 9, 2009)
Needed: A New Taiwanese Approach to Public Diplomacy
William C. Vocke, Jr.
Senior Fellow and Senior Program DirectorCarnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
A Limits Approach to the “New Public Diplomacy”
Three transformative factors caused public diplomacy to morph in the last two decades: communications technology, the global growth of civil society, and the proliferation of democratic governments and free markets. These accentuated several trends in public diplomacy which accelerated over the last 200 years.
Needed: A New Taiwanese Approach to Public Diplomacy
William C. Vocke, Jr.
Senior Fellow and Senior Program DirectorCarnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
A Limits Approach to the “New Public Diplomacy”
Three transformative factors caused public diplomacy to morph in the last two decades: communications technology, the global growth of civil society, and the proliferation of democratic governments and free markets. These accentuated several trends in public diplomacy which accelerated over the last 200 years.
One consequence is that actors other than states (NGOs, IGOs, MNCs) engage in or are the target of public diplomacy. Another feature is that horizontal networks are becoming the norm, in contrast to the hierarchical state-based model. The final and most important consequence is that, while the traditional “quest for policy influence” remains an important goal, a new goal takes equal precedence, “limiting other states’ options” by appealing to those states’ domestic constituencies.
Successful public diplomacy was defined by the ability to change another’s policy. Now success can now also be defined and measured by the ability to set limits to others’ options. These limits to policy exist because democracy and civil society empower a broader range of players in the foreign policy process and because modern communications is a multiplier of that empowerment.
In addition to changing policy, which is set by decision makers, institutions, and elites, actors now can also shape the limits that exist within other states and within the global community. This is not the narrower aim of altering another’s decisions, but the broad goal of limiting available choices, aimed at an earlier stage of the decision process.
How do limits work? In 2007 in the US, no Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination could support the “surge” in Iraq. Candidates were limited by the policy preferences of the electorate. Today President-Elect Obama is constrained by those limits (which he also endorses).
Changing Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Process
A limits approach generates two important implications for the practice of Taiwanese public diplomacy.
First, the traditional approach of public diplomacy, where the goal is altering or reinforcing the policy of another actor, may be in conflict with the goals of a limits approach. Melissen notes “…the aims of public diplomacy cannot be achieved if they are believed to be inconsistent with a country’s foreign policy or military actions.”[1]
As a direct instrument of Taiwanese foreign policy, public diplomacy’s policy goals cannot be achieved if the foreign policy that animates them is unachievable, too narrowly focused, or disputed by major parts of the international community. The earlier UN campaigns are an illustration. That foreign policy goal need not be abandoned, and this is not an argument against either the goal or the approach to UN membership. However, it is too much to expect that Taiwanese public diplomacy can achieve results made impossible by circumstances in the international community.
Furthermore, important public diplomacy assets (like goodwill, a reputation for reasonableness and pragmatism, credibility, friendship, time, and money) can be expended in the pursuit of the unattainable. These assets might be better spent on different, limits goals. An administration’s foreign policy cannot be shielded for long by its public diplomacy.
In contrast, a limits approach builds a reservoir, a floor, a foundation for a democracy in its global interactions. For Taiwan, a public diplomacy limits approach might try to encourage international acceptance of basic themes. Three potential themes (limits) that Taiwan might nurture in the international community could be: 1) any change in the Taiwan Strait should be peaceful, 2) the consent of a majority of the Taiwan people should be a precondition for any change of status, and 3) Taiwan is a place of miracles: democratic, economic, and medical.
If promoting these or other themes were the objective of Taiwanese public diplomacy, a firm foundation in the international community might be created on which to pursue long-term Taiwanese interests. That reservoir can moderate the policy swings of friends and adversaries and stabilize long-term objectives.
Crucially, for these limits goals to be effective, they have to be isolated from policy goals. If you try to build a long-term foundation and pursue short term policy objectives through the same channels, they inevitably get intertwined. The short term overwhelms the long term objective; the immediate displaces the essential.
The policy goals cannot be dismissed. Any Taiwanese government will want support its policy initiatives with public diplomacy, and should do so. Traditional public diplomacy in pursuit of policies like participation in international organization must continue and will be part of the charge for both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Government Information Office (GIO).
However, the second, limits, thrust of public diplomacy must be differentiated. The limits objectives need to be firewalled, de-politicized. This means some institutional and financial separation from the normal foreign policy/public diplomacy process. Only then will overseas targets’ domestic audiences or non-profit members of the international community embrace these limits. If limits goals come tied to policies that must also be embraced, they will be seen simply as the first step on a slippery slope. This requires clear institutional and financial separation between: 1) public diplomacy as an advocate for foreign policy goals, and 2) public diplomacy as a promoter for global limits on others’ behavior.
Second, a limits approach must be articulated and embraced at the highest levels of the Taiwanese government. A new institutional structure, perhaps similar to the British “Public Diplomacy Strategy Board” is required. An institutional process has to be created that lends credibility and power to Taiwan’s attempts to shape the limits informing international and other countries’ opinion. This attempt cannot be enmeshed in policy initiatives, which MOFA must continue to pursue and the GIO must explain.
Also an alternative structure must be created to take advantage of the cumulative effects of pre-1991 trends and the subsequent revolutionary transformation in the global environment. That alternate structure would emerge from a political and policy debate in Taiwan, but might take the form of an independent foundation. For instance, on a narrower basis The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy illustrates one possible institutional structure.
Regarding financial separation, I suggest, elsewhere, a unique funding method that would provide several benefits. Currently income from Taiwan’s foreign currency reserves goes into the national budget. A significant portion of these reserves could be designated as a Sovereign Endowment Fund. The income would be treated like a university’s endowment income, and it could be a distinctive, apolitical funding mechanism. Current foreign aid, outreach programs, and new initiatives could be funded to demonstrate Taiwan’s willingness to use its reserves for the good of humanity. This “Taiwan Model” would provide a unique contrast to the politically motivated and suspicious investments of other sovereign wealth funds.
Limits do channel policy. The recent course of presidential elections demonstrates the centrality of a “domestic consensus” in effectively pursuing international objectives. Candidates, elected officials, and bureaucrats find themselves limited by public expectations.
Challenges for the a New Public Diplomacy
Hidden in the many crucial issues confronting the new government in Taiwan and the new American presidency are the promises of a renewed emphasis on public diplomacy. This is an opportunity to limit and channel the potential responses of others to Taiwan.
The rhetoric of public diplomacy is easy, but the impact is often negligible if the application of public diplomacy is simply sales, spin doctoring, of Taiwan’s foreign policy initiatives. A more fundamental change is needed.
Also, a “diplomatic truce” with China could leave current Taiwanese public diplomacy lifeless and without focus. What is the purpose of public diplomacy, if not to support policy initiatives designed to strengthen Taiwan vis-à-vis China? A limits approach is the answer. It provides energy, direction, and focus at a time when more confrontational, controversial, or risky initiatives are discouraged.
Three interlinked problems must be addressed if a new Taiwanese public diplomacy is to be effective.
1) Is there a difference between marketing Taiwan and an effective limits based public diplomacy?
2) Can you have effective public diplomacy and ineffective administration policy?
3) Can Taiwan’s moral claim on the imagination of the international community transcend administrations?
1) YES, there is a difference between marketing Taiwan and effective public diplomacy, but if, and only if, limits can be distinguished from policy. Administration policy must be marketed, but understanding and appreciating Taiwanese society can form limits on others’ impulses. A quote from abroad which would indicate that difference is, “I disagree with Taiwan’s policy on ____, but Taiwan has an important role to play in the world.”
2) YES, effective public diplomacy can occur even if the public diplomacy supporting a controversial policy goal is not effective. However, for it to work the “limits” aspects of public diplomacy must be firewalled, depoliticized, from the public diplomacy designed to advocate policy. This requires institutional restructuring and financial separation.
3) YES, Taiwan’s moral appeal to the world and its claim on global support can transcend administrations. But it requires willing acknowledgement that the core foundations of Taiwanese interests are not tied to any party or policy. It requires acting for the long-term. It requires administrations to admit potential conflict between their short term policy preferences and the long term interests of Taiwan. It requires forbearance on the part of decision makers anxious to make policy points.
Leadership not just Political Calculation
Taiwan needs to agree on new institutional structures, funding mechanisms, and core values to promote, if they genuinely want to reengage the world. These are independent of party and politics. Taiwan needs others to embrace the basic outline of Taiwanese society and aspirations; even if some policies may contradict. Taiwan’s peacefulness, consensual character, economic miracle, democratic dynamism, and medical/technical revolution are not based in any administration.
The entire concept of a “new public diplomacy” emphasizes horizontal relationships among many types of actors, and is built on the belief that, in the market of ideas, the best eventually surface. Taiwan too often seems to walk solely in the overlapping shadows of an authoritarian past and a great neighbor’s threat. Taiwan needs to trust itself, to believe that the achievements of the last generations are real, to confidently walk in the sun.
One definition of leadership involves powerfully stating your policy and acting upon it, while holding open the ability to change. This reflects a limits approach to public diplomacy, and inherently recognizes that some policy positions are transient; in effect accepting that they could be incorrect. Short-term wrong-headed policy can coexist with long term firm foundations.
The power of emphasizing common, universal values and aspirations should not be underestimated. This is not naïve. It does not substitute for effective national security policy or for ensuring the nation’s defense, but it is a remarkable long term supplement to successful foreign policy. Witness the resounding, positive global response to the American election. Who can doubt that reservoir of goodwill? For America, public diplomacy’s task is to keep refilling that reservoir.
Successful public diplomacy was defined by the ability to change another’s policy. Now success can now also be defined and measured by the ability to set limits to others’ options. These limits to policy exist because democracy and civil society empower a broader range of players in the foreign policy process and because modern communications is a multiplier of that empowerment.
In addition to changing policy, which is set by decision makers, institutions, and elites, actors now can also shape the limits that exist within other states and within the global community. This is not the narrower aim of altering another’s decisions, but the broad goal of limiting available choices, aimed at an earlier stage of the decision process.
How do limits work? In 2007 in the US, no Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination could support the “surge” in Iraq. Candidates were limited by the policy preferences of the electorate. Today President-Elect Obama is constrained by those limits (which he also endorses).
Changing Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Process
A limits approach generates two important implications for the practice of Taiwanese public diplomacy.
First, the traditional approach of public diplomacy, where the goal is altering or reinforcing the policy of another actor, may be in conflict with the goals of a limits approach. Melissen notes “…the aims of public diplomacy cannot be achieved if they are believed to be inconsistent with a country’s foreign policy or military actions.”[1]
As a direct instrument of Taiwanese foreign policy, public diplomacy’s policy goals cannot be achieved if the foreign policy that animates them is unachievable, too narrowly focused, or disputed by major parts of the international community. The earlier UN campaigns are an illustration. That foreign policy goal need not be abandoned, and this is not an argument against either the goal or the approach to UN membership. However, it is too much to expect that Taiwanese public diplomacy can achieve results made impossible by circumstances in the international community.
Furthermore, important public diplomacy assets (like goodwill, a reputation for reasonableness and pragmatism, credibility, friendship, time, and money) can be expended in the pursuit of the unattainable. These assets might be better spent on different, limits goals. An administration’s foreign policy cannot be shielded for long by its public diplomacy.
In contrast, a limits approach builds a reservoir, a floor, a foundation for a democracy in its global interactions. For Taiwan, a public diplomacy limits approach might try to encourage international acceptance of basic themes. Three potential themes (limits) that Taiwan might nurture in the international community could be: 1) any change in the Taiwan Strait should be peaceful, 2) the consent of a majority of the Taiwan people should be a precondition for any change of status, and 3) Taiwan is a place of miracles: democratic, economic, and medical.
If promoting these or other themes were the objective of Taiwanese public diplomacy, a firm foundation in the international community might be created on which to pursue long-term Taiwanese interests. That reservoir can moderate the policy swings of friends and adversaries and stabilize long-term objectives.
Crucially, for these limits goals to be effective, they have to be isolated from policy goals. If you try to build a long-term foundation and pursue short term policy objectives through the same channels, they inevitably get intertwined. The short term overwhelms the long term objective; the immediate displaces the essential.
The policy goals cannot be dismissed. Any Taiwanese government will want support its policy initiatives with public diplomacy, and should do so. Traditional public diplomacy in pursuit of policies like participation in international organization must continue and will be part of the charge for both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Government Information Office (GIO).
However, the second, limits, thrust of public diplomacy must be differentiated. The limits objectives need to be firewalled, de-politicized. This means some institutional and financial separation from the normal foreign policy/public diplomacy process. Only then will overseas targets’ domestic audiences or non-profit members of the international community embrace these limits. If limits goals come tied to policies that must also be embraced, they will be seen simply as the first step on a slippery slope. This requires clear institutional and financial separation between: 1) public diplomacy as an advocate for foreign policy goals, and 2) public diplomacy as a promoter for global limits on others’ behavior.
Second, a limits approach must be articulated and embraced at the highest levels of the Taiwanese government. A new institutional structure, perhaps similar to the British “Public Diplomacy Strategy Board” is required. An institutional process has to be created that lends credibility and power to Taiwan’s attempts to shape the limits informing international and other countries’ opinion. This attempt cannot be enmeshed in policy initiatives, which MOFA must continue to pursue and the GIO must explain.
Also an alternative structure must be created to take advantage of the cumulative effects of pre-1991 trends and the subsequent revolutionary transformation in the global environment. That alternate structure would emerge from a political and policy debate in Taiwan, but might take the form of an independent foundation. For instance, on a narrower basis The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy illustrates one possible institutional structure.
Regarding financial separation, I suggest, elsewhere, a unique funding method that would provide several benefits. Currently income from Taiwan’s foreign currency reserves goes into the national budget. A significant portion of these reserves could be designated as a Sovereign Endowment Fund. The income would be treated like a university’s endowment income, and it could be a distinctive, apolitical funding mechanism. Current foreign aid, outreach programs, and new initiatives could be funded to demonstrate Taiwan’s willingness to use its reserves for the good of humanity. This “Taiwan Model” would provide a unique contrast to the politically motivated and suspicious investments of other sovereign wealth funds.
Limits do channel policy. The recent course of presidential elections demonstrates the centrality of a “domestic consensus” in effectively pursuing international objectives. Candidates, elected officials, and bureaucrats find themselves limited by public expectations.
Challenges for the a New Public Diplomacy
Hidden in the many crucial issues confronting the new government in Taiwan and the new American presidency are the promises of a renewed emphasis on public diplomacy. This is an opportunity to limit and channel the potential responses of others to Taiwan.
The rhetoric of public diplomacy is easy, but the impact is often negligible if the application of public diplomacy is simply sales, spin doctoring, of Taiwan’s foreign policy initiatives. A more fundamental change is needed.
Also, a “diplomatic truce” with China could leave current Taiwanese public diplomacy lifeless and without focus. What is the purpose of public diplomacy, if not to support policy initiatives designed to strengthen Taiwan vis-à-vis China? A limits approach is the answer. It provides energy, direction, and focus at a time when more confrontational, controversial, or risky initiatives are discouraged.
Three interlinked problems must be addressed if a new Taiwanese public diplomacy is to be effective.
1) Is there a difference between marketing Taiwan and an effective limits based public diplomacy?
2) Can you have effective public diplomacy and ineffective administration policy?
3) Can Taiwan’s moral claim on the imagination of the international community transcend administrations?
1) YES, there is a difference between marketing Taiwan and effective public diplomacy, but if, and only if, limits can be distinguished from policy. Administration policy must be marketed, but understanding and appreciating Taiwanese society can form limits on others’ impulses. A quote from abroad which would indicate that difference is, “I disagree with Taiwan’s policy on ____, but Taiwan has an important role to play in the world.”
2) YES, effective public diplomacy can occur even if the public diplomacy supporting a controversial policy goal is not effective. However, for it to work the “limits” aspects of public diplomacy must be firewalled, depoliticized, from the public diplomacy designed to advocate policy. This requires institutional restructuring and financial separation.
3) YES, Taiwan’s moral appeal to the world and its claim on global support can transcend administrations. But it requires willing acknowledgement that the core foundations of Taiwanese interests are not tied to any party or policy. It requires acting for the long-term. It requires administrations to admit potential conflict between their short term policy preferences and the long term interests of Taiwan. It requires forbearance on the part of decision makers anxious to make policy points.
Leadership not just Political Calculation
Taiwan needs to agree on new institutional structures, funding mechanisms, and core values to promote, if they genuinely want to reengage the world. These are independent of party and politics. Taiwan needs others to embrace the basic outline of Taiwanese society and aspirations; even if some policies may contradict. Taiwan’s peacefulness, consensual character, economic miracle, democratic dynamism, and medical/technical revolution are not based in any administration.
The entire concept of a “new public diplomacy” emphasizes horizontal relationships among many types of actors, and is built on the belief that, in the market of ideas, the best eventually surface. Taiwan too often seems to walk solely in the overlapping shadows of an authoritarian past and a great neighbor’s threat. Taiwan needs to trust itself, to believe that the achievements of the last generations are real, to confidently walk in the sun.
One definition of leadership involves powerfully stating your policy and acting upon it, while holding open the ability to change. This reflects a limits approach to public diplomacy, and inherently recognizes that some policy positions are transient; in effect accepting that they could be incorrect. Short-term wrong-headed policy can coexist with long term firm foundations.
The power of emphasizing common, universal values and aspirations should not be underestimated. This is not naïve. It does not substitute for effective national security policy or for ensuring the nation’s defense, but it is a remarkable long term supplement to successful foreign policy. Witness the resounding, positive global response to the American election. Who can doubt that reservoir of goodwill? For America, public diplomacy’s task is to keep refilling that reservoir.
For Taiwan, that foundation has to be created. The process is well underway but needs attention. Taiwan has a wonderful story to tell that transcends politics and taps deep springs of sympathy and community. Taiwan needs to step off the political soapbox and onto the leadership podium. To both act (make policy) and reflect (set limits) at the same time is difficult, but this is the definition of effectively engaging the world.
[1] Jan Melissen, ed. The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations, Palgrave: Hampshire, England, 2005, p. 7.
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