Routledge Taiwan and Post-Communist Europe: Shopping for Allies (Routledge Contemporary Asia Series)

Taiwan and Post-Communist Europe examines Taiwan’s economic diplomacy towards post-communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. The media, and occasionally academia, have often suggested that Taipei resorts to costly aid, trade and investment diplomacy to facilitate its foreign relations, whilst China engages in equally costly counter-economic diplomacy to keep Taiwan isolated. Czeslaw Tubilewicz argues conversely that Beijing’s diplomacy in post-communist Europe has demonstrated China’s reluctance to employ economic instruments against states violating the ‘one-China’ principle when cheaper (diplomatic) alternatives are available. Taipei, for its part, has demonstrated that promises of economic assistance are sufficient to induce target states’ short term compliance, whilst in the medium to long term Taiwanese economic assistance, conditional upon meeting political criteria, has proved inconsequential due to Taipei’s refusal to follow up aid commitments. This book examines the efficacy and limitations of Taipei’s frugal economic diplomacy in furthering its broader diplomatic objectives, looking at both Taipei’s failure to establish a lasting diplomatic presence in post-communist Europe, but also its success in securing ‘substantive’ relations with a number of major post-communist states, and thus opening transition economies for its exports and investments. The first in-depth study into Taiwan’s economic diplomacy toward post-communist Europe, this book will appeal to readers interested in Taiwan and China studies, diplomacy, Asian studies and international relations. Review '...the books research is thorough and well documented, its analysis vigorous and its arguments basically sound. Its case studies contain interesting details which make good reading. This book is useful for understanding Taiwan's diplomatic predicament sine the early 1970s' - C.L.Chiou, The China Journal, January 2008 About the Author Czeslaw Tubilewicz is the Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong, the former co-programme leader of China Studies at the Open University of Hong Kong, and editor of Critical Issues in Contemporary China (Routledge, 2006).