英文摘要 |
Existing literature tends to focus on analyzing great powers’ soft power strategies and effects. However, the success or failure in soft power construction can have much greater impacts on middle and small powers’ survival and development. This is especially true for the case of Taiwan. Owing to the historic fact that Taiwan’s foreign-relations developments have faced grave challenges resulted from its lack of hard power and the complexity of cross-Strait relations, its government has been paying significant attention to the importance of soft power since the 1990s. Former president Lee Teng-hui, for instance, was very active in utilizing Taiwan’s thriving economy and ongoing democratization process to attract international support. As Taiwan’s first president after the peaceful power transition in history, Chen Shui-bianconsidered the international promotion of Taiwan’s democratic and human rights achievements a prioritized foreign policy objective. Nonetheless, recognizing the fast changes in the external and internal political-economic environments, Chen’s successors—Ma Ying-jeouand Tsai Ing-wen—made substantial adjustments in their soft power construction strategies on the basis of Lee’s and Chen’s works. This paper, attempts to apply Nye’s analytical framework for soft power to examine the discourses and policies of Taiwan’s soft power construction during the Ma and Tsai administrations. The primary goal is to understand the continuity and differences in both administrations’ soft power building efforts, while also try to discuss some possible directions for future policy improvements. |