Money, Politics and the Predicament of Taiwan''s Official Medical Aid

• Main Authors: Tzu-Yi Lai, 賴姿邑
• Other Authors: 陳嘉銘
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/36496895550015561948

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 政治學研究所 === 103 === Medical aid has been viewed as a kind of humanitarian outreach. But Taiwan’s official medical aid is far beyond such trend. Considering Taiwan has long been struggled in gaining diplomatic recognition, Taiwan government has kept using official medical aid as a diplomatic tool since 1962 by dispatching 6 military doctors to Libya. However comparing to Cuba and China, who also practiced medical diplomacy, Taiwan’s case showed a different kind of medical diplomacy. Taiwan was unlike Cuba who had an ideal in promoting medical service to everyone. And even though Taiwan had shared similar realistic diplomatic motive like China, Taiwan’s medical diplomacy had struggled in its limited scale. Making China’s realistic medical diplomacy experience could not explain why Taiwan kept exporting its medical diplomacy considering it could not fulfill Taiwan’s diplomatic goal due to its limited scale. Using documentation and historical methods on Taiwan’s confidential government diplomatic files that have been declassified, the author reveals that the medical diplomacy of Taiwan is one self-imagining realistic medical diplomacy practice. Struggling in gaining diplomatic recognition, the diplomats of Taiwan had a conscious awareness in trying every mean to earn friendship in international society. Causing Taiwan kept exporting its medical diplomacy, even though its limited scale seemed useless in fulfilling any diplomatic goal. Suffering from the structural dilemma in earning diplomatic recognition for decades, Taiwan officials tended to view every diplomatic breakthrough as a result of their past efforts which was easily led to a self-imaging illusion. In 2006, when the presidential aircraft of Taiwan made a stopover in Libya, Taiwan government had wrongfully connected this diplomatic breakthrough to its past official medical aid to Libya. By distorting and misconnecting the real impact of its official medical aid, Taiwan official had formed a kind of self-imaging realistic medical diplomacy.