Democracy and Diplomacy: Ideas Concerning Huaqiao and Taiwan, 1898-2018.

What is Taiwan's overseas community, and how does it connect with Taiwan's diplomacy? The ad hoc organization representing migrants from Taiwall, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, evolved from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (OCAC) of the Republic of China (ROC), established in 1926. The jargon overseas Chinese is the English translation of the Chinese term huaqiao. The latter refers to migrants from China and their descendants who consider themselves sojourners from China, but not all ethnic Chinese residing abroad would accept the huaqiao identity. The ideas concerning huaqiao and Taiwan's diplomacy constitute the theme of this paper. It adapts Joseph Nye's thesis of soft power (cultural diplomacy) and Jacques deLisle's concept of sharp power (political warfare) to interpret the two views on the articulation between Taiwan and migrants from China. It points out the Chinese nationalist embeddedness of the huaqiao concept and the ways in which nationalists drew reference from the history of Chinese migration to Taiwan in the seventeenth century to construct the huaqiao discourses. It also traces the institutional foundation of the Kuomintang's (KMT) huaqiao policies transplanted to Taiwan after 1949. The debate over Taiwan's overseas community policies reflected the twofold question: the competition between Taiwan's cultural diplomacy and the People's Republic of China's political warfare over overseas Chinese mobilization and the construction of Taiwan's national identity after democratization. In conclusion, I highlight the importance of de-nationalizing the huaqiao ideas to ensure a democratic approach for Taiwan to connect with its migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]