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ABSTRACT
Taiwan has been all but left out of comparative studies of foreign aid donors. This article places Taiwan's aid program in context, through a comparison with its East Asian neighbors – Japan and Korea – and the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors as group. It finds that while Taiwan differs from Japan and Korea in key respects, there are also notable similarities between the three in relation to other DAC donors.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The exceptions include chapters in Kim and Potter (Citation2012) and Sato and Shimomura (Citation2013).
2. Thirty-one interviews were conducted from 2006 to 2013. Interviewees included government officials, politicians and experts from Taiwan, Japan and Korea as well as from several recipients of Taiwan's aid and two Western donors who interact with Taiwan over aid policy issues. Six of these interviews are specifically referred to in the text.
3. Interview with JICA Research Institute experts, Tokyo, 3 July 2013; interview with Japan MOFA official, 12 July 2013. See also OECD (Citation2014b, 32).
4. Interview, Taiwan MOFA official, 7 September 2011.
5. Interview, Taiwan MOFA officials; interview, Japan MOFA officials; interview, Korea MOFA official, Seoul, 21 September 2011; interview KOICA officials, Seongnam, 21 September 2011.
6. The ICDF is Taiwan's dedicated aid agency. However, it plays a minor role in Taiwan's aid system in contrast to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). The ICDF's expenditure in 2013 was only 17.75% of Taiwan's total ODA. Almost all of the remainder flows directly through MOFA. And of this 17.75%, 74% was from MOFA for MOFA-commissioned activities (ICDF Citation2014).
7. Interview, KOICA officials, Seongnam, 21 September 2011.
8. A list of ODA recipients by region is available at: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/aid-for-trade-at-a-glance-2009/dac-list-of-oda-recipients-by-region_9789264069022-103-en
9. This information is drawn from the annual lists of diplomatic allies provided in the Taiwan Government's ‘yearbooks’ produced by the Government Information Office (GIO) in Taipei.
10 One KOICA official wryly remarked that Korea considers itself part of the Global North when it comes to providing ODA, but part of the ‘South’ when it comes to claiming the need for trade barriers. Interview, KOICA officials, Seongnam, 21 September 2011.
11 In one notorious example, Taiwan closed an AIDs clinic in Malawi after that country broke-off diplomatic relations (Rollet Citation2008).
12. As the top 22 recipients receive the bulk of ODA from Japan, Korea and DAC, this provides a reasonable comparison for where Taiwan's ODA is going given that a breakdown of Taiwan's ODA by recipient is unavailable. As Japan, Korea and the DAC donors as a whole provide at least some ODA to a very large number of recipients, this provides a more meaningful comparison than an average value for all recipients.
13. Taiwan's sector breakdowns are available at MOFA (2014, 7–8). OECD sector codes are available at OECD (Citation2013).Taiwan's reported category of ‘sustainable development–environmental protection’ coded as ‘social infrastructure’ and ‘sustainable development–cross-sector’ as ‘economic infrastructure.’ ‘Other-Administrative expenses of partner countries’ coded as ‘other social infrastructure.’
14. Interview, ICDF officials, Taipei, 13 August 2011.
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Joel Atkinson
Joel Atkinson is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of International and Area Studies (GSIAS) at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, South Korea, where he researches and teaches East Asian international relations. He is the author of Australia and Taiwan: Bilateral Relations, China, the United States, and the South Pacific (Leiden & Boston: Brill). His research has been published in The Pacific Review, Pacific Affairs, the Australian Journal of Politics & History, the Australian Journal of International Affairs, and elsewhere.