Taiwan: Diplomacy Through Aid

In the Ivory Coast, Nationalist Chinese experts are helping African farmers boost rice production. In Ethiopia and Chad, Chinese veterinarians are advising farmers. In Rwanda, local artisans are using techniques taught them by Chinese jade and ivory carvers. And in South Viet Nam, clerks from Taipei’s efficient post office are trying to unsnarl the postal and communications snafus of the war-torn country.

These overseas Chinese are the cadre of Taiwan’s small but surprisingly successful technical assistance program to underdeveloped nations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America Begun in 1961, “Project Vanguard, run with little publicity on a shoestring budget of $5,000,000 a year, today has 1 239 technical experts in 27 countries.

Peking, Taiwan’s rival, currently offers assistance to 24 countries, with at least 1,000 technicians and a host of laborers. But there is a difference in approach. The Communists lean toward large prestige projects, such as their effort to build a railway linking Tanzania and Zambia, and because of the size of such projects, often fall behind. They also insist on sending hordes of their own laborers; the men from Taiwan prefer maximal participation by the host country. The Nationalists deny that political dividends are their main objective. But Vanguard’s efforts quite clearly have a bearing on Taiwan’s annual United Nations battle to keep itself in the world forum and the Communist Chinese out. Last year the vote was 58 to 45, with 17 abstentions, against membership for Peking.

Down in the Mud. Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, who will be 81 later this month, last week presided over the 19th National Day of his republic since its exile to Taiwan. He and his advisers view Vanguard not only as a means of passing on Taiwan’s own experiences in climbing from underdevelopment to economic independence, but also as an instrument to fight Communism. “Peking makes its pitch to governments amid polemics and promises that somehow never quite seem to turn out,” says Yin Wei-Hang, director for African affairs at the Foreign Ministry in Taipei. “We go through the governments to the people. We go down in the mud with them. Of course, it improves government-to-government relations too, and we can hardly object.”

Taiwan’s aid program in Africa, where Vanguard concentrates its efforts, is impartial enough to include a nation like Ethiopia, which votes for Peking in the U.N. It thus serves as an advertisement to countries still diplomatically uncommitted. Several countries have recognized Taipei after receiving technical advice; last week Vice Foreign Minister Yang Hsi-kung wound up his 22nd tour of the continent, bringing back diplomatic recognition from Gambia and newly independent Swaziland, and new cultural and economic agreements with four other African nations. So far, Taipei leads Peking 20 to 13 in the battle for recognition by African nations.

Taiwan’s main effort is built on sharing its own hard-won know-how in intensive rice and vegetable cultivation. In the Ivory Coast, for example, Chinese experts have managed to increase rice output tenfold per annum in their pilot plots. But technical help is also extended in fisheries, engineering, medicine and peanut-oil production.

Two Chefs. Vanguard also brings foreign technicians to Taiwan for seminars and advanced studies in agriculture, health, sanitation and land reform. More than 5,000 have taken advantage of Taipei’s offer. So well known has the program become in Africa that recently the Taiwanese were asked to extend their assistance to gastronomy: at the request of President Mobutu, two Taipei chefs flew off to Kinshasa to impress the Congolese with their skills.