ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyse how and under what circumstances a trilateral cooperation model of Taiwan has emerged since the late 2000s. It is widely known that Taiwan's aid policy during the presidencies of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian was utilised as a device of bilateral aid mainly for diplomatic competition against China. However, during the presidencies of Ma Ying-jeou's and Tsai Ing-wen, such policy was changed to boost international partnership and representation by a new strategy of linking with multiple foreign non-governmental, governmental, or inter-governmental donors in countries where Taiwan does not have official diplomatic relations. While Ma and Tsai administrations shared the similar aid strategy, there is still a fundamental difference regarding the way how Taiwan connects the world with or bypassing China. Details of where Taiwan trilateral aid distributed with which international organisations and further policy reform directions are discussed in the chapter. We argue the case of Taiwan challenges the conventional trilateral model in the existing aid literature. Unlike Global Northern donors who cooperate with Global Southern partners as pivots in trilateral cooperation in Global South (N-S-S), Taiwan offers resource for Northern partners to do trilateral cooperation in Global South (Taiwan-N-S).
