Negotiating Novel Diplomacies: Subnational Diplomacy Between US States and Taiwan During the Tsai Ing-wen Administration

Abstract

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of subnational diplomacy or paradiplomacy between US state governments and Taiwan, focusing on recent developments that coincided with the consequential period of Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen administration (2016-2024). First, a comprehensive survey of relevant discussions and literature regarding the concept of subnational diplomacy is presented. Two questions are then addressed: whether subnational diplomacy during this period demonstrated continuity or discontinuity with past instances of such paradiplomacy and what factors in high and low politics drove such developments in subnational diplomacy between US states and Taiwan. Regarding these questions, this paper demonstrates how such subnational diplomacy has indeed undergone quantitative and qualitative change during the Tsai presidency, increasing both in terms of volume and politicization due to the shifting political environments of Taiwan and the United States. Finally, in relation to the latter point of politicization, the theoretical utility of the concepts of “protodiplomacy” and “counter-paradiplomacy” (CPD) in analysis of this topic is also discussed, with the former concept used to describe Taiwan’s interactions at the subnational level with US states and the latter used to categorize China’s reactive strategies towards such instances of paradiplomacy, respectively.