Vice President's Visit to Indonesia Writes New Chapter in "Vacation Diplomacy"

On the morning of August 14, with Taiwan officialdom tightlipped and making repeated denials of any forthcoming trip to Indonesia, Vice President Annette Lu boarded a plane headed for that country, accompanied by Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Joseph Wu and Tourism Bureau director Hsieh Wei-chun-the highest Taiwan officials to visit Indonesia since 1994, when former President Lee Teng-hui proceeded to the resort island of Bali to engage in "vacation diplomacy."

Once exposed by the Taiwan media, news of the vice president's imminent departure to Indonesia threw the PRC into a panic. Its representatives in Indonesia swiftly launched a counteroffensive, which regrettably succeeded in pressuring the Indonesian government to deny her entourage entry at Jakarta's international airport. They then boarded a flight to Bali for a purported "holiday." Over the next two days, however, in addition to visiting the Lot Tanah temple and various other well-known tourist sites, the vice president also conducted talks with Indonesia's minister of Manpower & Transmigration and state minister of Environment.

On the afternoon of August 16, Lu and company took a chartered flight back to Jakarta, touching down at a Jakarta military air base. Having conveniently missed her China Airlines return flight to Taipei, she was "obliged" to stay overnight in Jakarta. In contrast with Lu's initial arrival there, when the Indonesian government issued a statement sternly denying any role in arranging Lu's visit, this time she was accorded a warm welcome at the air base by a delegation of political personages, among them Marzuki Darusman, Golkar party vice chairman and consultant to the human rights group Lembaga Hak Asasi Manusia; afterwards, the two delegations undertook discussions in their capacities as political party leaders.

During her precious 20-hour Jakarta sojourn, Lu made a point of visiting Indonesia's National Martyr's Shrine, where she made a floral offering, also finding opportunities to meet with Indonesia's minister of Trade & Industry, its attorney general and other senior officials. With leaders from several countries in town and gathered under the same roof-having come to take part in Indonesia's Independence Day observances-Lu further succeeded, through her various connections, in meeting with a number of "significant people." This, moreover, constitutes the first time in nearly twenty years that a presidential-level political heavyweight from our country has set foot inside the Indonesian capital city.

On the morning of August 17, after meeting with a gathering of Taiwanese expatriates and businesspeople residing in Indonesia in order to canvass their views and learn of their plans regarding business investment in Indonesia, Vice President Lu boarded a China Airlines flight that brought her safely home shortly after 8:00 p.m., at which time she made a brief statement to the press.

Vice President Lu stressed that this initiative was undertaken in support of President Chen's "go south" policy, aimed at opening up new horizons for Taiwanese business investment in Southeast Asia. Further, she expressed her gratitude to Indonesia's ruling and opposition parties and to members of its private sector for extending their hand of friendship and courageously embracing Taiwan's expressions of goodwill in defiance of a powerful country's bullying bluster.

On the morning of August 18, Vice President Lu held a formal press conference at which she characterized her journey as "a diplomatic war without gunfire," demonstrating that China's efforts to oppress Taiwan are not so formidable after all. This, said Lu, constituted only a first small step; and for Taiwan to stand up tall in the future, it must persevere in taking the road which it ought rightly to take. Thus has the vice president's diplomatic blitzkrieg in a stroke dispelled much of the gloom-and-doom miasma created by unrelenting PRC efforts to strangle Taiwan's international maneuvering room at every step, thereby winning the enthusiastic praise of President Chen.

Amidst general acclamation, however, some circles nevertheless voiced skepticism on a number of points. For one thing, they say, those pulling the strings in this recent diplomatic maneuver appeared to be businesspeople, lawyers and other private parties, allowing hardly any say in the matter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, mandated to act as the nation's diplomatic decision-making body.

Further, critics say that the series of suspenseful spy-vs.-spy-like episodes ensuing over the course of Lu's jaunt violated established norms of diplomatic behavior, leaving potential new allies at a loss and making them reluctant to undertake any substantive exchanges with Taiwan. Won't this initiative only pose additional obstacles to President Chen's future visits to Southeast Asian countries? Won't the Pyrrhic victory of such a one-shot "lightning attack" only serve to provoke even more concerted efforts by the PRC to hedge in Taiwan?

In addition to such criticisms, inasmuch as the vice president's journey touched upon such issues as Taiwan's current freeze on importation of Indonesian laborers and a possible liquefied natural gas procurement deal, aspersions of "money diplomacy" have once again been leveled. In response to them, Vice President Lu has asserted that she made no commitments to Indonesia, acting only in a routine liaison capacity. After all, the question of whether to ban importation of Indonesian laborers is a matter to be decided by the Council of Labor Affairs. And an LNG procurement worth several hundred billion New Taiwan dollars is an affair which can be carried out only through a public bidding process in conformance with the WTO spirit of free competition, not one which can be decided by anyone's personal say-so. Such issues must, as ever, be handled in accordance with legal procedure together with consideration of the national interest.

As Vice President Lu has so aptly put it, her offensive was a "diplomatic battle undertaken with a great deal of difficulty, secrecy, intelligence and good fortune." As further indicated by Premier Yu Shyi-kun, himself just returned from a tour of Central American diplomatic allies, given the increasingly dire diplomatic straits in which the Republic of China finds itself, in the future our country will resort to increasingly more flexible and innovative stratagems, doing whatever it takes to break through barriers and secure for Taiwan greater international visibility and the right to be heard.

Based on this premise, any approach which promises to further the substantive objective of Taiwan's "standing up tall and striding out into the world"-be it holiday diplomacy, economic and trade diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, transit diplomacy, political party-to-party diplomacy or whatever the case and terminology may be-is worth a try.

At this juncture, when the Taiwan people's fighting spirit has been aroused by a new call for "attack diplomacy," the two sides of the Taiwan Strait might pause to reflect on how it is that such an irreconcilable diplomatic contest of wills has come about. Wouldn't it be happier for all concerned if we could dispense with indirection and engage in direct, good-willed exchange so as to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes?

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Making a detour from Jakarta to Bali, Vice President Annette Lu launched her "vacation diplomacy" initiative while taking the opportunity to learn about local tourism industry conditions. (photo by Liang Tung-ping)