「民主價值同盟」與對外援助： 以台灣-尼加拉瓜關係為例

Abstract

本文以台灣的邦交國尼加拉瓜為例，透過次級資料分析與深度訪談，旨在研究台灣邦交國的政治民主狀況，以及台灣所提供的發展援助在多大程度上影響了它們與台灣的外交關係。筆者試圖理解：為什麼台灣這個追求自由主義價值觀和民主標準的國家會與其邦交國的威權政權保持關係？本研究結合國際關係研究中現實主義與自由主義理論之對外援助的觀點，嘗試釐清在對外關係上一向強調自由價值與民主同盟的台灣為何仍持續提供援助給遭逢政治危機與威權主義威脅的國家。本研究案例—尼加拉瓜—本身是一個長期面臨政治腐敗問題的國家；2018年以來，尼加拉瓜Ortega Regime政權下一直經歷著持續性的危機。，我們能够了解一些外部因素的存在，例如與中華人民共和國的對立關係，或者作為拉丁美洲和世界霸主的美國的角色該案例研究表明，在國際關係領域中，類似台灣這種須為其國際生存困境而奮鬥並爭取其他攸關國家主權與國際空間等相關利益的國家，在外交政策上其所信仰跟倡議的自由主義與民主政治理念與價值，往往會成為次要的考量。這導致台灣政府會忽視一些外交盟友的自由與民主狀況，如尼加拉瓜、海地、史瓦帝尼、瓜地馬拉和巴拉圭等國家，因為這些盟友提供台灣其所積極尋求的國際承認與接納；這也顯示，臺灣政府使用「民主價值聯盟」來指稱這些邦交國也許成為名實不符的範例。本研究結果進一步顯示，中國在國際社會上孤立臺灣的種種作法，是解釋為何對內強調並實踐自由主民價值的臺灣會持續援助其遭逢政治危機與威權主義威脅的邦交國，以致內外政策價值原則不一致。

This thesis examines the democratic status of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and the extent to which foreign aid has an impact on their ties to the Island. It attempts to understand why Taiwan, a state which pushes for liberal values and democratic standards, would maintain relations with authoritarian regimes, supporting some of them through foreign aid. It intends to have a better understanding of the subject by analyzing the realist theories of foreign aid for political purposes and the liberal theory of development aid, in order to figure out Taiwan’s intention when it comes to giving foreign aid to countries undergoing political crisis and facing threats of authoritarianism. By presenting the case study of Nicaragua, itself a state with a corrupt political trajectory, which since 2018 has been undergoing continuous crisis under the Ortega Regime, we get to understand the existence of some external factors that take Taiwan to support states that struggle with maintaining democratic standards, such as the antagonism with PRC, or the role of the USA as a hegemony in Latin America and the world, which can help explain Taiwan’s foreign aid to its non-democratic allies. This case study demonstrates how, in the field of international relations, liberal values become secondary when such states as Taiwan are struggling for survival, while having other interests. This would result in an overlooking, on its government’s part, of the democratic aspects of some allies that might potentially provide the inclusion Taiwan so openly seeks. This study also demonstrates how the use of the connotation “alliance of democratic values” to designate all countries allied to Taiwan, might be a contradiction which is the case of such countries as Nicaragua, Haiti, Eswatini, Guatemala, Honduras and Paraguay. Furthermore, it demonstrates how PRC’s push for the isolation of Taiwan has created a discrepancy between the promotion of Taiwanese liberal democracy- the value that underpinned Taiwan’s domestic policy, and the one they promote through their foreign aid in allied countries such as Nicaragua.