Taipei’s soft power at work: The picture of Taiwan in Polish dailies Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita

Taiwan’s external relations are ‘exceptional.’ Due to the island’s contested international status and limited recognition, public diplomacy often provides Taipei with the only channel to conduct external affairs through the soft power resources it enables. Therefore, in order to assess the island’s foreign policies, it is crucial to understand its soft power capacity. This chapter analyses the challenges to the exercise of Taiwan’s soft power as well as its effects in selected Polish dailies. First, it looks for themes that may enable and disable Taiwan’s soft power in the scholarly literature and documents released by Taipei’s governmental actors. Second, it examines whether these themes pertaining to the island were present in two Polish dailies – “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita” – during a one-year period from November 1, 2016 to October 31, 2017. The newspaper analysis aims to reveal narratives that are alternative to those promoted publicly and that are related to the image of Taiwan, other significant international actors, and Taiwanese governmental as well as non-state executors of public policy, all of which may contribute to an enabling or disabling environment for Taipei’s soft power. It applies techniques and methods from media research and discourse analysis.