Aspirational Sovereignty and Human Rights Advocacy

This chapter assesses the concept of “aspirational sovereignty” to explore how the Taiwanese state enacts and projects sovereignty claims through everyday governing practices. As a vibrant democracy that enjoys formal diplomatic recognition from a shrinking number of states and informal recognition from many others, Taiwan operates in a contested international domain where any act that suggests official sovereign standing is quickly challenged or blocked by the PRC (People's Republic of China) government, which continues to claim Taiwan as a renegade province. The chapter examines how different political logics and governing practices generate recognizable and recognized sovereignty for Taiwan, with a particular focus on governmental and civil society responses to cross-border migration flows. It focuses not on immigrants themselves, but instead on specific groups, individuals, and institutions that form around immigrants: the bureaucrats and officials charged with managing migration flows and activists and other public figures who organize and speak publicly in support of human rights, especially immigrant rights. In different ways, these groups enact and demand a particular kind of Taiwanese state, one that they argue best serves a specific vision of an international community that includes a sovereign Taiwan in its midst.