When analysts discuss Taiwan’s strategic importance to the West, they commonly note the island’s status as a thriving East Asian democracy. In a region where the most powerful country is a one-party authoritarian state, Taiwan’s democracy is seen as a living example of the political and economic success of a system in contrast to China’s. While observers recognize Taiwan’s value as a democracy in and of itself, it is less common to raise its capacity to promote democracy beyond the Taiwan Strait, such as in countries in Southeast Asia.
In recent years, a small but evolving network of Taiwanese civil society groups and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) has begun engaging with Southeast Asian activists pushing for greater democratic governance in their respective nations. The work of Taiwanese civil society groups, as well as INGOs with operations on the island, can be broadly divided into three categories: (1) providing civic space to Southeast Asian activists, (2) conducting joint research and advocacy, and (3) offering modest funding to Southeast Asian democracy projects.
The United States, the European Union, and other Western actors have been vital in providing financial support to Taiwanese NGOs conducting outreach in Southeast Asia. But with drastic foreign aid cuts in the United States, and coincident declines in Europe, Western financial support is becoming less fundamental to this work. Even when receiving financial support from foreign funders, the island’s civil society activism maintains a uniquely Taiwanese character, drawing from the nation’s culture and historical experience to better connect with Southeast Asian activists.
This article will explore the three key categories of Taiwanese engagement with Southeast Asian democracy activists—providing civic space, joint research/advocacy, and funding—before providing policy recommendations for both Taiwan and Western countries to better support these initiatives.
Providing Civic Space to Southeast Asian Activists
As the Taiwan-based NGO Asia Citizen Future Association (ACFA, 亞洲公民未來協會) has reported, the freedom through which Southeast Asian activists can critique their governments and defend human rights is in decline. ACFA is a civil society organization that advocates for the freedom through which both Taiwanese and Southeast Asian activists can associate and express political views, an idea known as “civic space.” Its founder, Leah Lin, has argued that Taiwan is an advantageous location for Southeast Asian activists seeking to circumvent constraints on their advocacy at home, strengths conveyed by Taiwan’s subtropical climate, proximity to the region, and cultural values oriented around hospitality and mutual respect.
ACFA and other Taiwanese NGOs have provided temporary spaces for advocacy to Southeast Asian civil society. In an interview with this author, Leah Lin shared how her organization hosts an “Asia Citizen Future Week” in Taiwan each year, facilitating dialogue between Taiwanese NGOs and Southeast Asian activists. ACFA’s 2025 rendition of the event was attended by 15 Southeast Asian civil society organizations.
Meanwhile, Doublethink Lab—a Taiwanese NGO investigating People’s Republic of China (PRC) influence operations (and a former employer of this author)—hosts the Indo-Pacific Information Operations Roundtable on the island each year. The closed-door events assemble actors from across the Indo-Pacific region to explore developments in how malicious actors conduct information operations on social media. Jerry Yu, a senior analyst at Doublethink Lab, told this author that Taiwan-based events offer Southeast Asian activists an opportunity to freely discuss the authoritarian influence of the PRC, a topic far more sensitive in their home countries. In the same vein, Article 19—an INGO focused on free expression and digital rights—regularly holds workshops in Taiwan for Southeast Asian internet freedom advocates. Liu I-chen (劉以正) of Article 19 told this author that his INGO will occasionally hold workshops on less-sensitive digital rights issues in Southeast Asia, but any discussions of the PRC must be held in Taiwan for the safety of activists.
Taiwan’s government—in partnership with the United States—has also stepped in to offer opportunities for Southeast Asian activists to temporarily engage in advocacy on the island. In 2023, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA, 外交部) collaborated with Taiwan AID (台灣海外援助發展聯盟) and the American Institute in Taiwan to place 10 Southeast Asian civil society leaders in month-long fellowship positions within Taiwanese NGOs. MOFA has continued to organize the Taiwan NGO Fellowship Program each year since then.
As civic space grows more constrained in Southeast Asia, several civil society groups have opted to move to Taiwan and continue their advocacy work under more permissive conditions. ACFA has sought to assist Southeast Asian civil society in making this move and study the barriers it faces. Lin shared her frustration with Taiwan’s Civil Associations Act (人民團體法), a law grounded in the era of Kuomintang (國民黨) rule over China. The law requires individuals seeking to found a civil association—Taiwan’s equivalent of a non-profit—to first enlist 30 local board members, a prohibitive task for a Southeast Asian activist who has just arrived on the island. When a Vietnamese NGO, Legal Initiatives for Vietnam, sought to open an office in Taiwan, it faced a six-month wait until completion.
Image: Former President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) visits an international NGO hub in Taichung in 2018 (Image Source: Taiwan Presidential Office Flickr)
Conducting Joint Research and Advocacy
In addition to helping Southeast Asian activists visit or base themselves in Taiwan, the island’s NGOs have joined forces with Southeast Asian civil society groups on research and advocacy projects. Joint advocacy can be beneficial to Southeast Asian civil society, as in certain cases, Taiwan-based NGOs are better-resourced with research expertise or possess broader international followings through which findings can be publicized.
For example, ACFA has formed the Freedom of Association in Taiwan and Southeast Asia (FATASEA) research working group, which published a 2024 report gauging freedom of association in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Meanwhile, the Taiwan office of the INGO Article 19 worked with Vietnamese activists to publicize how the Vietnamese government’s cybersecurity law had mimicked the oppressive provisions of China’s. Article 19 collaborated with Legal Initiatives for Vietnam (the NGO that opened an office in Taipei) and Open Net to submit a brief to the United Nations Human Rights Committee denouncing the restriction of digital freedom in Vietnam. Article 19’s broad social media following allowed the campaign to reach more onlookers than if the Vietnamese civil society group had pursued the advocacy alone.
In another instance, Doublethink Lab has sought to provide training and technical tools to civil society groups in Southeast Asia investigating social media information operations. The project, supported by European Union stakeholders, has furnished civil society organizations in Southeast Asia with software toolkits and methodologies needed to uncover PRC foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). Doublethink Lab specializes in investigating PRC-origin FIMI in Taiwan, and is extremely well-placed to share tools and insights with Southeast Asian civil society.
Taiwanese collaboration with Southeast Asian civil society on democracy-focused advocacy has encountered one roadblock: an overemphasis on the authoritarian influence of the PRC. While many Taiwanese may view the PRC as the most severe threat to Taiwan’s democracy, Liu I-chen of Article 19 told this author that counterparts in Southeast Asia are often more preoccupied with domestic barriers to democratization, such as corrupt politicians or military regimes. Nonetheless, the priorities of funders—particularly Western ones—continue to push Taiwan-based NGOs towards engagement with Southeast Asian activists on PRC-related issues.
Modest Funding
Taiwan has emerged as a source, albeit modest, of funding for Southeast Asian democracy-oriented civil society groups. One Taiwanese government-affiliated institution, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD, 台灣民主基金會), notably awards grants to Southeast Asian NGOs that are derived from Taiwanese taxpayer money. (It should also be noted that TFD is the funder of the Global Taiwan Institute program through which this research article is being produced.) In 2024—the latest year for which funding data is available—TFD distributed grants under its “Asia Regional Democracy Movement” to NGOs in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, among others. Grant project titles included “Shrinking Civic Space in Asia: Stories of Resistance and Pushback” (Thailand), and “Democratising Human Rights in East and Southeast Asia: Protecting Migrant and Refugee Rights” (Indonesia). As a recently-democratized society, these international grants underscore Taiwan’s intention to promote similar values among its neighbors in Asia.
However, the impact of this Taiwan-based funding is constrained by the size of the grants themselves. According to TFD’s 2024 Annual Report, the organization dispensed just NTD 1,954,650 (USD 60,874) to Asian civil society groups under the “Asia Regional Democracy Movement” category. While funding of this scale may come with higher purchasing power in Southeast Asian nations, the sums are dwarfed by grants awarded to Southeast Asian civil society by the European Union and the United States—at least until US President Donald Trump slashed American foreign aid at the onset of his administration.
Policy Recommendations
Taiwanese support for Southeast Asian civil society in the three areas outlined above has room for growth, but must first overcome outstanding obstacles:
- Reform the Civil Associations Act – While Southeast Asian civil society groups are presently able to visit Taiwan with similar ease to other democracies, they struggle to permanently move operations to the island when needed. As ACFA’s Leah Lin has argued, the stringent rules of the Civil Associations Act—notably that NGO founders must obtain 30 co-signers—have introduced long delays in registering new groups, and have likely deterred other Southeast Asian activists from moving to Taiwan. Therefore, the Taiwanese government should reform the Civil Associations Act, notably by removing the requirement for NGO founders to obtain 30 co-signers, and reducing other administrative hurdles such as delayed processing periods.
- Reduce emphasis on the PRC threat when engaging with Southeast Asian NGOs – This suggestion may seem counterintuitive for stakeholders invested in countering PRC authoritarian influence in Southeast Asia. However, this suggestion may conversely have a greater effect in counteracting the PRC authoritarian threat, while also overcoming domestic barriers to democratization in Southeast Asia. This is because the shortcomings in civil liberties, digital freedom, and the right to association—which allow the PRC to project influence in Southeast Asia—are the same shortcomings that authoritarian or weakly-democratic Southeast Asian governments use to oppress their citizens. For example, a lack of social media platform oversight that allows a Southeast Asian government to employ armies of bots to influence online discourse is the same loophole that PRC influence actors use to manipulate public opinion in these countries. Meanwhile, Southeast Asian activists have indicated that they are more motivated by the mission of overcoming domestic barriers to democratization, such as their own authoritarian leaders. Since closing the avenues through which domestic governments can strangle the democratic process has the simultaneous effect of blunting the PRC’s authoritarian influence—and is a more attractive mission to Southeast Asian NGOs—Taiwanese civil society and Western funders should lean into supporting domestic government-focused activity.
- Increase Taiwanese government funding for Southeast Asian democracy activism – This recommendation will be unsurprising to any reader, but the Taiwanese government should increase its financial support for Southeast Asian democracy activists. Especially in light of declining Western foreign aid funding, Taipei ought to boost the allocation that the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and other government-based grant funders devote to promoting democracy in the region. While the Taiwanese legislature is dealing with significant funding constraints, the funds that TFD devotes to its “Asia Regional Democracy Movement” spending category are paltry and must be increased.
The main point: Taiwan is not merely a model of democracy in comparison to China; the island has also established networks in Southeast Asia to support democratic development and cross-border ties. Taiwan-based NGOs provide civic space, joint advocacy opportunities, and modest funding to Southeast Asian activists. With reform to Taiwan’s Civil Associations Act, and a more nuanced funding strategy from Western countries, Taiwan’s role as an exporter of democracy in Southeast Asia can grow.
