Education, Talent Mobility and the Politics of Interdependence

Taiwan-Indonesia Relations through the INTENSE Program

Abstract

The persistence of unofficial diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific highlights a broader shift in how states without formal recognition construct international influence. This article addresses the question of how the INTENSE Program functions as a mechanism of soft diplomacy that shapes complex interdependence between Taiwan and Indonesia, two states lacking formal diplomatic ties under the One China Policy. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, the study examines interview data from program participants and the Director of INTACT Base Taiwan-Indonesia in Surabaya, alongside official documents and policy publications. The findings demonstrate that the INTENSE Program operates through multiple channels involving governments, universities, industries, and intermediary institutions such as INTACT Base and TETO, reflecting the structural characteristics of complex interdependence while education displaces military force as the primary issue-area. Furthermore, the program reveals a deliberate strategy of soft diplomacy, whereby Taiwan converts demographic necessity into political capital, cultivating goodwill and regional legitimacy despite the absence of formal recognition. This indicates a shift in the function of educational cooperation: form a purely technical to labor shortages toward a calculated instrument of political interdependence. Thus, the INTENSE Program us paradoxical; it enables mutually beneficial cooperation in human capital development, while simultaneously embedding asymmetries of dependence that favor Taiwan’s strategic interests over Indonesia’s structural position within the relationship.