Social Movements

Wage Hike for Migrant Workers Criticized for Limited Scope

Brian Hioe
Migrant workers and migrant worker advocates criticized a recent wage hike that would increase the minimum monthly wage for live-in migrant workers, who primarily work in homes taking care of the elderly, from 17,000 NT to 20,000 NT. Namely, though the wage hike increases the minimum monthly wage for live-in migrant workers by 17%, the wage hike is still 5,250 NT below the minimum wage in Taiwan, which is 25,250 NT...
August 2022EnglishLaborSocial Movements5 min read

Efforts to Hire Fishing Inspectors Unlikely to Improve Conditions for Migrant Fishermen

Brian Hioe
The Fisheries Agency has announced that it intends to recruit 79 inspectors, as part of an initiative to increase the number of inspections carried out of migrant fishing vessels conducting deep sea fishing. This takes place, then, as part of an attempt to improve the labor conditions for migrant fishermen. The labor inspectors will primarily work in Pingtung, Kaohsiung, and Yilan...
August 2022EnglishLaborSocial Movements5 min read

Chunghwa Express Workers Strike Earlier This Month Over Wages

Brian Hioe
Chunghwa Express workers struck earlier this month over low pay. The strike was nationwide and began on July 4th, with workers that first began striking in Hsinchu, Taipei, Taoyuan, and Yilan. The strike would have expanded beyond just northern Taiwan if there had been no response from company management, with workers staging a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC). However, the strike ended on July 10th after workers’ demands were agreed to by the company administration...
EnglishJuly 2022LaborSocial Movements5 min read

Taipower and Atomic Energy Council Clash Over Orchid Island Ruling

Brian Hioe
Taipower, Taiwan's state-run energy utility, won out in a recent ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court that exempted it from needing to pay 30 million NT for failing to remove low-level nuclear waste from Orchid Island. Low-level nuclear waste refers to items that have become contaminated with radioactive material or become radioactive through exposure, as distinguished from intermediate-level nuclear waste, high-level nuclear waste, spent fuel rods, or other nuclear waste materials...
EnglishEnvironmentalIndigenousJuly 2022Social Movements5 min read

Arts/Culture

Calling For a Return to Sinocentrism in the Name of Opposing It: Responding to ‘Reconsidering Sinophone Studies’

Brian Hioe
The International Journal of Taiwan Studies, one of the flagship journals of the discipline, published an unusual piece several months ago by Flair Donglai Shi. Though framed as an attack on Shih Shu-mei’s concept of the Sinophone, the crux of the piece’s argument is effectively that Taiwan studies is insufficiently Sinocentric...
Arts and CultureEnglishJuly 2021Literature and Poetry8 min read

Interviews

Radio New Bloom #19: Coen Blaauw on Thirty Years of Pro-Taiwan Advocacy in Washington

newbloomeditor
For the nineteenth episode of Radio New Bloom, we feature an interview with Coen Blaauw, a Dutch lawyer and Senior Policy Advisor to the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, a US non-profit promoting Taiwan’s right to self-determination. He joined FAPA in 1989 and has since become a central figure in the Taiwan independence movement in the United States. He specializes in connecting with members of the U.S. Congress, drafting Taiwan-related legislation, and recruiting support for these legislations....
December 2021EnglishInterviewsRadio New Bloom1 min read

Politics

Lin Chih-chien Withdraws from Taoyuan Mayoral Race Over Plagiarism Charges

Brian Hioe

Indonesian Sailors Stranded on Ship in Kaohsiung Since February

Brian Hioe

Bilingual 2030 Rebrand Still Criticized

Brian Hioe

Legal Case Over Chiang Diaries Reflects Struggle Over Historical Memory

Brian Hioe

Ko Tries to Maintain Political Balancing Act at Shanghai-Taipei Forum

Brian Hioe

Hong Kong Protesters Sentenced, Arrested for Escape Attempt to Taiwan on Same Day

Brian Hioe

International Affairs