Social Movements

Wave of Racism Sweeps Taiwanese Social Media Over Plans to Allow for Indian Migrant Workers

Taiwanese social media has seen a wave of posts reacting to the possibility of opening up Taiwan to Indian workers. In particular, the posts are xenophobic in nature, framing Indians as rapists who would sexually assault Taiwanese women if they are allowed into Taiwan. This has led to online calls for a march against the planned opening up...

Unions Demand Reform of Pension System

Union groups demonstrated in front of the Executive Yuan earlier this week over pensions, calling for an increase in the minimum contribution to pensions from employers. The groups included the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions, the Taiwan Federation of Financial Unions, the Taipei City Confederation of Trade Unions, the Kaohsiung City Confederation of Trade Unions, the Taipower Union, the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Union, and the Taiwan Water Industry Union. This represents among Taiwan’s largest trade confederations, as well as a number of workers from state-owned enterprises...

Arts/Culture

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

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...

Interviews

A Conversation with Diane Wilson Near Day 30 of a Water-Only Hunger Strike Against Formosa Plastics

New Bloom editor Brian Hioe interviewed American activist Diane Wilson, who is nearing day thirty of a water-only hunger strike against the actions of Taiwanese company, the Formosa Plastics Group (FPG). Pollution from a FPG subsidiary-owned steel mill in Vietnam led to fish die-offs in 2016 in what some have termed Vietnam's largest ecological disaster in history, affecting fishing villages along more than 200 kilometers of coast. Wilson is on hunger strike to call attention to Formosa's refusal to answer for the fish die-offs...