A corruption case involving a former Supreme Court justice could have large implications, provided that it gains more traction in the news cycle and the current administration is willing to expend political capital on the case...
With the cluster of cases linked to the Taoyuan General Hospital having now expanded to a total of fifteen cases, the Central Epidemic Command Center that coordinates Taiwan’s response to COVID-19 has announced that discharged patients that were released from the hospital between January 6 and 19 and their close contacts must undergo a fourteen-day home quarantine...
The Biden administration surprised over the weekend, issuing a statement on Taiwan on Sunday in response to an incursion of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone by thirteen Chinese warplanes on Saturday. The statement expressed “concern” regarding “the pattern of ongoing PRC attempts to intimidate its neighbors, including Taiwan"...
Over the past week, KMT politicians have begun calling for a lockdown of Taoyuan after a cluster of thirteen cases of COVID-19 connected to the Taoyuan General Hospital broke out. This is the first domestic cluster of COVID-19 since last April. However, the situation in Taoyuan is far from one which would warrant the need for a lockdown, and the KMT's call for a lockdown is simply a means to attack the DPP, disregarding what the human consequences of a lockdown for residents of Taoyuan would be...
A Supreme Court case involving eight Sunflower Movement activists involved in the attempted occupation of the Executive Yuan on the night of March 23rd, 2014 resulted in the case being sent back to the High Court, with a call for more lenient sentences...
The presidential inauguration of Joe Biden took place earlier today. The inauguration took place after several turbulent weeks that saw some Republican members of Congress attempt to invalidate the results of 2020 presidential elections, an attempted invasion of the US Capitol to prevent the confirmation of the electoral vote by Trump supporters, and the impeachment of then-president Donald Trump after the US Capitol storming...
DPP Taoyuan city councilor Wang Hao-yu was recalled last week by large margins. 84,582 voted in favor of the motion to recall Wang, while 7,128 voters voted against the recall. For the recall vote to be binding, 25% of eligible voters, or 81,940 individuals, would have to participate in the vote. 28% of eligible voters participated, resulting in a successful recall campaign against Wang...
The issue of ractopamine-treated pork imports continues to be a contested one in Taiwan. The Tsai administration made moves to lift limits on imports of pork treated with ractopamine from the US in September, with the aim of securing a bilateral trade agreement between Taiwan and the US...
A number of recent incidents gesture toward systemic issues of sexual abuse in schools in Taiwan, often committed by teachers. In particular, many such incidents have not been addressed for decades, with teachers guilty of sexual harassment continuing to teach for decades...
Brian Hioe is one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance writer on social movements and politics, as well as a translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018.
