A pattern of reporting in Taiwanese media that Taiwanese firms are planning on relocating back to Taiwan from China because of the current American trade war with China should be looked at with a great deal of skepticism...
In past months, one has observed a number of conflicting referendum proposals achieving the necessary political benchmarks to be held. The number of referendum proposals currently on the table is inclusive of referendums calling for gay marriage, against gay marriage, for nuclear power, for coal power, and for changing the name under which Taiwan is to participate in 2020 Tokyo Olympics...
An insider trading scandal faced by Hualien county commissioner Fu Kun-chi would be yet another example of corruption from pan-Blue political actors...
New Bloom editor Brian Hioe interviewed James X. Morris, who is currently crowdfunding to write a book on historical preservation for the Xindian Cemetery on Indiegogo, entitled Grassroots Heritage. Morris is a Ph.D. candidate residing in Taipei and a freelance writer and anthropologist with a background in politics, government, and cross-Taiwan Strait trade...
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has come under fire for her administration’s handling of Super Typhoon Mangkhut, particularly with regards to a failure to declare the day off for residents of Hong Kong. Mangkhut, the world’s strongest storm in 2018 to date, battered Hong Kong this weekend, injuring over 100 and causing damage to property and infrastructure in Hong Kong...
Concerns regarding fake news are on the rise in Taiwan, particularly regarding fake news of Chinese origin generated by content farms. Increased attention to the issue of fake news comes after several recent incidents, including an influx of suspicious users to Taiwan’s largest Internet forum and the suicide of a Taiwanese diplomat in Japan...
Chinese spying efforts in Taiwan have been under closer scrutiny in past months, as observed in government investigation of the New Party and Chinese Unification Promotion Party. However, reports by Chinese state-run media in the last week warning against Taiwanese spies in China could be retaliation for the Tsai administration's recent efforts against Chinese spying...
With proposals by Minister of Transport and Communications Wu Hong-mo to extend the Taiwanese High-Speed Rail to Hualien, this has led to outrage from some, with the view that extending the HSR to Hualien will contribute to the despoiling of Hualien’s natural beauty and cultural sites...
China's mass detention of Uighurs in Xinjiang has exploded into western media coverage in the past month, with the plight of Uighurs seeing no less than a front page article in the New York Times. This marks a welcome change from years preceding, in which little international attention went to the construction of a police state in Xinjiang...
Brian Hioe is one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance journalist, 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 and is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the University of Nottingham's Taiwan Studies Programme.