Confusion has broken out in the United States regarding perceptions that American president Trump has abruptly reversed course, with claims that “too many jobs [have been] lost” in China, and that he intends to reverse sanctions on Chinese electronics manufacturer ZTE...
A fee dispute between some of Taiwan’s most significant television networks has touched upon long-standing concerns about undue attempts to influence political developments through the media. Namely, television network Formosa TV has alleged that FoxConn CEO Terry Gou is attempting to use the fee dispute to prevent Formosa TV programs from being shown as a form of political censorship...
Images of the killing of Palestinians on the Israel-Gaza border during protests against the American Embassy relocation to Jerusalem have been shocking for many in Taiwan. However, instead of looking at this tragic set of events merely as a tragedy in a distant, faraway land, perhaps there are lessons from this to be drawn for Taiwan and connections to be drawn between Taiwan's own struggles and Palestine's plight...
With former president Ma Ying-Jeou facing four months of imprisonment after being found guilty of leaking classified information by the Taiwan High Court, it seems predictable that the KMT will leverage on this fact to claim political persecution by the DPP...
As Taipei 2018 mayoral elections approach ever closer, it remains an opaque question as to whether the DPP will back Ko Wen-Je. In the meantime, one can divine something of the shifts in the DPP’s position going into 2018 elections as compared to 2016 from the continued debate over whether the DPP will endorse Ko this year...
What has been read as the “banning” of children’s cartoon character Peppa Pig in Chinese media can be seen as the begin of what will probably be an expansive cycle of relatively harmless icons being banned in China because they come to be perceived as too politically sensitive. We might take a closer look...
A great deal of uncertainty would seem to be ahead for the planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and American president Donald Trump, which is scheduled to take place on June 12th in Singapore. This is particularly seeing as Trump has decided abruptly to withdraw from a nuclear deal with Iran that lifted long-standing economic sanctions on Iran in 2015 in return for Iran dismantling aspects of its nuclear weapons program...
Healthcare workers are on the protest in Taiwan, as observed in recent demonstrations outside the Ministry of Health and Welfare on May 6th by the Taiwan Radical Nurses’ Union calling for better workplace protections for nurses...
With over 1,000 demonstrating on May 5th to call for implementation of a jury trial system, members of the public continue to attempt to push the Tsai administration towards advocacy for a jury-based system...
A recent article in the South China Morning Post by Lawrence Chung has provoked ire, with its bizarre suggestion that former president Ma Ying-Jeou pursue the Taiwanese presidency for a third term. Indeed, the factual errors and implausible speculations of this article only go to show how much the South China Morning Post has deteriorated as a publication, in becoming little more than a propaganda organ for China...
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.
