Brian Hioe

Will Guosheng Reactor Restarts Lead To Protest?

Brian Hioe
The announcement this week by state-run power utility Taipower that it plans to seek approval from the Atomic Energy Commission for restarts of a nuclear reactor at Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant should be of little surprise. Namely, even if little discussed, the Tsai administration quietly approved nuclear reactor restarts in June of last year. It remains to be seen whether it will not only be the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant reactor that is approved for restarts...
EnglishFebruary 2018Politics5 min read

Hualien Earthquake Tragic, Raises Questions Regarding Disaster Preparedness For Taiwan

Brian Hioe
Tragedy has broken out in Hualien following an earthquake at 11:50 PM yesterday that registered 6.4 on the Richter scale. At least five are dead, 254 are injured, and 88 missing following the quake. The Hualien earthquake also raises the possibility of a future uptick in seismic activity in Taiwan, raising the need to address longstanding issues concerning building safety codes and disaster preparedness in Taiwan, as well as touching on the debate regarding nuclear energy and its suitability to Taiwan...
EnglishFebruary 2018Politics6 min read

Four Referendum Campaigns Launched In The Two Months After Changes To Referendum Act

Brian Hioe
Amending the so-called “Birdcage Referendum Act” has long been a demand of Taiwanese activists. In particular, holding a nationwide referendum was seen as a way to settle long-standing domestic issues in Taiwanese politics, such as with regards to the usage of nuclear energy in Taiwan, as well as the fundamental issue of independence versus unification, which goes to the heart of Taiwan’s unique political situation in global politics. It may not be too surprising, then, that calls for referendum have now become an object of political contestation on a number of issues. At least four campaigns for referendum are now under way in Taiwan that have been launched in the two months since changes to the Referendum Act in December of last year...
EnglishFebruary 2018Politics11 min read

‘Taiwanese Values’ Spat Reflects Divided Assessments Of Ko

Brian Hioe
Divided views on Taipei mayor Ko Wen-Je are evident in what may be the beginnings of a spat between himself and the Tsai administration, with President Tsai Ing-Wen, who is also chair of the DPP, remaining vague in recent comments on whether the DPP will support him in 2018 elections but stressing that a show of common support for “Taiwanese values” is a necessary precondition for support...
EnglishFebruary 2018Politics6 min read

Chinese Women’s League Ruled To Be A KMT-Affiliated Organization

Brian Hioe
The Tsai administration has taken a decisive step in labelling the Chinese Women’s League to be a KMT-affiliated organization, meaning that the organization has been judged to not be a private organization, but a party organization of the KMT. The saga of the Tsai administration's KMT party assets probe coming into conflict with the Chinese Women's League is a bizarre one, seeing as the Chinese Women's League possesses more financial assets than the KMT publicly declared in 2017. This is illustrative of the vast wealth and resources that the league has if it has more resources at its disposal than one of the two major political parties in Taiwan. Attempts by former chairwoman Cecilia Koo—a former aide of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek—and her allies to defend the league have also been strange, in comparing the party assets probe to the widespread sexual harassment of women that the global #MeToo campaign has lashed out at, and claiming the Chinese Women's League to be the nation's first feminist organization...
EnglishJanuary 2018Politics11 min read
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Brian Hioe

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.

丘琦欣，創建破土的編輯之一，專於撰寫社會運動和政治的自由作家偶而亦從事翻譯工作。他自哥倫比亞大學畢業，是亞洲語言及文化科系的碩士，同時擁有紐約大學的歷史，東亞研究及英文文學三項學士學位。