The rejection of Chinese asylum seeker Zhang Xiangzhong’s application for asylum in Taiwan illustrates the Tsai administration’s unwillingness to rock the boat on cross-strait matters at present. This is likely indicative of a highly conservative impulse in the Tsai administration’s current attempts to maintain a stable relationship between Taiwan and China...
SueAnn Shiah’s HuanDao is not only an able take on Taiwanese-American identity, but an impressive showing from a young documentary filmmaker, considering that the film was shot when Shiah was 22...
As another country in the Asia Pacific which faces the threat of China using its large economy as a political weapon, Taiwan stands to learn greatly from the effects of the Chinese boycott on South Korea due the deployment of the American-manufactured Terminal High Altitude Area Defense antimissile defense system in South Korea. But the lessons Taiwan stands to take away are, in fact, counterintuitive...
Many questions for regional peace in the Asia Pacific are up in the air after a failed missile test by North Korea today. It was speculated that North Korea may launch a nuclear missile test today to commemorate the birthday of Kim Il-Sung on April 15th. Today’s missile test was not a nuclear test, but it may precede such a test, and tensions will only increase in the region after it...
Inconsistent reports on whether Taiwan was mentioned or not at the Trump-Xi summit earlier this month illustrate the need to distrust media reports and to generally be more deeply skeptical of comments about Taiwan by either the Trump or Xi administrations...
The recent introduction of an alternative military service program which allows draftees to work jobs in fast food chains, convenience stores, and other service industry jobs to fulfill their military service requirement have provoked much scorn, particularly from Taiwanese netizens. Yet the program should raise concerns not only about ties between large corporations and the state, but about the exploitation of youth as cheap labor...
The live action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell evidences tone deaf attempts to deal with the whitewashing controversy and a dumbing down of the Ghost in the Shell franchise’s complex intellectual themes...
Just over twenty days after the arrest and detention of Taiwanese human rights NGO worker Lee Ming-Che by Chinese authorities, little has been clarified regarding his abduction. On April 10th, Lee Ming-Che’s wife, Lee Ching-Yu, attempted to fly to China in order to search for her husband, but did not even make it out of Taiwan...
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.
