The revelation that at least eighty of Taiwan’s 157 universities have signed agreements with China promising not to discuss unification/independence issues or the issue of “one China, one Taiwan” in class has rocked the nation in the past week. Among these universities are Taiwan’s leading educational institutions...
This afternoon saw a demonstration and the performance of traditional dances by Taiwanese indigenous and their allies on Ketagalan Boulevard, in front of the Presidential Office Building. The issue at hand was backsliding by the Tsai administration on vows to restore traditional indigenous territories, something which was promised by the Tsai administration as part of its historic apology to indigenous on behalf of the ROC government in August of last year...
That public discussion has been disproportionately large regarding the posting of what would probably be approximately a dozen or so American marines to AIT’s new facilities in Neihu illustrates the highly charged nature of the diplomatic relationship between America and Taiwan in recent months...
A bizarre delusion, which seems to be held by many English language commentators on Taiwanese politics with a pro-Taiwan stance, is to somehow believe that Trump has had a consistent position on Taiwan throughout and that his stance on Taiwan have never changed...
Whatever the claims of the Tsai administration that it continues to concern itself with the issue of gay marriage, the Tsai administration has evidently changed tack, now attempting to play the role of “peacemaker” between pro-marriage equality and anti-marriage equality groups in Taiwan. This evidences hypocrisy on the part of Tsai, as well as demonstrates her attempt to wash her hands of past support for marriage equality...
The political struggle between Ma Ying-Jeou and Ker Chien-Ming ultimately returns to the recent nature of Taiwanese democracy and the unstable nature of many of its institutions...
The invoking of campus activist discourse by Chinese students at the University of California, San Diego, to try and prevent the Dalai Lama from giving a speech on campus should not be particularly surprising. But it is an ironic turn of events, nevertheless...
The Formosa Steel saga continues to be unresolved in Vietnam, with minimal payouts to victims and the use of physical force by the Vietnamese government to prevent attempts to file a lawsuit against the Vietnamese government and Formosa Steel’s handling of the disaster...
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.
