Given recent news developments, it is strange, in fact, to observe that there has been little discussion of North Korea and Guam alongside Taiwan, given that all three are in some sense pariah states in the international community. We might venture some observations...
A recent letter in the Taipei Times by Tom Lee, head of the Friends of Tsai Overseas and president of the Taiwan Daily, reflecting on comments by Stephen Yates, a known “friend of Taiwan” and former US deputy national security advisor proves not only an interesting symptom of the blind spots in how many Taiwanese independence advocates conceive of US-Taiwan relations, but illustrates how many American "friends of Taiwan" fundamentally do not respect Taiwanese democracy, no matter what they might claim otherwise...
Several attempts by the KMT to delegitimize the actions of the Tsai administration which it views as threatening to its power of late have taken the curious tactic of reporting the Tsai administration to the Control Yuan...
A recent article written by Alex Lo, op-ed columnist at the South China Morning Post, has prompted ire in Taiwan because of its citing of claims by Taiwanese political pundit Chang Yu-Hua that at least four student leaders of the Sunflower Movement. Such sentiments are no surprise from Lo, a pro-Beijing pundit and political conservative, who publishes articles for the South China Morning Post daily as part of his “My Take” column. We might question the claims of his article, ultimately a sign of how the South China Morning Post is increasingly a Chinese propaganda organ...
Panic has ensued globally following statements by American president Donald Trump which could be construed as nuclear threats against North Korea. After reports that North Korea had developed the miniaturized nuclear warheads which could be placed on North Korean missiles capable of hitting the United States, Trump stated in public comments that North Korean threats “will be met with fire and fury and frankly power the likes of which the world has never seen before," comments which were apparently largely improvised...
Outrage has ensued in Taiwan with the revelation that the official media guide for the Taipei Universiade refers to Taiwan as “Chinese Taipei”, in fact, rather comically stating that “Chinese Taipei is long and narrow that lies from north to south”...
Despite the Abe administration becoming increasingly embattled, electoral challenges to the Liberal Democratic Party do not seem set to emerge anytime soon. Which way forward for left politics in Japan?...
Will China be ready to invade Taiwan anytime soon? While an important question to ask, such assessments need to come from rational assessments founded upon detailed knowledge of China, not alarmism...
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.
