China's apparent lack of interest in recovering money stolen by Chinese fraud victims by Taiwanese criminals illustrates that cross-strait relations have apparently taken precedent over settling questions of justice for China. If the Tsai administration is smart, it will leverage on this fact...
The debacle of KMT chair elections is illustrative of the party’s internal crisis, as well as the means by which the party is highly unlikely to overcome its current crisis, no matter who wins the race. Namely, KMT chair candidates have as of late taken to doubling down on accusations of vote-buying, bribery, and fraud within the election process after it was found that many of petitions submitted by chair hopefuls to qualify for the election contained false signatures or repeat signatures between multiple petitions...
Trump's recent handling of South Korea should be concerning for Taiwan. For one, Trump suggested that Korea had once been part of China, which obviously does not bode well for Taiwan given China's claims over it. Likewise, Trump was willing to lie outright regarding the possibility of intervention against North Korean missile tests...
And then there was only one. With the end of the China Post’s print edition, only one English language print newspaper remains in Taiwan, the Taipei Times. What does this mean for Taiwan's news environment?...
It draws interesting parallels to Taiwan to note that, as the world descended into panic over the possibility of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula over the possibility of North Korean nuclear testing leading to an American reprisals, South Koreans were hardly panicking...
The recent turn of groups previously protesting against marriage equality to demonstrating against drugs illustrates the reactionary underpinnings to their thought in attempting to depict gays as drug users. In this way, such groups are very likely hoping to tap into the sharply ingrained taboo against drugs in Taiwanese society...
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...
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.
