People First Party chair and founder James Soong has come under scrutiny for his finances, after the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’s Suisse Secrets investigation found that Soong had held a Credit Suisse account at the same time as the 1991 Lafayette frigate deal, which involved graft...
Since a provocative speech by Russian president Vladimir Putin earlier this week, one has seen a number of comparisons between Ukraine and Taiwan circulating in the media. In Putin’s speech, he declared that he did not view Ukraine as qualifying to be a nation-state but as an entity that had been created by the Soviet Union, while also stating that Russia would on the other hand acknowledge separatist-controlled regions in Donetsk and Luhansk. It may not be surprising, then, that there have been comparisons made to Taiwan, or reflection upon how this affects Taiwan...
Hong Kong has seen an explosion in COVID cases as of late. At present, Hong Kong has more than 6,000 cases reported daily, and 50,000 cases from the last month alone. Cases began to take off in late January...
Hundreds of protesters took the streets of Taipei on Sunday for a march in support of animal rights. The march was organized by more than 70 different civil society groups and took place despite one of the coldest days in the year, as well as rain...
A recent scandal regarding a melon tea store in Kaohsiung broke out after photos circulated online of dead mice and bee corpses in pots in the factory area. The tea store in question is over sixty years old, is located in the Cianjin District of Kaohsiung, and also operates as a factory, selling ingredients for melon tea to a number of beverage stores in the area...
The Tsai administration announced new plans to allow residency from blue-collar migrant workers earlier this week, with the Executive Yuan signing off on a plan that would allow migrant workers to secure residency if they are classified as “intermediate skilled manpower” by their employers...
A report by the Executive Yuan on the Asia Cement mine on Indigenous land in Taroko Gorge has led to backlash from Indigenous community representatives, after the findings of the report were that there was not any illegal activity in the land leases for mine. The report’s conclusions have been criticized as reflecting a certain political viewpoint, as well as being contradictory to the report itself. Issues have also been raised with the writing process for the report. Asia Cement is a subsidiary of Far Eastern Group, one of Taiwan’s largest conglomerates...
In an unusual incident, Chinese state-run media has lashed out at KMT legislators Lin Wei-chou and Charles Chen as secretly being advocates of Taiwanese independence. In particular, it was claimed that Lin and Chen were part of a “covert” faction of Taiwanese independence advocates, distinguished from individuals openly supportive of Taiwanese independence...
A significant labor struggle may be upcoming for Taiwanese railways workers. Namely, the Taiwan Railway Labor Union has announced that it may strike next month in response to plans by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to corporatize the Taiwan Railways Administration...
As reported on by international media, it has emerged from US foreign lobbying records that Taiwan is paying for Guatemala to lobby the US government, to the tune of 900,000 USD. In particular, what raises eyebrows is that this is taking place through the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, which was close to the Trump administration. Notably, Guatemala is one of Taiwan’s fourteen remaining diplomatic allies...
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.
