Brian Hioe
Code Pink Webinar With Carl Zha on Taiwanese Skips Most of the Last Century, Has No Taiwanese Speakers
Anti-war organizations Code Pink and Massachusetts Peace Action held a webinar on the possibility of war in the Taiwan Straits late last month, featuring Chinese podcaster Carl Zha and Madison Tang from Code Pink. The event proved a striking example of the sort of discussion of Taiwan one gets from elements of the anti-war left when they speak over Taiwanese voices, with neither Zha nor Tang being Taiwanese. Zha was the main speaker, with Tang moderating...
No, the KMT Did Not Lose in the Referendum Because of Wang Leehom
The national referendum held last Saturday resulted in a defeat for the KMT, with the four referendum proposals that the KMT advocated all being voted down. As such, the Tsai administration has a much stronger position going into the 2022 midterm elections, with the DPP having called for all four proposals to be voted down. The four issues that were voted on were the relocation of a liquified natural gas terminal off the coast of Datan, Taoyuan, the restart of nuclear reactor #4, US pork imports, and whether referendums are held on the same date as elections...
Low Turnout in Hong Kong’s “Patriots Only” Legislative Elections
Hong Kong held its first “patriots-only” election for the Legislative Council (LegCo) yesterday in an election that was marked by record low turnout. The election only saw 30.2% participation, or 1.35 million ballots cast. This was nearly half of the turnout in 2016, when LegCo elections were last held, which saw 58% turnout...
Laws for Transnational Gay Marriages to be Amended for Chinese Spouses
The Mainland Affairs Council stated earlier this month that it intends to amend current laws regulating transnational gay marriages in such a manner that international marriages are recognized, including for Chinese spouses. Nevertheless, one notes that the Mainland Affairs Council already stated that it was exploring options for Chinese spouses in January 2021, meaning that the issue has dragged on for almost a year...
Referendum Results in a DPP Victory, KMT Defeat
The results of the national referendum that took place today resulted in a defeat for the KMT and victory for the DPP, with all four referendum proposals voted down. This was what was called for by the DPP, with the DPP advocating four “Nos”...
Autumn Struggle Co-Opted Again by the KMT in 2021
The annual Autumn Struggle labor protest has historically been one of the two major annual labor protests in Taiwan. The other major labor protest is usually International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day. The two labor protests are spaced roughly half a year apart, with International Workers’ Day taking place in the springtime and Autumn Struggle taking place in the fall or winter...
The KMT Frames the Referendum as a Referendum on the DPP’s Overall Governance
With the referendum vote scheduled to take place on Saturday, the KMT has been on the campaign trail. In particular, even if the referendum no longer takes place on the same date as elections, the KMT hopes to use the referendum as an opportunity to electorally benefit in the future, as well as an opportunity to attack the DPP...
Was Audrey Tang’s Video Feed Cut at the Biden Administration’s Summit for Democracy?
Reports have stated that Digital Minister Audrey Tang’s video seemed to be cut during the Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy last week. If the video was cut, it is believed that this took place due to a map that appeared during Tang’s presentation which displayed Taiwan in a different color than China, with concerns that this would be perceived as support for Taiwanese independence...
David Harvey and Richard Wolff Romanticize China Out of Orientalism, if Nothing Else
It has proven odd that leftist thinkers, such as Marxian economist Richard Wolff and Marxist geographer David Harvey, have proven unusually praising of China in recent comments. Wolff and Harvey have both expressed the view that China’s economy represents something fundamentally different from western capitalism; this view is based on the claim that socialist legacies in China persist from the Maoist period, and this has pushed contemporary China to become something qualitatively different from western capitalism...
Brian Hioe
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.
丘琦欣，創建破土的編輯之一，專於撰寫社會運動和政治的自由作家偶而亦從事翻譯工作。他自哥倫比亞大學畢業，是亞洲語言及文化科系的碩士，同時擁有紐約大學的歷史，東亞研究及英文文學三項學士學位。