The KMT’s party logo and its similarity to the national emblem has again become an object of political contestation. Last week, the Legislative Yuan passed a resolution calling for the Ministry of Interior to investigate the possibility of changing the national emblem. The Ministry of the Interior is required to produce a report on the matter within two months to report to the Internal Administration Committee of the Legislative Yuan...
The situation regarding the Taoyuan General Hospital cluster, Taiwan’s first COVID-19 cluster since last April and Taiwan’s largest COVID-19 cluster to date, continues to develop. Friday night saw the first COVID-19 death in eight months, after a woman in her eighties part of the cluster died, and was found to have been infected with COVID-19 after her death...
Criticisms of plans by the Executive Yuan to set up science parks in Chiayi and Pingtung reflect longstanding issues regarding development in Taiwan...
A political crackdown against pro-democracy figures continues in Hong Kong. In the latest series of arrests, earlier this month, eleven individuals were arrested in connection to the Hong Kong “Twelve”, twelve young Hongkongers that were arrested by the Chinese coast guard last August after attempting to flee to Taiwan by speedboat, then held in Shenzhen...
A corruption case involving a former Supreme Court justice could have large implications, provided that it gains more traction in the news cycle and the current administration is willing to expend political capital on the case...
With the cluster of cases linked to the Taoyuan General Hospital having now expanded to a total of fifteen cases, the Central Epidemic Command Center that coordinates Taiwan’s response to COVID-19 has announced that discharged patients that were released from the hospital between January 6 and 19 and their close contacts must undergo a fourteen-day home quarantine...
The Biden administration surprised over the weekend, issuing a statement on Taiwan on Sunday in response to an incursion of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone by thirteen Chinese warplanes on Saturday. The statement expressed “concern” regarding “the pattern of ongoing PRC attempts to intimidate its neighbors, including Taiwan"...
Over the past week, KMT politicians have begun calling for a lockdown of Taoyuan after a cluster of thirteen cases of COVID-19 connected to the Taoyuan General Hospital broke out. This is the first domestic cluster of COVID-19 since last April. However, the situation in Taoyuan is far from one which would warrant the need for a lockdown, and the KMT's call for a lockdown is simply a means to attack the DPP, disregarding what the human consequences of a lockdown for residents of Taoyuan would be...
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.
