In January 2017, the Free Taiwan Party posted a Facebook status: “Pro-Independence takes a stand! Come pull down the Chiang Kai Shek statue on February 28th at the Freedom Plaza!” As a young supporter of Free Taiwan Party and a supporter of the action of pulling down authoritarian statues, I documented and witnessed the actions on site during this time...
Indigenous demonstrators have occupied Ketagalan Boulevard for 22 days now. Demonstrators are demanding the return of traditional lands and more comprehensive action by the Tsai administration to realize transitional justice for indigenous in Taiwan...
Many questions remain to be answered in coming days with the indictment of former president Ma Ying-Jeou on charges over leaks of classified information regarding the 2013 wiretapping of Ker Chien-Ming...
Recent declarations by the Islamic State that it will target China in retaliation for its oppression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang will probably only be met by further Chinese restrictions on the region. But China's responses are illustrative of to what extent China uses the discursive terms of America's War on Terror to justify its suppression of the Muslim majority Uyghur population in Xinjiang and other parts of China...
The annual anti-nuclear march in Taiwan, commemorating the Fukushima incident in Japan, took place yesterday, with environmental groups, Third Force parties, youth activists, and other civil society groups marching through the streets of Taipei, Taitung, and Kaohsiung...
One of the paradoxes of uncritical pro-Americanism on the part of some Taiwanese independence advocates is that sometimes they do not actually know the most about American politics. One finds that assessments of Donald Trump remain wildly off the mark, due to lack of knowledge about the political forces which have arrayed themselves behind him and the man himself...
The war on drugs under the Tsai administration seems set to continue, with recent public scandals regarding drug use on army bases, the scandal caused by a drug-related death after a party at the five-star W Hotel in Taipei, and major drug crackdowns. Very likely, the Tsai administration is determined to make harsh drug policy enforcement one of its political achievements...
The revelation that at least eighty of Taiwan’s 157 universities have signed agreements with China promising not to discuss unification/independence issues or the issue of “one China, one Taiwan” in class has rocked the nation in the past week. Among these universities are Taiwan’s leading educational institutions...
