Kaohsiung city council assistants have announced plans to set up a new union. In particular, city council assistants have drawn attention to the fact that salaries for city councilor assistants have remained the same for 23 years...
President Tsai Ing-wen, KMT presidential candidate Hou You-yi, and Foxconn founder Terry Gou all traveled to Kinmen over the last week. Though Gou has not formally announced a presidential run, he has strongly hinted at one. Gou would be likely running as an independent, having ruled out the possibility of collaboration with the KMT and this also being unlikely with Ko Wen-je’s TPP, seeing as neither he nor Ko would serve as the other’s deputy...
The Chinese and Taiwanese governments continue to dispute over trade, with the Chinese government accusing the Taiwanese government last week of being protectionist and not engaging in fair trade practices. This is due to the Taiwanese government maintaining bans on a number of Chinese products...
The #MeToo movement has been claimed as a global movement that connects women in the global North and the global South. Nonetheless, the MeToo movement must always confront various local social, economic, and cultural relations when it spreads across the globe. It also demands social, legal, and even material infrastructures to materialise. Global South countries that fail to deliver the MeToo movement might relate to the lack of efficient internet infrastructure and the taboo of talking about sex in public (e.g. Bangladesh), freedom of speech (e.g. China), or severe social stratification such as India in which the MeToo movement only circulated among the rich and well-educated elite women...
A short three months after a wave of #MeToo cases swept across the Taiwanese political landscape, it proves a question as to whether there have been genuine changes in social attitudes in the aftermath of these cases. Certainly, there has been no shortage of commentary on the matter, and the legislature responded by passing amendments to Taiwan’s “Three Gender Equality laws.” But whether there are lasting changes remains to be seen...
China launched another set of military drills after vice president William Lai returned from his trip to the US and Paraguay. Lai’s trip involved a stopover in San Francisco and New York City. Though the ostensible main purpose of the trip was to attend the presidential inauguration of Paraguayan president Santiago Peña, there was greater attention to the sensitivity of Lai’s transit through the US, given the possibility of a reaction from China...
The Chinese government recently announced a list of 78 countries in which tour groups will now be allowed to travel to. This includes a number of frequent travel destinations for Chinese tourists that China is otherwise geopolitically at odds with, such as the US, South Korea, Japan, and the UK. Notably, in response to the announcement, stocks for travel companies in these countries immediately rose, a sign of how Chinese tourists are considered big spenders in a number of sectors...
On May 31st, 2023, a Facebook post by a former DPP staffer ignited the long-smouldering embers of Taiwan’s #MeToo movement, illuminating local issues of sexual harassment and assault originally left behind by the 2017-2018 global #MeToo movement...
tens of thousands demonstrated on Ketagalan Boulevard today to call attention to the issue of pedestrian safety in Taiwan. The rally took place despite thunderstorms in the afternoon and rain. According to organizers, there were 50,000 participants, who were called on to wear white for the event...
Hsinchu mayor Ann Kao of the TPP has been indicted over corruption charges. Kao is the TPP’s only mayor, having previously served as a legislator for the pan-Blue third party, whose presidential candidate is former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je...
