August 2022

Can Chinese Nationalists (or their Apologists) Please Shut Up About Zhonghua?

Imagine if after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that a leading Anglophone left academic journal put out an article blaming the invasion on the failure of Ukrainians to embrace Russian culture. Putin justified the invasion by claiming that Ukraine did not have a language, identity, or culture of its own outside of Russian culture and was wholly an invention of the Bolsheviks, so Ukraine’s existence as a polity could justifiably be nullified. The invasion of Ukraine, then, is the fault of Ukrainians for failing to embrace the “Russo-world”...

Jacobin Frames Highlighting Exclusion of Taiwanese Voices in Conversation About Possible Crisis as “Warmongering”

American leftist magazine Jacobin continues to plumb the depths of bad writing on Taiwan that does not bother to consult Taiwanese voices about their own future, with a recent article by Chicago-based writer Branko Marcetic. Instead of anything like, say, speaking to Taiwanese to see what they think of the odds of conflict with China are, what one instead sees is the usual insularity of western leftists who are more concerned with projecting the specter of American empire onto the non-western world to self-flagellate about themselves rather than finding pragmatic solutions to avoid conflict...

Wage Hike for Migrant Workers Criticized for Limited Scope

Migrant workers and migrant worker advocates criticized a recent wage hike that would increase the minimum monthly wage for live-in migrant workers, who primarily work in homes taking care of the elderly, from 17,000 NT to 20,000 NT. Namely, though the wage hike increases the minimum monthly wage for live-in migrant workers by 17%, the wage hike is still 5,250 NT below the minimum wage in Taiwan, which is 25,250 NT...