December 2021

Low Turnout in Hong Kong’s “Patriots Only” Legislative Elections

Brian Hioe
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...
December 2021EnglishSelf-DeterminationSocial MovementsYouth Movements6 min read

Laws for Transnational Gay Marriages to be Amended for Chinese Spouses

Brian Hioe
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...
December 2021EnglishGender/SexualitySocial Movements5 min read

Autumn Struggle Co-Opted Again by the KMT in 2021

Brian Hioe
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...
December 2021EnglishPolitics6 min read

Radio New Bloom #19: Coen Blaauw on Thirty Years of Pro-Taiwan Advocacy in Washington

newbloomeditor
For the nineteenth episode of Radio New Bloom, we feature an interview with Coen Blaauw, a Dutch lawyer and Senior Policy Advisor to the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, a US non-profit promoting Taiwan’s right to self-determination. He joined FAPA in 1989 and has since become a central figure in the Taiwan independence movement in the United States. He specializes in connecting with members of the U.S. Congress, drafting Taiwan-related legislation, and recruiting support for these legislations....
December 2021EnglishInterviewsRadio New Bloom1 min read

Was Audrey Tang’s Video Feed Cut at the Biden Administration’s Summit for Democracy?

Brian Hioe
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...
America and the Asia PacificDecember 2021EnglishInternational8 min read

David Harvey and Richard Wolff Romanticize China Out of Orientalism, if Nothing Else

Brian Hioe
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...
December 2021EnglishSocial MovementsTheory and History7 min read