The election of Wu Den-Yih as KMT chair probably does not represent the party stepping back from the brink but a return to something closer to normalcy within the party. This will not, however, forestall the internal crisis within the party, nor does it mark that the KMT will be able to turn over a new leaf in the near future and win back the Taiwanese public...
Despite the rain, between fifty and eighty people turned out yesterday at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial for a demonstration calling for arrested Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-Che’s release...
With the one year anniversary of Tsai Ing-Wen’s inauguration, we might take the opportunity to reflect on the successes and failures of the Tsai administration to date...
The Trump administration’s shift in a pro-China direction seems likely to hasten the movement of Asia Pacific countries away from America under the Trump administration...
Small Talk, directed by Huang Hui-Chen, is in many ways a remarkable film, but it is also an incredibly unsettling one. Small Talk is a highly personal film, as a documentary detailing Huang’s relation with her mother, Ah-Nu. In particular, Huang’s relation with her mother, who works as a Daoist priestess, is troubled because of Ah-Nu’s emotional distance, as well as that Ah-Nu, a lesbian, had two daughters from an abusive marriage...
The scandal which has followed on the feet of bestselling author Lin Yi-Han’s suicide after a bout of depression resulting from her rape by a cram school teacher nine years ago has, unfortunately, in many cases been revealing of the depths of entrenched sexism and misogyny in much of Taiwanese society. But much commentary has still largely missed the point in how to address the larger social issues at stake...
It is strange to observe the means by which many otherwise sharp western observers on Taiwanese politics, particularly Americans, continue to cling to strange delusions regarding Trump’s potential positive influence on Taiwan or at least his lack of any harmful influence on Taiwan. Such views may ultimately be reflexive in nature for many...
Indigenous occupiers continue their occupation on Ketagalan Boulevard, despite facing increasing harassment from the police. The occupation has lasted for over eighty days as of yesterday...
The victory of Moon Jae-In as president of South Korea draws strong parallels to Taiwan, with the election of a center-left president put into power after a social movement which galvanized much of society. But we can observe where structural parallels between Taiwan and South Korea end, given that as a center-left political candidate, Moon is skeptical of closer ties between South Korea and the US...
If the Tsai administration is careful about it, Taiwan’s exclusion from this year’s meeting of the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, can ultimately serve as an opportunity to raise Taiwan’s international profile and raise awareness of international bullying of Taiwan by China...
