Speculation about who will run in 2020 presidential elections has already begun in Taiwan. Perhaps this is unsurprising. Presidential elections will likely take place in January of next year, meaning that elections are scarcely a year away...
Demonstrations by Chinese leftist student activists regarding the Jasic struggle in Shenzhen continue, with the detention of over ten student members of a Marxist Society at Peking University late last month. Another wave of detentions took place earlier this month, with forced confessions extracted by the Chinese government from some of the detained...
Protests have broken out in Hong Kong over a new law that which would mandate the singing of the Chinese national anthem at official events, such as before sporting events or for the swearing-in ceremonies for lawmakers. The law would also criminalize disrespect to the Chinese national anthem, stipulating maximum penalties of 50,000 HKD, up to three years in prison, and with a three year limit for penalization rather than the usual six months for similar crimes...
Tensions between the US, Canada, and China have continued to escalate in the past month, with China sentencing Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to the death penalty for drug smuggling in mid-January...
Controversy erupted earlier this month after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Twitter account shared an article from far right-wing media outlet Breitbart...
In a surprise turn of events, NPP chair Huang Kuo-chang announced earlier this week that he will not be pursuing reelection for party chair next month. Party heavyweight Freddy Lim has also announced that he is not interested in pursuing the position. Who, then, will be the next chair of the NPP and how will chair elections affect the course of the party as a whole?...
A series of child abuse cases has rocked Taiwanese society in the past month, with a number of incidents widely reported on in the media. However, calls to simply increase legal punishments for child abuse, including the suggestion to use capital punishment for cases of child abuse, fail to address the root of the problem ...
Over the past few weeks, there have been multiple cases of high-profile physical violence in Taiwan, ranging from the case of the abuse of a wife and son by a father to the assault on Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun by an entertainer. In both of these high profile cases, certain levels of “vigilante justice” through violence have been argued as justified, despite a general public consensus against acts of physical violence in Taiwan. What do these cases say about Taiwan society as a whole?...
Taipei city police dismantled the occupation encampment of indigenous protesters outside Exit 1 of the NTU Hospital station earlier today. Indigenous protesters, however, vow to continue to occupy. Today was the 699th day of the occupation and this was the third dismantlement of the occupation which has occurred to date...
