Leona Chen's Book of Cord marks the emergence of a powerful new Taiwanese-American voice among contemporary Asian-American poets, as a small, slim book of experimental poetry...
As part of New Bloom's current collaboration with the Taipei Arts Festival's 'Think Bar,' we will be keeping an ongoing, regularly updated journal of what goes on during the festival...
With the Trump administration touting its “Indo-Pacific initiative,” some in Taiwan have taken this as a hopeful sign that the Trump administration plans to step up pressure against China. It is further hoped that this will mean stronger American support for Taiwan. However, the perpetual dilemma that Taiwan faces regarding the US-Taiwan security relationship continues to loom in the background. Namely, stronger US actions against China does not necessarily entail stronger support for Taiwan, even if it sometimes does. And this is something that many in Taiwan have failed to reckon with...
In the lead-up to Taipei mayoral elections, accusations of authoritarianism against Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je are notably on the rise. This has occurred with regards to several issues...
A strange, rather lengthy report by Beijing-based correspondent Stephen Chen appeared in the South China Morning Post on August 6th, claiming that Beijing is “planning [the] world’s longest rail tunnel to link Taiwan to mainland,” and written as though this tunnel would begin construction in the immediate future. This article should serve as a reminder that, while the South China Morning Post has regained some measure of journalistic objectivity in the past half year or so, the newspaper still often publishes pro-Beijing propaganda with little factual basis...
Anger has broken out against Taiwanese actress Vivian Sung after she apologized on her Weibo account for previous comments during an interview several years ago in which she stated that Taiwan was her favorite country, later unearthed by Chinese netizens. Such comments were outraging to Chinese netizens, seeing as they implied that Sung viewed Taiwan as a country. It remains to be seen whether Sung’s later apology will placate angry Chinese netizens, but in the meantime, this apology has angered Taiwanese netizens...
Matters of justice remain unresolved for members of the Daguan Community facing eviction, as observed in a recent incident in which Daguan Community members and supportive youth activists were detained by police after a protest...
Going into 2018 local elections, what has become increasingly clear is that the KMT hopes to appeal to young people. The Tsai administration and DPP rode into power in 2016 presidential and legislative elections with the support of young people in the two years following the Sunflower Movement and the KMT is hoping to replicate this. This has not been very successful to date...
Leaked information revealing that Google planned to launch a censored version of its search engine has angered many, this project having been termed "Project Dragonfly" within the company. Namely, many accuse Google of having compromised its ideals in allowing for Chinese censorship...
Outrage has broken out in Japan following homophobic comments from Japanese politician Mio Sugita, a member of Shinzo Abe’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party. Subsequent demonstrations in response by members of the LGBTQ community and their allies, which drew 5,000 attendees, offer lessons for Taiwan...
