Welcome to the Daily Bloom! The Daily Bloom will be a daily shortform blog with updates on the day’s political going-ons. If something particularly exciting happening in Taiwan, we will be providing live updates on our Facebook page and Twitter account. At the end of the day, we will compile the live updates to provide a chronological timeline of the day’s events. If not, we will simply report on what happened that day, or what might be of note that happened. If you have news tips about what would be interesting to cover, send to [email protected]!
July 8, 2014
According to a Washington Post article, “China’s rise and Asian tensions send U.S. relations into downward spiral”, we may be facing “what may be the most worrying deterioration in U.S.-China relations in decades.” Indeed, perhaps hyperbolic, but while Washington has not taken clearer stances in regards to China except its Asia Pivot, which is quite possibly interpreted by China as an attempt to apply Cold War style policies of containment to it; certainly, such policies may prove aggravating to regional stability. The same article cites Robert Ross, a political professor at Boston College, as stating, “East Asia today is less stable than at any time since the end of the Cold War.”
Perhaps backtracking on recent aggressive Chinese response to the repeal of Article 9, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe claims that Japan and China are “inextricably tied” and that dialogue remains open. In the meantime, in Taiwanese foreign affairs circles, Taiwanese academic Doong Sy-chi suggests that Taiwan keep an eye on South Korea’s recent movements in shifting closer to Beijing because of strained ties with Beijing. While there has been much discussion of Taiwan’s relation to Japan following the repeal of Article 9, there has been less discussion of Taiwan’s relation to South Korea.
Academia Historica announces the publication of a series of books detailing the ROC government’s role fighting the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese War, as we approach the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and Chinese victory over the Japanese. Of course, to the extent that Academica Historica is the top-level organization in charge of official records of Taiwanese history, one can only point out the means by which this depiction of history will inflect “official” narratives.