ROC National Day commemorations took place today with official celebrations and some protests. Protest activity was not as intense compared to past years, however. Likewise, controversies resulting from statements by Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-Wen or other politicians were fairly minor...
The Taipei mayoral election continues to be a political minefield for independents, with clashes in the Third Force regarding the New Power Party’s stance on current mayor Ko Wen-Je...
The DPP, KMT, and PFP have failed to take action to curb scams masquerading as religious organizations with the passage of the Financial Group and Corporation Law after its third reading in the Legislative Yuan...
As Taipei 2018 mayoral elections approach ever closer, it remains an opaque question as to whether the DPP will back Ko Wen-Je. In the meantime, one can divine something of the shifts in the DPP’s position going into 2018 elections as compared to 2016 from the continued debate over whether the DPP will endorse Ko this year...
The declaration by Third Force parties, along with former presidents Chen Shui-Bian and Lee Teng-Hui and other influential figures, that they intend to seek a referendum on Taiwanese independence poses a significant challenge to the DPP...
Looking back on recent demonstrations against the Tsai administration’s planned changes to the Labor Standards Act, it may do well to review some of the reasons as to why protests did not spark anything on the scale of the Sunflower Movement, and why these demonstrations were, in that way, ultimately unsuccessful. Namely, these demonstrations in many ways replicated the dynamics of the Sunflower Movement, just less successfully. Perhaps this ultimately returns to structural shifts in Taiwanese society since 2014...
Outrage against the Tsai administration’s changes to the Labor Standards Act is notably on the uptick since they passed, despite the fact that these changes have not yet taken effect...
Although it may have failed in preventing the changes from passing in the end, demonstrations against the Tsai administration's changes to the Labor Standards Act developed a unique visual language. Namely, in the past few years, a sign of the “maturity” of any social movement in Taiwan is that movement developing a unique visual language of its own. We might examine the characteristics of protest art during demonstrations against the Labor Standards Act, then...
With the passage of the Tsai administration’s planned changes to the Labor Standards Act this morning, it seems that organized labor, Taiwanese youth activists, and Third Force parties have suffered a defeat. But this may return to the present challenge of Taiwanese politics—to break with the DPP in a manner which advances the progressive politics which the DPP no longer is the standard bearer of...
The camp-out against the Tsai administration’s planned changes to the Labor Standards Act continues into its second day, with it being anticipated that the changes will see their third reading today within the Legislative Yuan. At this juncture, it may be useful to examine why exactly the DPP is so intent on passing through changes to the Labor Standards Act...
