Taiwan Insight

River and Sea · Plateau · Resonance: The Possibility of Peace in a Turbulent World

Written by Kefei Cao. The author traces her personal and historical journey across the Taiwan Strait, moving from lived encounters to reflections on war, memory, and coexistence. Drawing on Lung Ying-tai and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, she proposes theatre as a space for reimagining peace beyond binary divisions, where vulnerability, dialogue, and shared humanity become the grounds for fragile yet enduring connection.

Taiwanese Peace as a crucial engagement to advance decolonisation for Japan

Written by Yoshitaka Ota. This article argues that the first step toward contributing to Taiwanese peace is to stop creating a common enemy between Taiwan and Japan and to start taking Taiwanese agency seriously. Japan should also exercise its agency to recognise and depart from the permanence of coloniality, which continues to create China as a common enemy, rather than looking at itself as the enemy once.

Peace and Democracy: A Symbiotic Relationship

Written by Wu Yu-Shan. This article argues that Taiwan urgently needs to establish a public body of knowledge surrounding “peace research”. Peace research concerns not only the safety of life but also the survival of democracy and freedom. Nascent democracies under the shadow of war, like Taiwan, face external threats, security dilemmas, and cultural deficits. Therefore, to protect democracy, we must first protect peace.

Learning Otherwise: Indigenous Experimental Education and Plural Pathways in Taiwan

13 May 2026 NGA Shi Yeu

Written by Tuyuq Rabay. This article examines Indigenous Experimental Education in Taiwan through an ethnographic vignette of an Atayal school’s pslkotas ritual. It argues that such programmes re-centre indigenous epistemologies through embodied, place-based, and spiritual pedagogy, while also revealing ongoing tensions with state curricula, structural inequalities, and settler-colonial legacies that shape education and identity.

Reworlding Childhood: Parenting in an Age of Educational Anxiety

11 May 2026 NGA Shi Yeu

Written by Kristina Göransson. Focusing on homeschooling and other “opt-out” practices in Singapore and Taiwan, this article shows how families actively rework ideas of care, learning, and childhood. These alternative paths, while they offer an escape from exam pressures, also require intensive parental labour and remain shaped by inequalities in class and access.

Beyond the Growth Narrative: Energy Constraints in Taiwan’s Green Transition

8 May 2026 Adrian Chiu

Written by Gita T. This article argues that Taiwan’s green transition assumes energy demand will remain manageable and relatively stable amid rapid technological expansion. This assumption is increasingly difficult to sustain. These dynamics suggest that Taiwan’s green transition requires a shift not only in technology, but in how energy systems are planned and governed.

From ‘China’s Last Frontier’ to ‘Ghost Nation’: Rethinking Taiwan Across Three Decades of Change

7 May 2026 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley. The article compares Simon Long’s 1991 book, Taiwan: China’s Last Frontier and Chris Horton’s recent publication, Ghost Nation: The Story of Taiwan and Its Struggle for Survival (2025). The author traces Taiwan’s transformation from an authoritarian frontier within a China-centric framework to a democratic, identity-driven political subject central to global geopolitics, yet still diplomatically constrained. By examining the two frameworks, the author reveals both profound change and enduring discourse on Taiwan’s self-determination and the limits of international recognition.

Six Assurances and Trump’s Arms Sale Policy toward Taiwan

6 May 2026 Adrian Chiu

Written by Baosheng Guo. This article argues that Trump’s recent comments about arms sales to Taiwan at least violated the principle and tradition of the second article of the Six Assurances. Though his foreign policy is rife with unpredictability and uncertainty, his willingness to abide by the rule of law provides a measure of assurance to Taiwan’s security.

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