Written by Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley. This article explores how the Taiwanese political drama Wave Makers helped catalyse Taiwan’s 2023 #MeToo movement by fostering empathy, challenging victim-blaming, and providing language for collective action. Drawing on XinLing Li’s recent book, it examines television’s capacity to shape public discourse while acknowledging its limitations in producing lasting social change.
Written by Sheng-mei Ma. Part II of the article perceives Detention as a haunting of Taiwan’s White Terror, where Fang’s guilt, forbidden love, and suppressed memory recur through ghosts, banned texts, and images of facelessness and decapitation. Its hybrid cultural references reveal Taiwanese identity as historically layered, while headlessness symbolises political violence, erasure, and unresolved collective trauma.
Written by Sheng-mei Ma. In Part I of the article, the author examines how the film Detention (2019), through a return to Taiwan’s White Terror, exposes unresolved tensions among Chineseness, Taiwaneseness, and Japanese colonial legacies. Through Fang’s mixed family, religious practices, and betrayal of the banned Study Group, the film links political repression with intimate conflicts of love, resentment, identity, and betrayal.
Written by Sheng-mei Ma. This article focuses on self-alienation and the pursuit of Eurocentric beauty standards. It examines how Chinese linguistic biases and the prevalence of cosmetic surgery among celebrities reflect a subconscious, self-inflicted whitewashing that parallels historical settler colonialism and racial hierarchies.
Written by Nilufer Mistry Sheasby. This article examines how non-state institutions undermine Taiwan’s identity by mandating subordinating terminology in ostensibly apolitical settings. It argues that traditional diplomatic responses are insufficient and proposes a multi-faceted playbook: coordinating government and private actors to challenge naming decisions, mobilising stakeholder pressure, and mitigating harm when reversal remains impossible.
Written by Jozef Huljak. This article discusses how Lithuania is resuming economic cooperation talks with Taiwan despite internal political pressure to reset relations with Beijing. This strategy aims to shift the relationship from symbolic solidarity to durable economic interest, testing Europe’s resolve against Chinese coercion while proving that a resilient, mutually beneficial partnership can withstand domestic political cycles.
