Written by Eloise Phillips. This article examines the 2025 Taiwan–Guam cultural exchange, led by Taiwan’s National Museum of Prehistory, which wove song, canoe building, and shared practices into island diplomacy. Through workshops, performances, and informal encounters, the program connected Austronesian communities across the Pacific, highlighting resilience, mutual reclamation, and living traditions of cultural practice, language, and art.
Written by Jess Marinaccio. This article highlights the cases of the Federal States of Micronesia, Solomon Islands, and Honduras, where restoring diplomatic relations with Taiwan has become a talking point in election campaigns. While many analysts are concerned about Taiwan’s “diplomatic zero” situation, this article argues that the possibility of restoring broken diplomatic ties remains open for Taiwan’s recently departed allies.
Written by Jess Marinaccio. This article examines the 53rd Leaders Meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum, taking place from 26 to 30 August 2024. It highlights the several controversies that Taiwan was embroiled in during the Meeting, particularly in regard to Taiwan’s position as a PIF “development partner” despite objections from China.
Written by Ysanne Chen, Ilin Tsai, and Shih-Hao Huang. In “Pondering the Pacific,” we conceptualise the Pacific as an oceanic highway or a contact zone. The vast ocean connects Pacific Islands. We travel from the island of Taiwan (we are reluctant to call it main(is)land) to Pongso no Tao to recover and explore this connection. When on the island, we further learn about Tao people’s connectedness to other Pacific Islanders. Upon our return, we wrote these poems to celebrate the Pacific. Along with other Pacific Islanders writers and poets, we praise the Pacific for its abundance and ability to connect people. We also join Pacific Islanders in voicing out against nuclear contamination and all forms of environmental injustice.
Written by Shih-hao Huang, Chiahua Lin, and Robinson Pinghao Liu. Employing “the Pacific” as a contact zone, this poetry collection explores the dynamic and shifting relationship between land and sea, allowing Indigenous culture and history in the trans-Pacific context to engage in spatial and historical complexity. This journey triggers memories and connects the present with the ancestral past. When seeing the constellations in the sky, one is reminded of the stories about stars. However, we were reminded that we often forget Taiwan is also a part of the Pacific. Therefore, we authored poems to represent, substantiate and celebrate the connection: the LOST connection between the Pacific Ocean and us.
Written by Cheng-Cheng Li. My filmmaking story in Oceania started with the Re/presenting Oceania course at the University of Hawai‘i. My Kumu (professor) Tarcisius Kabutaulake, who comes from the Solomon Islands, has been teaching and researching across the region for decades. His course invites me to critically engage with and discuss how the Pacific Islands have been represented in scholarly and other mediums. He brings me onto the ‘voyage’ across the ‘storyscapes’ of scholars, artists, performers, poets, and filmmakers to understand the politics of representation. This article will first discuss my filmmaking experience in Hawai‘i with the Pacific Island community. In the second section, with an increasing number of Indigenous Taiwanese wishing to connect with Oceania, I will address the interconnection story between Taiwanese Indigenous filmmakers and the Oceanic community. The theme of ‘relationship’ as ‘Priority’ will be interwoven into the stories.
