Written by Grace Faerber. The Biden administration is strengthening its recognition of the strategic importance of Taiwan to the FOIP, the greatest indicator being the appointment of Sandra Oudkirk as Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de-facto U.S. embassy in Taipei. Director Oudkirk previously served as a Senior Official for APEC at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (APEC’s member countries include the nations of Australasia and ASEAN).
Written by Huynh Tam Sang. Adopted by President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016, the New Southbound Policy (NSP) has helped fortify Taiwan’s international standing and promoted the spirit of “Taiwan helps Asia, and Asia helps Taiwan.” In recent years, the NSP has facilitated Taiwan’s participation in the Indo-Pacific society. At the same time, they ensure that Taiwan could get on board with other regional and middle powers, like China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Australia, which have been forging their ties with Southeast Asian countries.
Written by Huynh Tam Sang and Tran Hoang Nhung. In her 2020 inaugural speech, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) raised the issue of talent retention, underlined the need for “a diverse talent pool” with her commitment to attract “technical, R&D, and management talents to help globalize Taiwan’s workforce.” Furthermore, when attending the release of the Talent Circulation Alliance white paper in June, she said the government would be committed to “[developing] more innovative talent” to meet the shifting of supply change to Taiwan and navigate challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Written by Yi-Yu Lai. As an anthropologist who studies Indigenous movements in the Philippine highlands, my experiences of beauty pageants’ are not rare. The beauty pageant has been culturally entrenched in the Philippines and its diasporic communities for many decades. Because these contests are very popular with Filipinos, some Indigenous youth advocates use them as an instrument for cultural activism, empowering participants and attracting those who were previously indifferent to political issues. Nevertheless, the Filipino beauty pageants of Taiwan are quite different from those I previously experienced.
Written By William Kung 孔德廉. Regarding the dramatic changes brought about by the “spinach industry,” Wang Weiren, an old overseas Chinese who has lived in the Philippines for 60 years, described it as “locusts crossing the border.” Although the gambling industry has helped drive obvious GDP growth in the Philippines, the economic gains have not been shared by the public at large. Instead, it has been concentrated in the hands of a few Chinese business owners. Not only that, a large number of Chinese ethnic groups in the industry are not prepared to integrate into the local area. Instead, they are reluctant to change their ways and prone to conflict with the locals. If China and the Philippines were ever to join forces to crack down on illegal businesses, the first thing to bear would be the Philippine economy, which is currently overly dependent on the gambling industry.
Written By Willian Kung. Ten years ago, Many Chinese, Malaysians, and Indonesians left their hometowns and moved to the Philippines to chase the gold rush triggered by online gambling. In recent years, the latest wave has attracted many Taiwanese. According to statistics from the Philippine Immigration Bureau, in 2018, more than 200,000 Chinese workers applied for work visas, 90% related to online casinos. There are also many Taiwanese living in the Philippines. In 2016, the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines issued a message stating “recently, there has been an increasing number of Taiwanese people going to the Philippines to work in the gambling industry, please be wary that risks often outweigh the rewards. Many have had their passports detained.”
作者：鄒佳晶。二十世紀八〇年代開始，跨國婚姻、移民為全球化人口流動的現象，在多元、種族文化的環境下，間接影響台灣人口結構的改變，新移民、新二代人口總數的增加，成為台灣的第五大族群。同時，新二代的文化形象在這三十年間也經歷了轉變。起初，由於文化碰撞，以及過往的資訊不發達，媒體輿論也出現許多負面社會新聞版面，東南亞被形塑為落後、經濟不穩定、人口素質低落的國家，也實際影響台灣的整體社會氛圍對於婚姻移民產生刻板印象，政府將新移民、新二代視為「社會問題」，使新二代在不友善的環境中成長，2016年政府推行新南向政策，新移民、新二代的議題開始被重視，隨著政策的改變，新二代的身份從過去的弱勢變成社會優勢、資本，希望透過擁有雙語言、雙文化優勢擔任國民外交南向小尖兵的角色
Written by Chia-Ching Tsou. Around 2016, following the Tasi government’s New Southbound Policy, the government suddenly focused on a particular group of Taiwanese — the so-called “the new second generation.” The new second-generation refers to a group of young Taiwanese, some of whose parents are immigrants from Southeast Asian countries following the era of cross-border marriages. The government saw “the new second-generation” as human capital with the advantage of dual culture and language. Thus, it was well-positioned to serve as the vanguard for the New Southbound Policy. However, the government’s framing of the new second-generation ignores and overlooks the new second generation’s life experience and perspective.
Written by Zihlun Huang. There is a pervasive ambivalent feeling working in online gambling for Taiwanese workers. On the one hand, Taiwanese POGOs workers have to take high-risk jobs in this industry, such as working conditions, legal issues, and unsafe environments. On the other hand, they enjoy their salary, social status, and lifestyle in the Philippines. Nevertheless, after all is said and done, one thing is true—they believe that they are heading toward paradise.
Written By Shun-nan Chiang. Taiwan and the Philippines have various points of connections regarding agricultural development. When I conducted my dissertation research on agriculture-nutrition linkages in the Philippines, I frequently encountered references to Taiwan in the Philippine agriculture sector. I was told by a Filipino geographer researching the Philippine agritourism policy that the government’s primary model was Taiwan’s farm tourism. Indeed, I soon discovered that a farm owner I met in a conference toured around Taiwan with a group of business owners to survey Taiwan’s farm tourism. The day I finished my fieldwork in the Philippines, I also met some governmental officers from Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture and other agencies. They have been collaborating on a project with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) since 2015.
Written By Yi-Yu Lai. ince the early 1980s, the PCT (The Presbyterian Church of Taiwan) intentionally organized groups visiting several countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, because they attempted to strengthen and magnify their overseas missionary work in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, they not only collaborated with a Taiwanese pastor Jun-Nan Li (李俊男), who started to serve in the City of Cagayan de Oro since 1978, but also made contacts with the UCCP (United Church of Christ in the Philippines). At first, those Taiwanese people were all set to introduce their preaching works to the Filipinos during their first visit of 1983. However, they serendipitously found that the Philippine Indigenous resistance experiences might become a possible alternative to address their church land issue in Taiwan.
Written by Yi-Yu Lai. n the late summer of 1986, a small group of Indigenous people from the PCT (The Presbyterian Church of Taiwan) led a delegation through the Philippines’ Cordillera region. As a delegation that attempted to study minority rights, those people not merely approached Negrito, Bontoc, and Ifugao communities to learn local issues, but also visited several grassroots organizations such as the CPA (Cordillera Peoples Alliance). Although it was not the first time the PCT arranged the Philippines’ tour, their visit’s timing was noteworthy. While martial law was still imposed in Taiwan, people in the Philippines just overthrew the Marcos dictatorship through the People Power Revolution at the beginning of that year
