Taiwan Insight

Soft Power, Strong Legacy: Teresa Teng’s Voice of Unity Amid Division

5 May 2025 Adrian Chiu

Written by Tang Meng Kit. Teresa Teng’s music transcended borders, offering a lesson in unity amid rising nationalism in Taiwan and China. Her banned songs influenced Chinese soldiers to defect and challenged state-controlled narratives. Her legacy proves that cultural identity can bridge divides, showing that soft power remains a vital force in geopolitics.

Taiwan Is My Favourite: K-pop Fans in The Bluebird Movement

2 May 2025 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Lorraine Pan. This article discusses K-pop and the use of lightsticks in the Winter Bluebird Movement in Taiwan in December 2024. Taiwanese K-pop fans used lightsticks to express their political views, drawing inspiration from similar actions in South Korea. Pan argues that the movement showcased the fan community’s power and challenged negative perceptions, highlighting their active engagement in political issues.

Diplomacy on Rails: Strengthening Taiwan-Japan Relations Through Railway Culture

1 May 2025 Adrian Chiu

Taiwan and Japan use railway diplomacy to strengthen cultural and technological ties through heritage preservation, tourism, and smart rail innovation. Unlike China’s debt-driven projects, their approach prioritises sustainability and soft power. Expanding collaborations into Southeast Asia and integrating AI-driven rail systems will enhance their influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Food for Thought and the Search for Authenticity

25 April 2025 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by David O’Brien. This article reflects on the author’s visit to Taitung, Taiwan, exploring how food intersects with identity, colonialism, and authenticity. Drawing on experiences in Xinjiang, Poland, and Taiwan, the author examines how cuisine can both divide and unite across cultural and political landscapes.

Teasing Romantic and Literary Appetite: Reading Taiwan Travelogue

23 April 2025 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Mu-Hsi Kao Lee. The article explores the experience of reading Taiwan Travelogue as a translated historical yuri novel. Kao Lee reflects on how the narrative, despite its clear genre and straightforward plot, evokes a sense of both satisfaction and longing in the reader. The article highlights the story’s ability to interweave historical and cultural details with the protagonists’ emotional connection, examining themes of desire, identity, and the complexities of relationships within a specific historical context.

Savouring Taiwan’s History and Experience: Reflections on the Taiwan Travelogue and Its Book Talk

16 April 2025 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Tun-Jung Kuo and Li-Ting Chang. This article reflects on a book talk discussing Taiwan Travelogue, highlighting how the novel uses food to narrate Taiwan’s colonial history, cultural hybridity and female perspectives. Through detailed depictions of cuisine and memory, it challenges historical narratives and deepens understanding of Taiwan’s evolving identity amid Japanese colonial influence and localisation.

Food is politics, and so is travel.

14 April 2025 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Chee-Hann Wu. This article discusses Taiwan Travelogue and its US book tour earlier this year. It highlights the controversial marketing strategy, the extensive use of footnotes to enrich the historical context, and the categorisation of the novel as queer literature due to the evident, though subtle, romantic undertones between the two female protagonists.

Revisiting Research: Indigenous Peoples as Non-State Diplomatic Actors in the Public/Cultural Diplomacy of Taiwan

11 April 2025 Yu-Chen

Written by Dr Carla Figueira. This article reflects on the 2024 IJTS Open Access Award-winning paper, “Indigenous Peoples as Non-State Diplomatic Actors in the Public/Cultural Diplomacy of Taiwan: A Case Study of Dispossessions: Performative Encounter(s) of Taiwanese Indigenous Contemporary Art.” It highlights the value of engaging with the personal and social contexts shaping research outputs. It celebrates the growing academic focus on Indigenous Peoples and cultural diplomacy, foregrounding Taiwan’s unique position.

The Expansion of Taiwanese Firms and the US-China Trade War: The Subcontractors’ Dilemma in Global Supply Chain Competition

9 April 2025 Yu-Chen

Written by Lin, Thung-Hong. This article introduces the 2023 IJTS Open Access Award-winning paper, “Subcontractors’ Dilemma: The Expansion of Taiwanese Firms 2002–2015”, and discusses a follow-up study examining how China’s autocratisation under Xi Jinping has impacted Taiwanese firms operating in China through 2022. Together, these studies provide a comprehensive view of the challenges Taiwanese businesses face amid globalisation and shifting geopolitics, offering crucial insights into corporate strategies and government policies.

‘Free China’ in History: A Look Back at Cold War Taiwan’s Anti-Communist Defectors

7 April 2025 Yu-Chen

Written by Andrew Morris. Reflecting on the 2023 IJTS Open Access Award-winning paper, the author revisits his path toward researching the Cold War-era defections from the PRC to Taiwan—stories once celebrated in Taiwan as “anti-communist righteous warriors.” This article shows how these largely forgotten stories offer a rare insight into a fervent hope once shared by millions in Taiwan.

Reflections on “Finding Meaning in Time and Space: Periodisation and Taiwanese-centric History”

4 April 2025 Yu-Chen

Written by Evan N. Dawley. The 2022 IJTS Open Access Award-winning paper, “Finding Meaning in Time and Space: Periodisation and Taiwanese-centric History,” challenges the conventional state-centric periodisation of Taiwan’s history by proposing a Taiwanese-centric framework that emphasises social transformation and identity formation. This article reflects on this broader trend in Taiwan-focused publications, its influence on the author’s future work, and the strength of this historical approach to understanding Taiwan on its own terms.

Ontological Entanglements: Indigenous Peoples and the Future of Taiwan

2 April 2025 Yu-Chen

Written by Scott E. Simon. This article introduces and reflects on the author’s two IJTS Open Access Award-winning papers. Drawing on decades of fieldwork and writing, the author contributes to Taiwan Studies by addressing how indigeneity integrates Indigenous peoples into the state project of post-martial law in Taiwan while emphasizing the need to recognize both Taiwan and its Indigenous peoples as having distinct ontological existence of their own. He calls for an ontological commitment to self-determination amid growing geopolitical precarity.

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