Written by Sheng-mei Ma. This is Part II of the article. Through a close reading of the Chinese TV series Reset, the article argues that its recurring time loops, terrorism, and symbolic imagery allegorise authoritarian violence, historical repetition, and state repression in the People’s Republic of China, which ultimately frames Taiwan as the regime’s imagined final object of political and territorial consumption.
Written by Sheng-mei Ma. This is Part I of the article. Through a close reading of the Chinese TV series Reset, the article argues that its recurring time loops, terrorism, and symbolic imagery allegorise authoritarian violence, historical repetition, and state repression in the People’s Republic of China, which ultimately frames Taiwan as the regime’s imagined final object of political and territorial consumption.
Written by Guido Gargiulo. This article describes how Taiwan, under President Lai Ching-te, navigates mounting geopolitical pressures from China while balancing relations with the United States under Donald Trump and the European Union. It explores Taipei’s strategy of bolstering defence, securing trade deals, and expanding diplomatic outreach to deter Beijing and strengthen global partnerships amid growing uncertainty in the Taiwan Strait.
Written by Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley. This article shares insights from the new edition of The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media (2025), which documents a radically transformed, digitalised media ecology across the Chinese-speaking world. Comparing Taiwan, the PRC, Hong Kong and Macao, it foregrounds platform governance, power, participation and cultural negotiation, positioning Taiwan as a key lens for rethinking Chinese media studies in the digital age.
Written by Sophia Li. This article examines the diplomatic struggle of Taiwan in the face of China’s money diplomacy and exposes the limits of China’s approach in the case of Nicaragua. Taiwan’s position will be a key measure of how the international system adapts or fails to adapt in the era of growing authoritarian influence.
Written by Jess Marinaccio. This article examines Taiwan’s fisheries during martial law, with a focus on the 1976 Jinnan No. 1 incident in New Zealand. Illegal fishing both strained Pacific diplomacy and yet revealed how fishing boats enabled individual mobility. For workers like Zhang Songhuo on Jinnan No. 1, fisheries were not solely a means of livelihood, but also a possible escape route from the authoritarian ROC during the martial law period.
