Written by Yi-Ting Chang. This article revisits Taiwan’s overlooked space history by tracing astronaut visits and the symbolic journeys of ROC flags into space during the Cold War. It reveals how diplomacy, identity, and geopolitics shaped Taiwan’s unexpected role in early space exploration.
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.
Written by Alex Yong Kang Chow. This article offers insights into the anti-imperial struggles of the Taiwanese and Hong Kong diasporas through the book Island X. This article contextualises the diaspora experiences historically through Cold War geopolitics and left-leaning activism since the 1970s.
Written by Wendy Cheng. This article introduces Cheng’s 2023 book Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism. The book tells the political history of a generation of Taiwanese who migrated to the US as students from the 1960s to the 1980s during the late Cold War and KMT martial law, and who became politically active in struggles for democracy, human rights, and Taiwan independence.
Written by Junbin Tan. would know, Kinmen was the Republic of China’s (ROC Taiwan) battlefront against the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to the 1990s. Thus, the residents of Guningtou, a cluster of villages a short drive from Kinmen’s north-western shoreline where one could see Xiamen’s skyscrapers, were first-hand witnesses of battles, artillery bombardments, and decades of militarisation.
Written by Ko-Hang Liao. The joint statement between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on April 16, 2021, once again caught everybody’s attention on serious concerns of the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait upon the continuing escalation of challenges from China on possibly changing the status quo by force or coercion. This was the first time that Taiwan was mentioned in a US-Japan leaders statement since 1969. Although the situation seems to be frequently changing, it is essential to understand the current tension historically. Indeed, studying the early Cold War period can reveal much about what is happening and how Taiwan has come to the recent position.
