Written by Mark Wenyi Lai. Former President of Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui passed away this summer. The Beijing/Unification faction hated Lee, and the Independent faction/Mike Pompeo praised him as the Father of Taiwan Democracy, if not the Father of Taiwan. How do we evaluate Lee? What is Lee’s vision of where and how Taiwan is heading in the next century? How do our perspectives of him reflect our Taiwanese identity?
Written by Justin Kwan. In an attempt to reach audiences in Taiwan and Hong Kong, China has attempted to use both Hokkien and Cantonese in its messaging through media and popular culture, eliciting mixed responses from locals in both places. In the case of Taiwan, Beijing resorted to a strategy of direct coercion in 2018, when it released a dubbed propaganda video in Hokkien titled ‘God of War’. The video featured bomber aircrafts flying around Taiwan, a warning from Beijing for the islands Taiwanese-speaking activists to curb their so-called ‘pro-independence’ activities.
Written by J. Michael Cole. A long time in the making and after many challenges, a major politico-historical TV drama about Taiwan’s democratization will finally hit TV sets nationwide on 20 January. Based on political developments and figures from the 1990s, “Island Nation” (國際橋牌社) follows the hopes, fears and travails of a wide set of fictional characters in the dramatic years of Taiwan’s transition from an authoritarian state to a democracy.
Written by Jean-François Dupré. Hong Kong’s extradition bill and the mass protests it triggered have garnered much international attention. Presumably motivated by a dual attempt to infringe on Taiwan’s sovereignty and to increase Beijing’s grip over Hong Kong, the extradition debacle exposed in quite unambiguous terms the Hong Kong government’s incompetence and intractable pandering to Beijing.
Written by Linda Gail Arrigo. There has been little love lost between the Chinese democracy movement and the Taiwan independence movement. This is, I surmise, unfortunate, because Taiwan is increasingly in danger of takeover by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Yes, there has been some contact over the decades, but not always friendly.
Written by Chao-Hsuan Chen. In the past two decades, a number of researchers have sought to determine how the process of social protest after 1970s became the turning point in Taiwan’s democratization. However, the authoritarian Kuomintang’s (KMT) process of shaping the local electoral system, especially in the 1950s, has seldom been the subject of concern.
