Written by Chia-hung Tsai. On 25 September 2021, the Kuomintang (KMT), the main opposition party, voted on the chairperson. As a result, Eric Chu (朱立倫), the former KMT chairman and ex-vice premier, was elected with 85,160, or 45.8 per cent of the votes. This election draws domestic and international media attention because the result will influence the upcoming referendums, local elections, cross-Strait relations, and even US-Taiwan relations.
Written by Nathan Batto. Eric Chu 朱立倫 was elected KMT party chair on Saturday in a surprisingly contentious race. When Chu announced his entry into the race, the former New Taipei mayor, vice premier, presidential candidate, and KMT party chair was the favourite to win. However, most people expected his primary competition to be the incumbent party chair Johnny Chiang 江啟臣 rather than Chang Ya-chung 張亞中, an intellectual from the extreme unification wing of the party.
Written by Lev Nachman. The results are in: Eric Chu, a former KMT presidential candidate, will be the new KMT party chair. This race was not supposed to be dramatic, but it ended up becoming an exciting spectacle that revealed far more characteristics about the current state of the KMT than any observer could have anticipated.
Written by Brian Hioe. Eric Chu was the winner of the KMT chair election that took place on Saturday, September 25th, triumphing over incumbent chair Johnny Chiang and Sun Yat-Sen School director Chang Ya-chung. Chu was the undisputed winner, taking in close to half the vote share. At the same time, Chang Ya-chung took in 32.59% of votes to Chu’s 45.78%, while Chiang trailed far behind with 18.86% of votes.
Written by Brian Hioe. Vaccines have proved a contentious issue in Taiwan from the beginning. As the first vaccines that arrived in Taiwan were AstraZeneca vaccines, the Taiwanese public was initially unwilling to get vaccinated. The public was discouraged from being vaccinated by reports of blood clots and other adverse reactions after using AstraZeneca. As Taiwan had gone for more than a year mostly COVID-free, it is probable that members of the public did not see the need to get vaccinated.
Written by Mark Wenyi Lai. Because of Taiwan’s COVID-19 pandemic control policies, the ruling and opposition parties agree on a national partial lockdown and vaccine distribution. However, they disagree on vaccine purchase and testing policy. This essay argued that there is more consensus than discord and the reason rested on Taiwan’s unique political-economic status. Here are their debates.
Written by Gunter Schubert. Over the last decade, the world has seen a geopolitical shift whereby China has gained power and influence in the international arena, showing an increasing willingness to safeguard “national interests” and fulfil the “historic mission of rejuvenating the Great Chinese Nation”. Within this, unification with Taiwan has long been defined as a major objective, the pursuit of which has become increasingly urgent.
Written by Jacques deLisle. The Economist recently declared Taiwan “the most dangerous place on earth.” Indeed, it seems that although there have been the crises in the 1950s (when China’s military targeted offshore islands controlled by Taiwan), and also the missile crisis of the mid-1990s—when Beijing sought to deter Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui and Taiwanese voters from “pro-independence” moves—Taiwan again has become a focal point of potential conflict between the United States and China. The circumstances and, therefore, the dangers, however, are different than they were a quarter-century ago or during the early days of the Cold War.
Written by Sui Lam Cheung. Taiwan’s international status and sovereignty have always been closely related to US international policies. As a result, the US-Taiwan relation has always attracted widespread attention and discussion. Thus, scholars have begun to pay attention to the American aid culture in economic and cultural fields. For instance, Wang Meihsiang and Chen Chienchung have analysed the US aid literature system from a sociology of literature perspective to explain how Taiwanese intellectuals received direct or indirect economic assistance from the United States. This assistance was used to introduce or develop related cultural production literary works and cultural phenomena. In addition to examining the development of Taiwan’s literary field, US aid culture can also be another perspective to examine non-official views other than the official discourse of the US and Taiwan.
Written by Brian Hioe. After a rail accident on Friday that left fifty dead and injured over 200, there has been much political contention between both the DPP and opposition parties such as the KMT. The railway accident was the deadliest accident in Taiwan in decades and took place after a truck from a construction site on a slope overlooking train tracks slid down a slope and crashed into a train exiting a tunnel near Hualien.
Written by Dongtao Qi. After a 25-year absence from the political arena, political commentator and media guru Chao Shao-kang returned to the Kuomintang (KMT), immediately declaring his intention to run for the KMT chairmanship this July and for Taiwan’s presidency in the 2024 election. This seems to have reinvigorated a deflated KMT since its defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Much speculation among the public has also ensued about whether Chao would be a flash in the pan and do even worse than former presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu who had stirred up a “Han craze” back then.
Written by Gunter Schubert. Taiwan has earned worldwide praise for its success in fighting the coronavirus crisis. It has become a shining example for those pushing the argument that state capacity in anti-epidemic politics is not preconditioned upon an authoritarian mode of government. Rather, the Taiwan case has shown that effective top-down policy steering, strict compliance of the populace with quarantine measures, hygiene measures and social distancing, and legitimate comprehensive tracing of digital data are all possible in a democracy.
Taiwan Insight 