The ”Asia Discovers Asia Meeting for Contemporary Performance” (ADAM) is an international networking initiative by the recently opened Taipei Performing Arts Center (TPAC). Since 2017, ADAM has aligned with the Taipei Arts Festival (TAF) and, compared to other formats across the region, stands out by focusing on collaborative artist residencies and engaging guest curators. It operates under three core principles: facilitating artist dialogues with East and Southeast Asian artists, fostering interaction with curators, and establishing co-governance models with institutional partners. In this article, I analyse ADAM as a platform for informal diplomacy to strengthen Taiwan’s position within the region. By prioritising ”research and development” (R&D), ADAM redefines institutional practices, positioning curators as inventors and networkers within a shifting ”global performance” landscape. Based on annually changing themes and formats, which include an artist residency and a gathering with international delegates, I discuss how this concept emphasizes contemporary performance as a method of artistic research to interlink East- and Southeast Asian regional epistemologies and, in consequence, arts and culture organisations’ networking structures. This approach reframes Taiwan’s position in an intra-Asian context, highlighting the relevance of cultural policy and identity politics. As the analysis demonstrates, the incubation format ADAM reflects a nuanced relationship with Taiwan’s cultural policy, where the institutionalization of artist-led initiatives shapes regionalizing narratives on cultural identity to support informal diplomacy.

Despite the richness of the extant literature on Taiwan’s democratization, few research analyzes the dynamic role that political thought played in the process. In order to fill this gap, this article proposes an “intellectual history of Taiwan’s democratization”. Based on a textual analysis with the dissident press as its primary focus, this intellectual history aims to blend the methods and conceptual tools theorized by the social history of ideas and social movement studies. To illustrate the heuristic potential of this proposal, the text concentrates on a specific episode in the intellectual course of Taiwan’s democratization: the Civil Society Debate (1986-1987). It will be shown that different actors elaborated on the civil society concept in surprisingly different ways in the mid-1980s. The concept was at times associated with the privatization of state-owned enterprises, sometimes with intellectuals’ responsibilities in society, scholarly discussions on Chinese history, observations on contemporary global political developments, or even the renewal of Marxist thought. The complexity of the ideas surrounding the concept can, however, be well explained by a truly historical analysis that privileges non-normative analytical frameworks and pays attention to the contexts of social movement important for the participants of the debate. In the conclusion, the author will further identify several new research paths linked to this historical approach for studying Taiwan’s post-war political transition, with the hope that this proposition can contribute to a renewal of democratization studies—a classic subject in Taiwan studies which has been pursued primarily by political scientists or sociologists, less by historians.

This paper explores the salience of Taiwan in Australian and British foreign policy debates over a twenty-year period, outlining the dominant discourses afforded to Taiwan. Traditionally, Australian and British foreign policy enjoys a bipartisan tradition in regards to security, however, Taiwan as an issue in global politics defined by an all-pervasive ambiguity and complexity challenges Australian and British foreign policy bipartisanship. Through a discourse analysis of parliamentary references, the discourses of centre-left and centre-right parties were identified and compared, outlining a distinct difference in the manner and context in which centre-left and centre-right politicians reference Taiwan. Throughout the corpus centre-right politicians consistently referenced Taiwan more frequently than their centre-left counterparts, with this trajectory becoming particularly pronounced in 2024. This paper argues that when Taiwan is framed as a ‘security issue’, closely tied to US foreign policy, it draws disquieting connotations for centre-left politicians, and is more likely to be referenced in the parliamentary contributions of their centre-right counterparts. This reticence is tied to the genealogy of Australian and British foreign policy, where the centrality of the US stimulates a tentativeness amongst centre-left politicians in Australia and Britain, where Taiwan is perceived as an emergent geopolitical fixation central to US foreign policy and little more. Thus, this paper invites scepticism upon the extent to which a bipartisan Australian and British support for Taiwan, in the event of Chinese escalation, could be anticipated.

This study investigates the war experiences and ideologies of indigenous youths who served as KMT soldiers during the Chinese Civil War from the 1940s to the 1950s. Building on the historical context of their recurring involvement in outside wars since the Japanese era, the research highlights the often-overlooked contributions made by indigenous soldiers. It explores the cultural and traditional beliefs that shaped their military spirit, emphasizing their desire for social status and dignity within Taiwanese society. By examining testimonies from indigenous veterans, particularly focusing on the Atayal community in Wulai, Northern Taiwan, this study reveals the underlying motivations that drove indigenous youths to engage in external combat. A case study of Yang Huohui, an Atayal veteran who participated in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, illustrates detailed wartime experiences. The study also analyzes Atayal youths’ attitudes towards various conflicts, aiming to uncover the deeper meanings of their involvement in warfare. Through this exploration, it contributes to understanding indigenous agency in historical narratives and the ongoing significance of their military contributions in Taiwan history. Additionally, it highlights the persistence of the ‘Japanese spirit’ among indigenous soldiers, even in the absence of Japanese colonial rule, and their continuous struggle for recognition and equality in the broader national context.

How do we make sense of a canonized queer text whose representation of queerness appears not only politically incorrect but ethically problematic? This was the intellectual challenge that Taiwanese critics encountered with the publication of Notes of a Desolate Man in 1994. In this paper, I revisit the historical context within which the novel engaged with literary criticism, proposing a reading that considers the novel as a discursive text proactively intervening in emerging conversations on gender and sexuality studies in early 1990s Taiwan and beyond. Invoking the critical frameworks of “queer translation” and “world literature,” this paper explores how the novel translates and introduces the concept of queer to its Sinophone readership, through both its extravagant allusions to diverse cultural references and its reflective contemplation on mortality and sexuality. Furthermore, I argue that representing male homosexuality from a female heterosexual perspective necessitates processes of translation and transgression that, in turn, queer the text’s heteronormative framework. Finally, I examine the English (mis)translation of the novel and its reception among Anglophone audiences, demonstrating how a translational lens can gesture toward an ethicopolitical act of recuperation that restores voice to gendered and sexual minorities. In so doing, this paper traces the trajectory through which the Taiwanese novel engages in the production and circulation of world literature, thereby contributing to the transmission and transmutation of queerness across the Sinophone-Anglophone Pacific.