In this keynote speech, Julie Yu-Wen Chen will provoke debate on the interlocking of knowledge production about China and Taiwan with realpolitik. Taiwan has its unique path for becoming a site for China-watching. This presentation first provides an overview of Taiwan’s capacity for China-watching. Second, it examines the development of so-called Taiwan studies and explores their connection to China studies, Chinese studies, or Sinology. Third, it discusses the interlocking of Taiwan studies and China studies in Taiwan with the newly minted knowledge realm of the Indo-Pacific in the contemporary era. Taiwan may have no choice but to be part of it in this irreversible trend. But this exercise of bringing Taiwan further into the Indo-Pacific realm is challenging because Taiwan’s international relations and knowledge production are unable to move toward genuine decolonisation. Taiwan may have attempted to decolonise the One China discourse and may have succeeded to some extent, but can it decolonise Japan and the USA? What aspects of decolonisation should be stressed? Can geopolitical interests trump the need for decolonisation? This presentation will provoke debate and stimulate ideas on these issues.

Economic peace theory posits that economic interdependence promotes peace by increasing the opportunity costs of conflict, thereby incentivizing states to avoid war. However, critics argue that such interdependence can, conversely, provoke aggression when potential aggressors perceive long-term control over strategic economic assets as worth the short-term costs of war. In light of these opposing perspectives, we argue that “silicon shield” and “silicon field” exist in Taiwan, given its dominant position in the global advanced semiconductor market. Specifically, we contend that Taiwan’s leadership in the semiconductor industry wields a “silicon shield” to deter Chinese military aggression by leveraging credible U.S. security commitment while such leadership paves a “silicon field” to precipitate Chinese attack on the belief of China outperforming the U.S.. Using data from the third wave of the American Portrait Survey, we find evidence that both the “silicon shield” and “silicon field” views coexist in Taiwan. Furthermore, they are polarized along partisan lines, reflecting divergent perceptions of U.S. and China. These findings highlight the significance of domestic political dynamics in shaping the intersection between international political economy and international security.

This paper presents a first-cut empirical assessment of the scope, scale, and implications of the Trump administration’s 2025 cuts to U.S. foreign aid, with a focus on democracy assistance. While the foreign aid community has reacted with alarm, this paper argues that some of the more apocalyptic conclusions may be premature. Drawing on leaked memos, congressional documents, and cross-referenced datasets, the analysis estimates that although overall aid saw a 38% reduction, democracy aid experienced a disproportionate cut of 94.3%. The paper situates these changes within broader political dynamics, including MAGA hostility toward “woke” democracy projects, and examines the legally dubious executive overreach used to implement them. Beyond the immediate damage, the paper urges caution against conflating crisis with collapse. It stresses that foreign aid has always been volatile and that the real long- term threat to international democracy promotion may lie in neglected contradictions between our theories of democratization, democratic backsliding, and authoritarian resilience. By separating structural weaknesses from contingent shocks, the paper calls for more circumspection in evaluating the future of democracy aid and shifts attention back to unresolved conceptual lacunae.

The geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific have raised questions about the future of the political and economic order in the region. As the U.S.-China conflicts over trade and security intensify in recent years, it is imperative to evaluate the convergence of internal and external drivers in the region. How do domestic governance and regime dynamics interact with trade and investment flows and economic partnerships? And how do they affect alliance formation and security arrangements? The diverse types of political regimes in the Indo-Pacific offer rich insights into the broad spectrum of policy choices and provide empirical data for theoretical discussions of the interactions of ideas, institutions, and interests that shape the political and economic landscapes in the region.

Does the concept of the Indo-Pacific benefit Taiwan? The paper argues that Taiwan as a consolidated democracy has benefitted from the Indo-Pacific concept, as most Western countries aim at strengthening ties with partners in the Indo-Pacific that share their values of democracy, human rights, and respect for international law. The paper will analyze Taiwan’s role and the role of shared interests and values in Indo-Pacific strategies of the EU, and the EU member states with strategies (Czech Republic, Germany, France, Lithuania, Netherlands), as well as in strategies of other stakeholders in the region, such as the US, Japan, South Korea, or Australia.

The analysis of the role of Taiwan, and of interests and values that are shared in Indo-Pacific strategies and policies will be connected to Taiwan’s own strategies and policies for the Indo-Pacific region. Taiwan has not developed its own Indo-Pacific Strategy, but under its “New Southbound Policy”, it has fostered closer economic cooperation, and people-to-people exchanges with the countries of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Another key objective of Taiwan has been to strengthen cooperation with democratic partners worldwide.

The paper will use role theory to examine the national role conceptions that can be found in the Indo-Pacific strategies, the role prescriptions of others, e.g. how other countries are described in Indo-Pacific strategies, and the role performance, which encompasses the decisions, and actions governments take to implement the national role conceptions that can be found in their Indo-Pacific strategies.

Amid intensifying geopolitical tensions among great powers in the Indo-Pacific, Taiwan faces increasing challenges. The New Southbound Policy (NSP) has emerged as a strategic approach for Taiwan to mitigate these vulnerabilities by strengthening partnerships in various regions, including Southeast Asia. Indonesia, as a key partner in this region, has maintained long-standing ties with Taiwan. Beyond economics and trade, many academic works highlight Taiwan’s growing popularity as a destination for Indonesians seeking educational and professional opportunities. Furthermore, Taiwan is recognized as a global hub for technological innovation, especially in the semiconductor sector, while Indonesia actively pursues its own ambitions to develop a semiconductor ecosystem. This study examines how Taiwan’s expertise in science and technology serves as its soft power resource that channeling through NSP, using science diplomacy to expand its influence in Indonesia. Employing a qualitative approach and grounded in the science diplomacy framework, this study reveals that Taiwan’s know-how in semiconductor technology not only enhances its international reputation but also positions it as a valuable contributor to Indonesia’s technological aspirations. Through collaborative efforts that connect academic institutions, scientific communities, and private sectors across both entities, a mutually beneficial relationship can be fostered, providing both Taiwan and Indonesia a pathway to address regional challenges and advance their respective goals on the global stage.

For a long time, the prevailing unequal geopolitical and geoeconomic relationships have shaped an imbalanced global higher education landscape. In recent years, however, various ambitious internationalization strategies launched by Asian countries have highlighted their aspirations to recruit students on a global scale and to enhance their regional status and competitiveness. The burgeoning internationalization of higher education and the increasing transnational student mobility reflect the perception of "mobility" as a crucial resource for young people, linking it to future aspirations or desires and positioning it as a key pathway for achieving personal and professional goals. This study, grounded in the concepts of "aspirations" and "temporalities," focuses on a relatively under-discussed but significant form of intra-Asian mobility: student transnational mobility, including return migration and onward mobility, and its impact on regional development. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with international degree students from New Southbound countries currently studying at higher education institutions in Taiwan. The study explores how students from various New Southbound countries shape their career aspirations related to the future during their time in Taiwan and how they perceive potential mobility trajectories within Asia and globally, as well as their sense of positioning within Asia. By closely analyzing the cross-border experiences of young Asian movers and the specific political-economic systems and socio-cultural structures of different countries, the findings of this study will contribute to academic debates on young movers within the Asia-Pacific region and to broader discussions on regional development.

During the Cold War Poland and Taiwan were on two oppositional sides (Eastern Bloc vs Western Bloc). In the 1950s, under the closure policy, two ships of Chipolbrok (a joint company of communist China and communist Poland), “Praca” and “Gottwald”, were captured by ROC, the ships and goods were confiscated, and Chinese and Polish sailors were kept in Taiwan for a long time. Having this kind of past and relation, it seemed impossible for Poland and Taiwan to cooperate. However, Poland and Taiwan traded with each other in the 1970s and 1980s, with silent consent – even support – from the Soviet Union and the USA. Ports in Taiwan were open for Polish ships, Polish businessmen went to Taiwan, and Taiwanese businessmen also went to Poland, present their goods in Poznan International Fair in 1982 and sold clothes to Pewex. The cooperation was political (it was used against PRC), and was under political influence (when the relations between Eastern Bloc and PRC improved, cooperation between Poland and Taiwan went “under the table”). Yet it shows that international relations are shifting and flexible, even among the “nie swoich” (not one’s ally), there may be a potential partner, as long as there is common interest. This history may give us, who are in the New Cold War, some inspiration. This paper is an extract of my monograph The Keys of the World: Taiwan and Poland between Great Powers, published in April 2024 in Taiwan. It will be its first presentation in English.

My research into Taiwan's democratic resilience began with concerns about Hungary's geopolitical shift under the "Eastern Opening" policy initiated in 2011. This policy, which established deep ties with the People’s Republic of China, posed risks to Hungary's sovereignty and Euro-Atlantic relations. As a Hungarian lawmaker at the time, I became increasingly focused on Taiwan, which has preserved its autonomy despite being a primary target of China. My study aimed to understand the foundations of Taiwan's independence and security: through fieldwork in Taiwan, I observed how the nation, with strong internal resilience and continuous strategic planning, upholds one of the world's most advanced democracies. Meanwhile, in Hungary, we saw that the abolition of democracy was a prerequisite for the country's dependence and the limitation of its sovereignty. By focusing on three key areas — political structure, media freedom, and civil society — the research contrasts Taiwan’s strong democratic institutions with Hungary’s slide into elective autocracy. The working hypothesis suggests that Taiwan’s democratic framework shields it from harmful external influences, offering valuable lessons for countries facing democratic deficits, like Hungary, or nations that are being targeted by malign foreign influence, like Central and Eastern European countries (CEE’s). The research also reaches out to the future of European-Taiwanese relations with a special emphasis on the CEE’s.

This paper examines Czech President Zeman's and Senate President Vystrčil's abilities to establish a political discussion concerning China and Taiwan in Czech media during two pivotal events in Czech-China-Taiwan relations, the Chinese presidential visit to Czechia in 2016 and the Czech senate delegation to Taiwan in 2020. Using a content analysis of their public speeches during a) the year 2016 for President Zeman and b) the year 2020 for Senator Vystrčil's case study, we will first identify key issues concerning China and Taiwan. We will then analyze the content of the most popular Czech media for similar topics. By applying quantitative analyses, an agenda-setting ability for each politician will be established, and their success rate in managing the issue will be further assessed qualitatively.

The past five years have been rich in events that have led to a deepening of relations between the Czech Republic and Taiwan, despite the absence of official diplomatic ties between the two countries. The broad purpose of this ongoing Ph.D. project is to understand the mechanisms and motivations behind Taiwan’s effort to impact local elites and public in the Czech Republic and to analyse the level of success of such activities. The initial desk research suggests that Taiwan has created a portfolio of Czech targets that can be easily reached due to their like-mindedness. It would appear to be the same closed circle of political and economic figures acting on Taiwan’s behalf, and thus efforts in the public domain seem to have had limited reach. Upon further examination, the boundaries between those who attract and those who are being attracted blur. This paper maps the landscape, provides answers about where Taiwan sees soft power and public diplomacy potential, identifies the main actors, and looks for linkages between the agents involved via keywords and n-gram text analysis.

In the early 2020s, cooperation between Taiwan and some Central and Eastern European countries gained recognition both within and outside Taiwan as European frontrunners with frequent interactions with Taiwan. Slovakia is one of the four vanguard countries (as defined by the Central European Institute of Asian Studies) with the warmest relations with Taiwan. While Czechia and Lithuania engage in high-visibility symbolic actions, Slovakia, similarly as Poland, have had a more practicality-based approach. This approach to Taiwan has taken three main forms: Firstly, limiting governmental action to pursuing ‘positive’ agenda with Taiwan without framing the activity in relation to China; secondly, transferring Taiwan-related criticisms of China to the parliamentary level (thereby maintaining a level of deniability); and thirdly, engaging in some symbolic actions vis-à-vis China (e.g. taking on an active role in unveiling the commemorative envelope on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the China-CEE platform). This article explores Slovakia-Taiwan relations, offering insight into the historical context of the burgeoning friendship between the two and outlining the essence of their current relationship. The article will also assess the upsides (lower risk of PRC reaction, steady development of relations in select agendas, lower politicization) and downsides (less visibility of Taiwan, not reflected in public opinion about Taiwan) of Slovakia's approach to Taiwan. Additionally, the article will discuss the future trajectory, anticipating a potential deceleration following recent elections in both countries.

The first wave of migration from Myanmar to Taiwan consisted of KMT officers and their families in the 1950’s, followed by waves in later decades due to anti-Chinese riots and the 8.8.88 Crackdown. In the following decades, education and economic opportunities (linked, but not exclusively related to the tech sector) were another strong factor attracting Burmese Chinese migration to Taiwan. Zhonghe District in what is now New Taipei City became a centre of the community and constitutes one of, if not, the biggest ethnic enclave of Burmese Chinese in the world (Lu 2008)

The community became ever more visible through cultural festivals attended by the Mayor of New Taipei city and in 2018 a magazine and podcast were launched to present Burmese Culture to a mainstream Taiwanese audience. This podcast “Mingalapar Miandian jie” (Hello, Burma Street) originally dealt more with cultural topics and invited guests from other immigrant groups to discuss issues of cultural adaptation but after the military coup of 2021 the content turned more toward political discussions of how the community in Taiwan could support the anti-Junta forces in Myanmar.

The Thesis will analyse a selection of podcast episodes (in Mandarin and English), especially those on the anniversaries of the coup, how the magazine and podcast attempt to mobilise the community and as a next step even started to lobby the Taiwanese government to change its foreign policy toward Myanmar.

In 2024, President Lai Ching-te was inaugurated, marking the ninth year of Democratic Progressive Party governance, while the Legislative Yuan was led by opposition parties. In May, the Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party proposed several "parliamentary reform" bills, sparking public anger and protests outside the Legislative Yuan on Qingdao East Road. Due to social media restrictions on the term "Qingdao青島", activists adopted the name "Bluebird Movement," using "Bluebird," which sounds like “Qingniao青鳥,” as a play on words. Unlike the 2014 Sunflower Movement, the Bluebird Movement focused on regular gatherings and utilized visual symbols and social media for outreach. The proposed bills raised concerns about increased legislative power and potential civil liberties infringements, with unclear language causing significant worry. The movement garnered immense public support, with reports of up to 100,000 participants at its peak and backing from the international community. In October, Taiwan's Constitutional Court deemed parts of these laws unconstitutional, offering a temporary resolution. The Bluebird Movement inspired numerous artistic and cultural works, including AI-generated songs and various poems shared online and in print. These poems primarily appeared in journals emphasizing local consciousness and opposing China, with limited exposure in mainstream media. This study examines how poetic works emerged during the Bluebird Movement and explores the connections between writing, social movements, and legal issues across different social media platforms.

A prolific Z-generation American writer and a second-generation Taiwanese American writer, Tao Lin has dealt with materials such as drugs and cyborgian objects and their impact on the author and these characters since 2006. Based on the criteria of the level of Taiwanese American consciousness revealed, I have divided Tao Lin’s writing into the Germination Phase (2006-2010) and the Emergence Phase (2011-present). The prototype of Failed Taiwanese Americans in Lin’s work, such as Eeeee Eee Eeee (2007), Bed (2007), Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009), Richard Yates (2010), Taipei (2013), Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change (2018), and Leave Society (2021), carries out peculiar biopolitics and achieves an ethnic distinction in Pierre Bourdieu’s term.

This essay proposes to use a newly coined term, Addictionocene, to refer to the extended phenomenon of addiction that permeates Tao Lin’s writing and the age of addiction, which mainly consists of addiction to drugs, cyborgs, and hypochondriasis (especially in Trip and Leave Society). The concepts of new materialism and interobjectivity by Bruno Latour will be utilized to analyze Lin’s work, in which matters act as actants that carry out affect, and their ontology is thus extended. In addition, regarding Bernard Siegler’s concept of Neganthropocene, Tao Lin’s writing on addiction shows the increase of entropy, and, occasionally, the countering strategical negentropy, in which a posthuman character portrayed by Lin is situated in the age of Anthropocene. Thus, the Pharmakon, which carries both curing and poisoning effects of drugs and technology, will be explored in the discussion of Lin’s writing.

Taiwanese children’s literature represents history and the movement experience via the themes of memory and space. For it involves the relation between humans and the natural environment, it is significant for a sustainable development of the future. Looking back at those children’s series of books Taiwan has published with the help of the UNICEF since 1965 and a variety of children’s literature with multiple features published by the Taiwanese government, we know that these publications facilitate the function of multi-faceted cultural education. Responding to the demand of the Indo-Pacific, the manuscript analyzes the themes of children’s literature published by the Taiwanese government, utilizing DocuGIS space information technology to draw maps. For example, “Welcome to My Hometown” narrates the story in the first-person point of view of a small friend, who shares multi-nation culture and customs. “Thailand News” is associated with customs, holidays, religions, education, and mythologies. “Sparkling Blessings” narrates the boy’s memory of how he went to India to attend the Ishara International Puppet Theatre Festival and temporarily replaced the head of a Taiwanese puppet show team to engage in a performance. At the same time, he watched the Indian large-scale puppet show, the Vietnamese water puppet show, and the Thailand wooden rod puppet show. “Borneo Rain Forest Adventure” represents the natural scenery of Borneo, showing the environmental crisis caused by cutting the rainforests. This manuscript explores how the texts understand the relations between selves and the world, and advances the suggestions for the Taiwanese government’s publication of children’s literature.

The success of Lin Yi-Han’s first and only novel, Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise (2017), is inextricably linked to the tragic event of the author’s suicide, which occurred shortly after the book's release. The novel's thirteen-year-old protagonist suffers sexual violence at the hands of a 37-year-old professor, ultimately leading to her mental illness. Following its publication, much of the discourse revolved around the sensitive topic of sexual assault, questioning the autobiographical nature of the narrative.

The theme of violence against women—both physical and psychological—is not new to Taiwanese society and literature. Notable precedents can be found in works such as The Butcher's Wife (1983) by Li Ang and the short story "In Remembrance of My Buddies from the Military Compound" (1992) by Zhu Tianxin.

Over time, the reception of these narratives has shifted. Today’s readers are more likely to empathize with Fang Si-Chi than readers in the late 1980s and early 1990s were with the butcher’s wife or the girls abused in the military compounds. However, empathizing with Fang Si-Chi means acknowledging that we still reside within a cannibalistic patriarchy, where women’s voices are often dismissed as mere delirium.

This analysis, inspired by Silvia Lippi’s call for a re-evaluation of sisterhood and feminist psychoanalysis, seeks to elevate Lin Yi-Han’s novel beyond mere sensationalism, situating and re-examining her work within its broader context. While Lin Yi-Han’s novel portrays a violently patriarchal reality, it also provides a vital space for sociocultural reflection.

This study focuses on the visit of the German ambassador to Japan, Philipp Alfons Mumm (1859-1924), to Japanese-ruled Taiwan in 1910. Philipp Alfons Mumm had previously been the German ambassador to China and had participated in the signing of the Boxer Protocol in 1901. Before the First World War, diplomatic exchanges between Japan and Germany were frequent and intellectual networks, particularly in the medical field, were relatively close. The significance of the exchange of visits between officials of the two sides is very noteworthy, and the month-long visit of the German ambassador to Taiwan is one of the important but neglected historical events.

We have collected relevant official documents, reports, commentaries and diaries of relevant people and tried to present this historical process with digital tools. There are five questions in this research 1) What were the main objectives of the German ambassador's visit to Taiwan? 2) How did the visit fit into the broader context of German-Japanese relations at the time? 3) What were the main interactions and diplomatic exchanges that took place during the visit? 4) How did the visit contribute to the development of bilateral relations? 5) What were the long-term implications of the visit for the region and the world? We will focus on the purpose of the visit, the process, the interviews and their political strategies, and visualise this material using the digital tool Storymap.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of Taiwan's significance in German foreign policy within the Asia-Pacific region, while also examining bilateral relations with Indonesia and the Philippines. The research highlights Germany's perception of Taiwan as a like-minded partner in promoting democracy and human rights, particularly in the face of China's increasingly assertive policies. The study's findings are based on qualitative interviews with key stakeholders, including members of the German Bundestag, policy decision-makers, academics, and military personnel. These interviews provide insights into the complexities of German foreign policy in the region and the factors that influence its decision-making processes.

The research demonstrates that German support for Taiwan is evident in various forms, including Bundestag resolutions, the current government's coalition agreement, and technological cooperation. However, it also highlights differences in positions among political parties, which underscores the complexities of German foreign policy.

The study's comparison of German policy with common EU policy identifies alignments and specific national interests. The findings underscore the importance of these relationships for Germany's influence in the Asia-Pacific region and their alignment with broader EU objectives of promoting stability and cooperation in the region.

Overall, this research provides a valuable contribution to the understanding of German foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region, highlighting the significance of Taiwan and the complexities of bilateral relations with Indonesia and the Philippines. The study's findings have implications for policymakers, academics, and stakeholders interested in the dynamics of German foreign policy in the region.

This paper analyzes how European countries address, or omit, Taiwan in their Indo-Pacific policies, examining national motives, diplomatic approaches, and implications for relations with the PRC. Using Digital Humanities methods such as content analysis, topic modeling, and stylometry, it identifies patterns in Taiwan's contextualization, including references to democratic values, like-minded partnerships, and security concerns in the Taiwan Strait. This approach explores both explicit mentions and subtle references, highlighting shifts toward values-driven diplomacy and security considerations.

To date, several European countries—including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Ireland—have developed official Indo-Pacific strategies, with Sweden expected to publish soon. Italy is consulting experts on a potential strategy. Text analysis tools will examine language associated with Taiwan, including indirect references to the Taiwan Strait and operational concepts. Special focus will be placed on expressions of democratic values and alliances with like-minded partners, using keyword mapping to assess links with Taiwan Strait security concerns.

Additionally, qualitative analysis will provide insight into Taiwan’s roles within national policies, allowing for comparisons with other regional issues, such as South China Sea disputes, the PRC’s assertive influence, and the defense of democratic principles. Using Digital Humanities tools, this study aims to reveal patterns that differentiate European perspectives on Taiwan and uncover broader trends linking Taiwan to national priorities.

Historically, European countries have largely avoided direct engagement with the One China Policy, often leaving these diplomatic considerations to the EU. However, with new Indo-Pacific strategies and intensifying US-PRC competition, these policies take on new significance.

The Pacific Island plays an incessant part amid great powers striving for influence. While insecurity grows globally, international tensions regarding Taiwan increase. Being pressured by Beijing, the global community recurrently expressed concerns about Taiwan’s status quo. Over the past few decades, Taiwan has emerged as a trailblazer in creating an integrated industrial society, showcasing its pioneering role on regional and global fronts in building bridges across the ocean. The relations with like-minded partners, as defined by the New Southbound Policy or within the European Union, have become a cornerstone for safeguarding Taiwan’s democracy. While the diversity of ties to the US is quite prominent, little is known about other outbound relations and its continuous effort to intensify international cooperation regarding regional players in the Indo-Pacific or Europe. Beyond the nationality claim, who are the partners and how are outbound relations shaped? This paper identifies civil and/or economic players involved beyond the policy-making body to intensify Taiwan’s outbound relations through its diversity of cooperation. A comparative approach contrasts partners in collaboration to enhance Taiwan’s outbound ties regarding the New Southbound Policy Partners group and European Union Member states. By doing so, this paper seeks to trace measures taken to strengthen Taiwan’s ties and to estimate similarities and differences in how shape and depth of cooperation.

Many states, with Europe in a leading position, have created Indo-Pacific strategies with goals to preserve stability and the rule-of-law in the Taiwan Strait. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy is unique in its acknowledgment of historical connections between Indigenous peoples, while promising to pursue reconciliation through enhanced relations with Indigenous peoples of Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand. Canada’s inclusion of Indigenous peoples is based, not only on contemporary politics of reconciliation, but on recognition of a historical relationship between Indigenous peoples of Taiwan and Canada dating back to Presbyterian missionary activities beginning in the 1870s. The depth of this relationship is broadly recognized among Indigenous Presbyterians in Taiwan.

A deep dive into Ottawa’s foreign policy archives reveals the archaeology of Canada’s approach to Taiwan, dating back at least to the 1950s Taiwan Strait Crises when Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Lester Pearson sought to craft a foreign policy independent of the UK and USA. In addition to understanding the exigencies of the Cold War, decision makers referred to Taiwan’s complex history and even to the presence of Indigenous peoples who had nothing to do with the Chinese Civil War. In this paper, I explore the evolution of Canada’s policy toward Taiwan that led it to famously only “take note” of China’s claim over Taiwan in 1970 and to now highly value relations with Indigenous peoples. How does Canada’s Taiwan policy reflect a relational historical perspective? How can it contribute to a deeper engagement with Taiwan that includes, and transcends, contemporary security concerns?

This paper explores the beaches of Kinmen to illustrate an alternative aspect of maritime borderlands beyond the often-discussed themes of gyres, infrastructures, and drifting objects associated with border governance. By examining the “unclean things” - waste from the Chinese mainland found on Kinmen’s beaches and the ‘ghosts’ of soldiers who perished on these shores - I aim to bring in the immaterial aspects of spirituality and local techniques of living with “the haunted”; and how this immaterial aspect is integrated into local inhabitants’ response to the unexpected material “invasion” of waste and animal remains on their shores from the mainland.

From China’s African swine fever outbreak, when dead pigs from the mainland regularly washed ashore, to today’s uncountable medical and household waste, Kinmen’s beaches have, for decades, become destinations for mainland waste carried by current and tides. From the border governance perspective, actively securitising these beach debris as threats has been seen as a way for Taiwan to construct a sovereignty distinct from PRC through daily practices of institutional forces. Nevertheless, Kinmen’s local residents often perceive this waste as unintentional encounters that impact their everyday lives, and often become the counterforce of the securitisation.

Viewing waste as both mediums and agents of border negotiation, I examine how Kinmen residents’ grassroots understanding of beach waste intertwine with their interactions with another type of “unclean thing” on the shores — ghosts. This blended perspective fosters Kinmen inhabitants’ grounded approach to the “unclean things” arriving from PRC, promoting inclusivity and diverse oceanic imaginations.

Modernization processes in indigenous communities in Taiwan began with a certain delay as compared to modernization of Taiwanese society as a whole. Communities located in large areas of the “savage territories” were largely left out of the main modernization processes before the Japanese rule in Taiwan ended. Modernization in such communities reached its full swing only in the second half of the 20^th century, when the dominantly Han society in economically developed regions primarily along the western coast had already been enjoying its benefits in most areas of everyday life. Disparities between regions as well as various ethnic communities contributed to migration of indigenous people; migration became a significant feature of modernization of indigenous communities.

The presentation is based on interviews carried out in indigenous communities in lowland districts of Taidong County in the second decade of the 21^st century. It explores the types of migration common in indigenous communities, its motivation as well as role in the development of those communities.

In 2020, thirty-two years after its initial publication, Nieh Hua-ling’s 1970s novel Mulberry and Peach was republished in Taiwan, sparking renewed discussions. Once representative of Cold War political literature, Mulberry and Peach is now frequently situated within the framework of diasporic literature amid a new Cold War era. However, Nieh’s strategies and aesthetics in her Taiwan writing deserve closer attention. This paper closely examines how Mulberry and Peach explicitly references Eileen Chang's The Golden Cangue in its environmental portrayals, analyzing Nieh’s methods of employing environmental construction inherited from the textual landscapes of earlier works in her depictions of Taiwan and cross-strait comparisons. In consciously drawing upon established works of classic Chinese novels for her environmental writing, Nieh achieves a method of synthesis that both inherits and innovates, presenting a promising approach to Taiwan writing.

This study aims to examine the language education and literacy outcomes of Taiwanese under Taiwan's century-long language policy. Over the past century, Taiwan's language landscape has been shaped by two colonial language policies: the "National Language Education" during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945), aimed at creating imperial citizens, and the "Speak Mandarin, Ban Dialects Movement" enforced by the Kuomintang government after taking control of Taiwan (1945–1987). Over time, Mandarin has become the "high language", symbolizing cultural capital and access to economic power. In 2001, under President Chen Shui-bian’s administration, ethnic languages were first incorporated into Taiwan's compulsory education system, with one weekly session of local language classes in primary schools, a policy that has continued for more than 20 years.

Taiwan is a multilingual and multicultural country, with the Minnan people—who consider Taiwanese as their mother tongue—comprising over 73% of the population. However, according to the 2020 Population and Housing Census, only 7.4% of children aged 6–14 still speak Taiwanese. This study conducted a digital literacy test on 1,864 schoolchildren (899 girls and 965 boys) aged 7–15, selected through stratified sampling across northern, central, southern, and eastern Taiwan. Despite the enactment of the Development of National Languages Act in 2019, the results show that Taiwanese literacy significantly lags behind Chinese and English. This paper underscores the necessity of transitional justice in Taiwan's language policy.

This study examines emerging research directions in the early history of Taiwan, focusing particularly on the 17th century and Dutch Formosa. Recent scholarship emphasizes inclusivity across heritage management, the built environment, and maritime studies in human geography, signaling a shift that has also attracted social and economic historians interested in the history of technology. The advancement of aqua-archaeology to digitally recover submerged vessels exemplifies this enriched understanding of the past. Another significant research trajectory explores cultural and linguistic shifts through the integration of textual research and digital humanities (DH) tools, leveraging big data to investigate intercultural encounters among diverse ethnic groups that inhabited, settled, or visited Taiwan over centuries. The enduring relevance of Dutch colonial memory within contemporary academic studies enhances our comprehension of early modern societies and aligns with broader global research trends. This presentation will demonstrate the use of primary sources, augmented by extensive online data, to interrogate data sources that inform large language models (LLMs) and assess their implications for updating processes, revealing both challenges and opportunities. Examples will include AI applications and intersectional approaches in analyzing Dutch colonial policies, generating new research questions and nuanced interpretations. This analysis reframes documents as “points of entry” for historical study, considering broader contexts to clarify historical motives and situate events within a global framework. Finally, this approach enables a systematic organization of findings—analogous to thesaurus entries—enhancing the researchability of transcribed texts and facilitating a reexamination of data in light of contemporary relationships.

This article investigates the role of translation for indigenous peoples and their cultures in and for Taiwan’s museums in a critical historical and political juncture. As Taiwan is re-discovering and re-narrating many forms and aspects of its memory, indigenous peoples and their cultures have featured increasingly prominently in this process.

While many studies have discussed museum exhibits of indigenous peoples, languages used for illustration such as plaques and labels remain an area rarely touched upon. The article reverses the perception of translation, implicit (often within illustration in Chinese) and explicit (into other languages, mainly English), as transparent, functional, optional, or for a small number of foreign tourists.

The article mainly uses two museums in Taipei as case studies: Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aubergines and Wulai Atayal Museum, with references to other museums such as Ketagalan Culture Centre and Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology. The study takes an overall qualitative approach as it is concerned with the in-depth description and analysis of text and text-related issues.

The article demonstrates that translation in museum should be considered for its performative capacity in creating and staging narratives. Albeit sometimes unintended, it can indicate relations between political, historical and cultural representations within the museum and beyond. These secondary narratives, currently unaware to the stakeholders, could have a fundamental role in a museum as an institution “for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing” (ICOM, 2022). The findings will also be of referential value to museums for commissioning and managing translation.

As Taiwan strengthens its position as a vital technological and cultural bridge in the Indo-Pacific region, the role of language professionals becomes increasingly crucial in facilitating cross-cultural communication and regional integration. This study examines the technological transformation of Taiwan's translation and interpretation services through a comprehensive survey of 115 Taiwanese translators and interpreters, focusing on their adoption of, attitudes toward, and productivity changes resulting from Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. The research is particularly significant given Taiwan's strategic position as a like-minded partner for democratic nations in the Indo-Pacific region and its role as an innovation hub. The survey findings reveal the extent to which AI tools are reshaping language services in Taiwan, contributing to the country's capacity for multilateral cooperation and cultural exchange across the Indo-Pacific. This technological adaptation among language professionals not only reflects Taiwan's broader commitment to digital innovation but also strengthens its position as a key facilitator of regional dialogue and cooperation. The study provides valuable insights into how AI-enhanced language services support Taiwan's engagement with partners across the Indo-Pacific region, particularly in the context of increasing economic integration, cultural exchange, and multilateral cooperation.

Warriors of the Rainbow* is a 2011 Taiwanese film portraying the history of the Seediq people, an Indigenous group in Taiwan who resisted Japanese colonial rule during the 1930s. The Japanese government identified six tribes as the primary aggressors, who were subsequently subjected to massacres and forced relocation. Modeled after Hollywood action films, *Warriors of the Rainbow* earned approximately 800 million New Taiwan Dollars, becoming the highest-grossing Taiwanese film in history.

This study involves interviews with Seediq individuals who are familiar with their culture and history. The findings reveal striking differences between the film’s portrayal of Seediq culture and how the Seediq themselves perceive it. Despite raising concerns during the production process, many tribal members found that their voices were ultimately ignored by the director, who chose not to alter the original plan.

This research seeks to examine settler representations of Indigeneity in Taiwanese cinema. It asks: What leads to these cultural discrepancies? What impact do these representations have on Taiwanese audiences, Indigenous communities, and especially on Seediq youth?

While Taiwan (ROC) is largely excluded from the United Nations and international organizations, Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute offers a path for Taiwan (ROC) to submit to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by unilateral declaration. This paper argues that Taiwan (ROC), as a recognized autonomous jurisdiction that has entered into legal cooperation with a number of European states, has the capacity to delegate its criminal jurisdiction to the ICC through an Article 12(3) declaration, even as a contested entity. Although political consequences present a significant barrier, a unilateral declaration would strengthen support for Taiwan among states and constituencies strongly supportive of the ICC, of which China is not a member. Through cooperation with the ICC and deviating from US foreign policy, Taiwan could benefit from an improved public image as a true supporter of international law that deserves recognition from states and international organizations. The acceptance of ad hoc international criminal jurisdiction over its territory could also serve as a legal response or minor deterrent against blockade or grayzone tactics. In the context of criminal law and rules of engagement (ROE), this paper examines the two principal roles ROE can play in the criminal law context: as an accusatory device and as an exculpatory device. This paper contains a combined legal and political analysis of the pros and cons of Taiwan’s ad hoc Declaration to the ICC, the procedures of how it could be done, and the practical considerations of membership for Taiwan.

Chinese medicine (CM), one of the world's oldest medical systems with origins dating back more than 2,000 years, is today widespread throughout the world. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Chinese medicine is now practised by more than 300,000 practitioners in about 100,000 Chinese medicine clinics in over 100 countries worldwide. Chinese medicine also represents excellence in Taiwan. Indeed, Taiwan invests considerably in research and sustainable development of Chinese medicine to keep up with international trends. But what can Chinese medicine tell us about Taiwan and its international role? I will try to answer this question based on a 10-month ethnography in Taiwan. My research analysed the transmission of Taiwanese Chinese medicine in a clinic in Taipei and at the China Medical University in Taichung. Methodologically, I carried out a participant-observation: I conducted semi-structured interviews with doctors and practitioners, I made observations of medical practices both in clinics and in hospitals, and I followed the path of a foreign student of Chinese medicine. My study highlighted the characteristics of the different training paths to become a practitioner of Chinese medicine and the facets that characterise Taiwanese Chinese medicine. Through the results of my research, I will attempt to reflect on the value Taiwanese Chinese medicine might have in its international recognition.

Although the phrase “rule of law” was enshrined in the Chinese Constitution in 1999, it gained significant prominence during Xi Jinping’s administration. In 2021, the CCP Central Committee issued a Five-Year Plan outlining a vision for a Chinese-style rule of law with global impact. This process involves systematizing and professionalizing legal and governance practices. However, the Chinese concept of the “socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics” diverges from the Western understanding. Key elements, such as the separation of powers and the supremacy of law, are absent. Moreover, the CCP’s role as the ultimate authority is central to this model.

Based on a close reading of both academic and non-academic documents, this presentation will explore the implications of China’s rule of law build-up for cross-Strait relations. This includes increased pressure on Taiwan, the potential misuse of legal tools for coercion, and the further erosion of international support for Taiwan.

Malacca Strait waterway is geographically the shortest path for container and cargo vessels journeying between Europe, the Middle East and Africa on one side and East Asia on the other. The volume of trade that transits through this strait is staggering: US$3.5 trillion of global trade navigates through its waters annually. Most of the maritime trade through the South China Sea passes through the Straits of Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok. When we see it through the number of Ships travelling through the Malacca strait using its more than 40 ports, the number is mind-boggling. We know, 90% of trade goods travel by sea. Considering the Chinese belligerence, the role of Taiwan in securing the trade route through the Malacca Strait is immense. Taiwan’s role is crucial to secure the sea route through Malacca. India has the advantage of getting supply from a vast ocean route. Not other Asian giants like China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and also other Southeast Asian countries. A potential disruption in the Strait of Malacca would not only impact Asia but would ripple across global supply chains, reflecting the domino effect characteristic of interconnected trade networks. China’s most significant challenge in the Indian Ocean is the “Malacca dilemma.” The Malacca Strait is a crucial maritime chokepoint. Taiwan in collaboration with the United States or Indian navies can potentially effect a naval blockade. This may lead to presenting Beijing with a serious wartime economic security threat. Taiwan can offer a unique position in such a scenario.

This paper examines how ordinary people’s everyday war preparedness practices in the de facto state of Taiwan contribute to (re)production of state sovereignty in liminality. Unlike scholarship that primarily focused on elites and high politics, I attend to the experiences of individuals involved in defense education workshops at three NGOs in Taipei. I start from the research question: “How is sovereignty reproduced in the everyday, specifically in the lives of ordinary actors?” I will conduct six-months of fieldwork in Taiwan from August, 2024. Incorporating practice and feminist theory, I enhance Nyman’s everyday framework, zooming in on three dimensions: (a) mundane spaces outside of formal politics; (b) routine and repetitive practices; and (c) affects that assume embodied features (Nyman, 2021, p.318-320). I will employ three data generation methods: collecting texts for discourse analysis, engaging in observations, and conducting fifteen participant-driven photo elicitation interviews. This paper investigates overlapping and competing claims alongside two of my other research cases currently in development: young local entrepreneurs' branding of place for tourism in Kinmen and the lived experiences within negotiations of cross-strait same-sex marriages. The common thread connecting the three sites is the exploration of sovereignty from spaces of marginality, underscoring the potential for disrupting the processes of sovereign boundary maintenance enmeshed in broader power relations.

While in Taiwan the government is now encouraging the development of civil defense organizations to improve national resistance and resilience in the event of a war scenario with China, the World Values Survey indicates that the Japanese exhibit the lowest willingness to fight in the face of military aggression against their country. Although over 40% of respondents express indecision (suggesting they could potentially respond with patriotism), and despite strong positive feelings toward Taiwan, it is unlikely that Japanese public opinion would support a robust military response to assist Taiwan if China were to attack. This reluctance would likely persist unless an event directly involving Japan, such as a related aggression or a severe incident in Okinawa, were to occur. However, in addition to introducing the Indo-Pacific as a new grand strategy for Japan and its allies, former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō made a notable statement—just months before his assassination—declaring that a contingency regarding Taiwan would also constitute a contingency for Japan. This statement initiated significant ideological shifts among Japanese intellectuals and political elites, including those on the center-left, which could potentially alter the strong pacifism that has characterized Japanese society since the end of World War II. Based on surveys and interviews conducted in Taiwan and Japan, this paper analyzes this significant social change in progress and its implications for both Japan and Taiwan.

Given Taiwan’s strategic position in the Pacific’s ‘first island chain’ ─ a crucial concept in the Chinese discourse on its maritime security and its fear of encirclement, as well as for the US in terms of its military power projection in the area─ it has long been at the heart of the Sino-US rivalry over equitable trade and industrial policies, and norms for global governance. The world is increasingly carved out into opposing blocs, intent on expanding their alliances with like-minded countries and sounding the siren songs for non-allied nations. Over the past few years, cross-strait relations have been changing rapidly with each side blaming the other for changing the status-quo.

Following the US House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022, China stepped up its military manoeuvres, for the first time encircling the island. Taiwan was labelled as the ‘most dangerous place on the planet’ in The Economist and much of the world press followed suit in publishing dire prospects. How did the neighbours in the Indo-Pacific, like Japan, frame the events? This study examines how a selection of the Japanese English-language press, such as the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Asahi Shimbun, depicted the military escalation in August/September 2022, following Pelosi’s visit. It interrogates how the newspapers, catering to a foreign audience, framed the events and the main actors. A content analysis, mapping thematic prominence, is combined with a qualitative framing analysis, demonstrating how media discourse can powerfully contribute to shaping popular opinion at home and abroad.

In March 2021, the Chinese Communist Party banned the importation of Taiwanese pineapples in mainland China, citing the presence of pests in these fruits. As a result of the ban, the Taiwanese government, as well as Taiwanese citizens, promoted the “freedom pineapples” campaign, a political action to encourage locals and foreign countries to increase their consumption of this Taiwanese delicacy. This event did not go unnoticed in Japan. Soon on April 28th, the late Prime Minister Abe Shinzō shared a post on his Twitter account containing a picture of himself handling a Taiwanese pineapple and surrounded by four more and the caption “Today’s dessert is pineapple. It looks very delicious.” Later that same day, the late President Tsai Ing-wen, with a post in Japanese, replied: “Please, enjoy Taiwan’s pineapples. If five are not enough, let me know and I will send more.”

This story probably exemplifies how the Japan-Taiwan relationship went through a redefinition phase over the past decade, resulting in stronger ties and a strategic alignment in the Indo-Pacific despite the unofficial nature of their diplomatic bond. The paper traces the evolution of Japan-Taiwan relations from the early 2010s to the present time and highlights the factors fostering such a convergence of interests, both in terms of international and domestic politics. Furthermore, the analysis shows the limits and shortcomings still at play in this relationship.

With its democratic transformation, Taiwan has confronted many aspects of its authoritarian past through a range of media: scholarly research, transitional justice, popular culture, education, literature, film, social activism, etc. One medium that is aimed at the general public of all ages and educational background is museums. Under Martial Law, the major museum was the Palace Museum that served the regime’s purpose of identifying Taiwan, which had experienced 50 years as a Japanese colony, as an integral member of Chinese civilization. There are now several museums that address Taiwan’s own history, including different aspects of life under Martial Law, 1949-1987. These include The 2-28 Memorial Museum, the National Museum of Taiwan History, the Jing-mei White Terror Memorial Park, and the Green Island White Terror Memorial Park. One might also include the Two Chiangs Culture Park, which evokes the ubiquity of statues of the two Chiangs throughout the island. This paper grows out of the 2011 EATS Annual Meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, when I visited museums that presented that country’s history and experience with dictatorships of the right and left in a direct and honest way. I subsequently made a point of visiting comparable museums throughout Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to understand ways in which different newly democratic countries addressed the tragic elements of their past. This paper offers a tour of such museums in Taiwan and CEE to explore how negative memories are constructed and presented to contemporary viewers.

Tsai Ming-liang's queer Teddy-award winning film Days (2020) features his male muse Lee Kang-sheng’s intimate encounter with Non (Anong Houngheuangsy), a Laotian migrant male sex worker masseur in Bangkok. Days depicts a liminal, queer, cross-class, inter-Asian, intergenerational and commercial sexual relationship between Lee and Anong. When the film finally screened in Taiwan in 2023, it was accompanied by a solo exhibition at the Museum of National Taipei University of Education (MoNTUE): Tsai Ming-liang's Days. Taking up all three floors of the small on-campus with Tsai’s paintings, works on paper, old chairs and luggage, music boxes, and video installations, plus several public programs, Tsai Ming-liang’s Days can be considered a careful staging of queer public and private intimacy, domesticity, and care. The public programming included a cooking demonstration “Tsai and Anong’s Delectable Relationship” where they made Malaysian and Lao food for the public—Anong made the green papaya salad he is shown preparing in Days, which Tsai had found so beautiful and felt compelled to record on video, and ended by singing a Lao song—plus another music listening session where Tsai played his favorite old Mandarin songs from classic films that he is known for incorporating into his own films. In this presentation, I follow Song Hwee Lim's call for a geopolitical approach to transnational cinema and connections between Taiwan, Malaysia, Laos, and Thailand, plus Helen Hok-Sze Leung's call for "queer regionalism," in analyzing Tsai's alignment with Anong as both "Nanyang ren" (people of the South Seas/Southeast Asia) now living in Taiwan.

Taiwanese ballads are a genre of popular literature sung in Taiwanese Southern Min and written in Sinitic characters. It mainly served the functions of folk entertainment and education. Being widespread popular literature that was easy to understand by ordinary people, Taiwanese ballads play an essential role in information delivery to the masses, simultaneously shaping their collective memory. They provide valuable information about the narrative of WW II circulating in the general public, which may not be displayed in the official narratives of the Japanese and the Nationalist government, their historical records, and their supported literature.

During the early post-war period of the 1950s, Taiwanese literature was predominantly nostalgic (huaixiang 懷鄉) and anti-communist (fangong 反共). While the topic of WWII was addressed, the plight of Taiwanese soldiers under Japanese command was not a focal point. In contrast, the Taiwanese ballad 'New Song about the Lost War in the Shōwa era' from June 1959, stands out for its portrayal of the traumatic memories of Taiwanese Imperial Japan Servicemen in Southeast Asia, offering a unique perspective on the war.

This paper aims to present how traumatic memories of the war are retold and how collective memory and identity are shaped. It will analyze the narratives told using digital tools for text mining and discuss them by applying collective memory theories. In addition, it will also compare the different war images and narratives presented in this ballad and other WWII-related ballads right after the war.

In 2019, Taiwan’s Guoguang Opera Company collaborated with Singapore’s Siong Leng Musical Association to create Phaedra, an experimental opera combining elements of Peking opera, Nanguan music, and contemporary dance. Drawing inspiration from Greek mythology and the classic play Phaedra by 17th-century French playwright Jean Racine, this production contrasting the vocal styles of Peking opera and Nanguan to explore the internal conflicts and outward expressions of female characters confronting personal desires and political power.

The performance breaks traditional norms, such as having a single actor for each role; instead, Peking opera and Nanguan performers share the portrayal of the queen, while the Peking opera actor also takes on the role of a lady-in-waiting. Only female characters are given voice in this production, and the overlapping and divided roles create a multi-layered, paradoxical expression of female psychological states.

This experimental drama also reflects Taiwan and Singapore’s collaborative exploration of new contemporary forms for traditional arts. Notably, it adapts a classical Western subject for reinterpretation. In Asian arts, Western texts are often used as tools for innovation, with “Western elements” viewed as markers of modernization. Interestingly, this production draws from some of the West’s most ancient themes.

This paper examines not only the collaborative artistic forms and thematic content in this Asian cross-border production but also observes the paradox within the creative consciousness of Asian countries. While borrowing Western cultural references, these artists seek to transcend such frameworks and reveal their distinct cultural identities.

As the Chinese government continues to recognize the power of popular music (Brady 2006; Montgomery 2009), its censorship practices significantly impact Taiwan’s music industry. Taiwanese musicians face challenges like official bans, public backlash, and financial losses. Chinese authorities, along with labels, promoters, and agencies, regulate content these measures. In this environment, corporate and self-censorship also emerge as responses to perceived risks and fears (Mullin 2023; Richburg 2023; The Economic Times 2021; Lin, Chen & Chen 2019; Guy 2017; De Kloet 2010). Such responses including revising the lyrics while obtaining the approval to release music in China, and avoiding posting any political statements online.

While authoritarian states increasingly expand their control over democracies by co-opting institutions worldwide (Repucci and Slipowitz 2022), China’s transnational influence reaches beyond Taiwan, affecting other creative industries as well, evidenced by the 2017 Korean restriction order (Muhammad and Valeriano 2024). Using new censorship theory (Bunn 2015) and James Clifford’s “routes” (1997) as a framework, this paper explores how Taiwanese musicians navigate censorship through three “routes”: silencing, immobilizing, and proclaiming. Rather than seeing censorship as solely a top-down government tactic, this research shows how multiple stakeholders influence public dialogue on culture and commerce.

Based on 30 in-depth interviews with musicians and industry professionals, this paper argues that the experiences of Taiwanese musicians highlight the pervasive nature of a kind of censorship that requires more scholarly attention, which transcends borders and intertwines with commercial interests and nationalist narratives. It shapes public discourse and reinforces nationalist ideologies through these routes.

Fei Xiang (费翔), a Taiwanese American entertainer active since the 1980s, has achieved remarkable success in music, TV, film, and Broadway, across multiple national boundaries, including the PRC, Taiwan, the UK, and the U.S. This paper examines how Fei Xiang contributes to the production of popular geopolitical narratives that link the PRC, Taiwan, and the U.S.

Focusing on Fei Xiang's 1987 performance of the song “Cloud of Hometown” on China’s most-watched TV program, CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala, I will first provide biographical background on Fei Xiang, highlighting how his family history connects PRC, Taiwan, and the U.S. I will then analyze the song itself, originally performed by Chinese Malaysian singer Wen Zhang, which conveys themes of longing for one’s homeland and draws from Wen’s personal experience of studying and living abroad. When Fei Xiang performed this song on CCTV’s stage, he genuinely expressed a desire to meet his maternal grandmother and family members in China for the first time. However, CCTV framed the performance in a way that produced popular geopolitical narratives, implicitly asserting sovereignty over Taiwan and appropriating Fei’s family reunion to legitimize potential geopolitical claims concerning Taiwan.

This paper concludes by reflecting on how Fei Xiang’s family history reveals the complex relationships between China, Taiwan, and the U.S., while also illustrating how personal stories can be easily—and dangerously—appropriated for geopolitical purposes.

How did Taiwanese-language films (taiyupian) imagine foreign travel? The height of the taiyupian era was the 1960s, when Taiwan’s economic boom was taking off, filling citizens with aspirations to international travel that they could not yet afford. It was also the Cold War era. Most scholarship on taiyupian focuses on it as a domestic issue within the context of the islander-mainlander (benshengren-waishengren) binary opposition. Yet, as I have argued in Lee and Espena’s Remapping the Cold War in Asian Cinema (2024), it can also be analysed through the lens of the Cold War as a culture of “compliance without commitment.” How then did fantasies of foreign travel manifest themselves in taiyupian? This paper takes Tarzan and the Treasure (Taishan Baozang, 1965) and True and False 007 (Wangge Liuge 007, 1966) as case studies. In keeping with the general circumstances of aspiration with limited means, both films were shot on location – not in Malaysia and Hong Kong, where the action supposedly takes place, but instead in the hills outside Taipei. I will argue that both films also manifest a cosmopolitan culture in their appropriations from Cold War capitalist popular culture. At the same time, their narratives tell cautionary tales that acknowledge the aspirational culture of the time despite being caught between larger forces beyond their control and therefore emphasize the important of family as the only reliable foundation for benshengren.

Hung Hung 鴻鴻 (1964 – ) ranks among the most unique and intriguing contemporary Taiwanese poets known for his artistic multitalent as a poet, filmmaker, theatre director and scriptwriter. His multi-artistry has been projected into his poetry. Cinematic techniques present in his poetry are specific in juxtaposing camera shoots by the lyrical speaker and sequencing of stanzas in many of his poems. Additionaly, Hung’s poetry also showcases art synesthesia of audio-visual objects and phenomena, as well as narrative aspects. As Ying Kong pointed out in her insightful study on “Cinematic Techniques in Modernist Poetry”, modernist poetry should not be appreciated only for its sound and rhythm, but also for its similarities with movies. She further elaborated on this mentioning that modernist poetry conveys meaning in apparently comparable way as movies do in its fragmentation, juxtaposition, sequence of cross-cutting, editing etc. There can be traced the same principles as in motion pictures in many of Hung‘s poems, providing a captivating intersection and communication of cinema and poetry in his poetic texts. The aim of this paper is to look into these principles and the way they interact in a selection of Hung’s poems.

"Special panel, as discussed with KK"

Self-determination is one of the defining concepts of the 20^th century, and at the same time one of the most sensitive and contentious (Cassese 1995; Sterio 2013). From a historical perspective, the concept originated at the beginning of the 20th century, the main inspiration coming first from the US president Woodrow Wilson, who made the principle of “government by consent” into the foundational value of his view for the post-war order, and influenced a generation of activists and intellectuals around the world (Manela 2007). The present paper intends to navigate the “Wilsonian moment” in Taiwan by looking at how “self-determination” was articulated by Lin Hsien-t’ang 林獻堂 (1881-1956), one of the most influential Taiwanese intellectuals of his time.

Mainly focusing on his epistolary exchange with Liang Qichao (Xu 2007) and on his travel diaries from the US and Europe (Lin 2019), I will try to analyze Lin’s conceptualization of “zijue 自決”, with the aim of tracing its historical genealogy, mapping its philosophical references, detecting its global influences, and shedding light on its relation with other key concepts such as nationalism, ethnicity, democracy . This, I hope, will allow to position Lin’s elaborations in the wider picture of the early-20^th-century global circulation of concepts, and connect his intellectual and political engagement against the backdrop of Taiwan’s cultural enlightenment and “dream of self-government” (Chen 2020) under Japanese colonialism.

This paper explores the role, activities, and extent of Kuomintang support for the overseas branches of the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement (CCRM) during the late 1960s and 1970s. Established to counter Mainland China's Cultural Revolution, the CCRM sought to preserve traditional Chinese culture and present the ROC as its true defender. While previous research has focused on Taiwan's domestic cultural policies, this study highlights the overlooked overseas branches.

By 1969, the CCRM had created 46 branches, particularly in the U.S., to unite overseas Chinese, promote traditional culture, and oppose communism. These branches worked with ROC embassies, consulates, and local leaders. After diplomatic challenges in the 1970s, the movement became more proactive through initiatives like the Overseas Chinese Cultural Activity Centers, aiming to expand its influence abroad.

This paper also considers pivotal international events that shaped the overseas Chinese community, including the U.S.’s recognition of Japan’s claim over the Tiaoyutai (Senkaku) Islands in 1969, which led to the Baodiao Movement, and the rise of Taiwanese independence activists and pro-PRC organizations, exemplified by the 1974 Confucius statue controversy in California. These events provide a nuanced view of the overseas Chinese community’s evolving identities and political engagement.

By analyzing these branches, this study sheds light on their role in shaping the Chinese diaspora, Taiwan’s cultural diplomacy, and transnational identity during the Cold War. It offers fresh insights into cultural preservation and diplomatic strategy in this critical period of modern history.

The Qing Empire, after annexing Taiwan in 1683, prioritized control over rice and other food crops for strategic reasons. Such an emphasis shaped a land taxation system based on rice paddies, generating the Qing treasury’s primary revenue from the island. This fiscal focus on lowland agriculture, consequently, limited the Qing understanding and grasp of mountain resources. However, the state-environment relation shifted in the late nineteenth century when Taiwan became a treaty port, opening to European trade. European merchants and consuls, driven by imperial economic ambitions, mapped Taiwan using Western cartographic practices. These maps, with unprecedented details, revealed mountain resources, transportation routes into the forests, and natural landscapes. While these maps explicitly demonstrated an imperialist desire for resource control, they also made Taiwan’s natural resources visible to the Qing. This visualization spurred the Qing Empire to assert stronger geographical dominance over the mountains and the island. This research hence explores how European cartographers depicted Taiwan’s uncharted mountains and how this mapping prompted the Qing to reconceptualize Taiwan’s environmental value. Ultimately, this study reveals how converging imperial interests in natural resources propelled the late nineteenth century Taiwan toward a new developmental stage.

This paper examines Taiwan’s exploratory contact with India during a period of wavering in India’s policy toward the PRC, from 1961 to 1966, around the time of India’s long-term Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s death. The objectives of Taiwan’s pursuit of improving relations with India were, firstly, to contain the PRC in Chiang Kai-shek’s planned counterattack on the mainland, allowing infiltrations by the ROC’s forces behind enemy lines along the Indian-Chinese border. Secondly, the new relationship would strengthen the ROC’s diplomatic situation and ensure its regime legitimacy by attracting non-aligned countries to join the anti-communist camp. Taiwan-India rapprochement encountered obstructions from the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party from the very beginning, and the United States was unwilling to intervene. In order to compete with the PRC, Taiwan highlighted its shared interest with India in military intelligence cooperation. However, the basic positions of the two countries were vastly different, and their mutual interests limited, making it difficult for their relationship to develop. The process of rapprochement was therefore tortuous and not fruitful. Drawing on declassified government documents in Chinese and English, this paper aims to probe the complex factors and structural issues involved in this diplomatic endeavor at a critical moment in major power relations and strategic reorganization in South Asia. Its findings shed new light on the history of Taiwan-India relations and on Cold War in Asia.

This article examines the development and significance of Chinese clan associations between Taiwan and the Philippines following World War II, focusing on the Cold War context. It analyzes how these associations, often formed with support from the Republic of China (ROC) government, facilitated cross-border exchanges between Taiwanese and Filipino Chinese communities. Using historical records and temple plaques, the article investigates whether these associations predated the war, originated from clan members themselves, or emerged as part of the ROC's diplomatic strategies to maintain influence in Southeast Asia during the Cold War. The article analyzes how clan associations shaped a transnational discourse of ancestral lineage and community solidarity, highlighting how they fostered ties between Taiwanese and Filipino Chinese groups. This interaction impacted not only social structures but also religious practices and local economies. By establishing a framework of "worldwide clan associations," these groups cultivated a shared identity that transcended national borders, embedding the notion of a Chinese homeland (原鄉) within local identity politics. The article also addresses the broader geopolitical tensions among the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, and Taiwan's evolving identity. It considers how these clan associations navigated the competing nationalisms and identity politics of the era and contributed to the identity formation of the Chinese diaspora in the Philippines.

The Russo-Japanese War was the first international war that Taiwan experienced after becoming a Japanese colony. However, the impact of this war on the colony has received relatively little attention. In particular, from a microeconomic perspective, how did Japan's wartime special taxation policies, the requisitioning of commercial ships for military use, and the overall economic climate affect individual traders and firms? How did these merchants respond and make decisions under such circumstances?

This study examines the impact of the Russo-Japanese War on rice exports by using the commercial correspondence of the Chen Yuanshun Firm from 1904 to 1906 in Dadaocheng, Taipei, as primary historical sources. It analyzes the firm's responses to wartime taxation, shipping disruptions, and insurance mechanisms. Chen Yuanshun, which in 1899 became one of the first firms to engage in direct trade with Japan through Nagasaki Chinese merchants Chen Rui-chun and his son, faced various temporary policies and challenges brought about by the war. By analyzing its adaptations, this article sheds light on the broader historical significance of such responses.

This article finds that the Chen Yuanshun Firm actively capitalized on the surge in export trade between Taiwan and Japan, facilitated by the policies of the Japanese Empire and the colonial government. During the Russo-Japanese War, rising demand for rice led to price increases, while additional taxes and tariff protections further incentivized rice exports from Taiwan to Japan. As a result, the firm's business flourished amid the wartime economic conditions. Chen Yuanshun Firm seized this business opportunity and quickly rose to become a major rice merchant in Taipei. However, to transport large quantities of rice to Japan, the firm had to navigate the challenges posed by wartime chaos in shipping and issues related to insurance.

For decades, British merchant John Dodd in the late 19th century has been regarded as the pioneer of Formosa tea trade in the global market. However, with the significant expansion of worldwide tea trade after 1700, Formosa tea gradually joined the increasing ‘mixed tea’ market at some point of time before 1860 since its first exportation in 1689. Therefore, Dodd was actually not the first to export Formosa tea. Nevertheless, Dodd was indeed the first man to establish Formosa tea industry, including the introduction of the tea-purchasing system, the founding of the local tea manufactory, and the recruiting of skillful tea laborers.

However, many details concerning the above historical facts haven’t been explored deeper yet, including the financial supporters behind Dodd, the classification of Formosa tea goods, and the changing of the Formosa ‘mixed tea’ system. These details provide different viewpoints upon the emergence of the Formosa tea industry which deserve further research, especially the critical role of Dodd’s financial founders and the importance of the mixed tea system within the Formosa tea industry.

With the development of global commercial networks in the 19th century, the trade of traditional Chinese medicinal materials flourished across East Asia. Situated at the crossroads of Northeast and Southeast Asia, Taiwan gradually emerged as a key transit hub for this trade, with Taiwanese Han medicine merchants playing a crucial role in its expansion. However, this transformation was largely shaped by Taiwan’s colonization by Japan in 1895. In pursuit of maximizing profits in the Chinese medicinal trade, Han medicine merchants implemented a series of strategic business adjustments.

Initially, during the early years of Japanese rule, the government sought to restrict Taiwan’s trade ties with Qing China by imposing tariff regulations. However, it overlooked the fact that many medicinal materials originated from Qing China. To mitigate the impact of tariff reforms, Han medicine merchants adopted strategies such as stockpiling supplies in advance and importing lower-grade medicinal materials, ensuring business stability.

The outbreak of World War I further altered market dynamics, as shortages of Western medicine led to a surge in demand for traditional Chinese medicinal materials. This situation prompted Han medicine merchants to adjust their import strategies according to Taiwan’s market conditions. Moreover, cases of tax evasion—such as concealing medicinal materials or underreporting their value—began to emerge, demonstrating how international events influenced their business tactics.

Between the mid-1910s and the 1920s, Han medicine merchants discovered that by first clearing customs in Japan before re-exporting goods to Taiwan, they could legally reduce tariffs. This practice gave rise to a triangular trade system connecting China, Japan, and Taiwan, with Taiwan even serving as a springboard for exporting medicinal materials to Southeast Asia. However, as the Japanese government became increasingly aware of these legal tax avoidance strategies, customs regulations on medicinal materials were tightened. By 1934, business correspondence between Qianyuan Pharmaceutical Company and Nagasaki’s Taiyi Trading Firm reflected the decline of the triangular trade model.

Ultimately, this study highlights how Taiwanese Han medicine merchants, under Japanese colonial rule, leveraged their flexible business strategies to effectively minimize the impact of tariff regulations. Through the establishment of a triangular trade network, they were able to legally circumvent taxes and maximize their profits.

This paper examines the commercial correspondence between the Tainan-based Jinyuanyi Trading Company and the Nagasaki-based Taiyi Firm from 1908 to 1922 to analyze how Taiwanese merchants integrated international trade networks with local procurement and distribution networks to conduct import and export trade. It aims to illustrate how transnational trade in early 20th-century East Asia articulated with local commercial networks.

Since the 1980s, economic historians have regarded the trade between Nagasaki’s Taiyi Firm and Taiwan as a representative case of Japan-Taiwan trade during the colonial period, yet they assumed that this trade was primarily conducted through direct, bilateral exchanges between firms. More recently, Researcher Lin Yu-ju’s in-depth investigation of the Taiyi archives has revealed that its transnational trading network is multi-layered. Beyond Taiyi’s own extensive network, which spanned from Russia in the north to Singapore in the south, it maintained partner firms across various East Asian regions. These partner firms functioned as hubs, connecting Taiyi to local commercial communities through which international goods were distributed and local products were procured. Thus, local firms were distinguished as either core or marginal partners based on their degree of closeness to Taiyi. However, the activities of non-core local firms within this multi-tiered network have yet to be analyzed.

The focus of this study is the Jinyuanyi Trading Company, a small-scale seafood trading firm in Tainan, located on Wai-Xin Street and operated by Li Ming-Xing and Li Wen-Bo. Although not a core player in the local commercial network, Jinyuanyi imported seafood from Nagasaki and maintained business dealings with Taiyi's other partner firms in Tainan. By analyzing the correspondence between Jinyuanyi and Taiyi, this paper provides a depiction, from the perspective of a small local trader, of the complex commercial interactions and import-export trade patterns among peripheral local firms, core local firms, and transnational traders within the early 20th-century East Asian transnational trade network.

In the early stages of their arrival in Asia, the Dutch viewed gold as a vital commodity for intra-Asian trade. Governor-General Jan Pietersz. Coen (1619–1623, 1627–1629) proposed the exchange of Indian textiles for gold and the trade of Chinese gold for sandalwood, pepper, and Spanish rials. This vision gradually took shape, and by the late 1630s, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) utilized Chinese gold as a key resource to expand trade in India, aiming to eliminate the need to transport funds from the Dutch homeland to Asia.

However, the export of Chinese gold was influenced by various political, economic, and sociocultural factors in China, making it difficult for the Dutch to exercise control. The annual gold quotas established by the company were rarely met by the Taiwan trading post, which often had to rely on Japanese silver as a substitute. This created additional challenges, as transporting silver to India incurred unfavorable exchange rates and limited the funds available for purchasing Chinese goods at Fort Zeelandia.

This study focuses on how the Taiwan trading post maximized its efforts to acquire gold despite supply-demand imbalances. For the Dutch, trading pepper for gold was considered the ideal strategy; however, the pricing of pepper was constrained by Chinese demand and competition among European merchants in Asia. Through this research, I aim to provide deeper insights into how the Dutch East India Company managed its financial operations through the Taiwan trading post and clarify the power struggles dynamics between the Dutch, the Chinese, and European merchants.

Since the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan came to power in 2016, successive governments have increased their support for the domestic chip industry: Tsai Ing-wen introduced plans on talent development while the current Lai administration listed chip industry and talent as a key diplomatic tool. In a broader context, the US-China tech competition has become increasingly antagonistic. Since the Trump administration, the US has been restricting China’s access to advanced chips with US technologies in order to halt China’s technological advancement. In 2022, Taiwan produced 63.8% of the world’s processor chips and most of these were advanced chips. As neither the US nor China possesses the manufacturing capacity for cutting-edge chips, they are dependent on Taiwan’s supply, thus making Taiwan a critical player in ongoing US-China competition. Existing studies mainly focus on the strategic manoeuvres of the US and China, suggesting that Taiwan is a passive actor amidst superpower rivalries. This paper argues that Taiwan is an active player in the US-China tech competition, using chip diplomacy as a grand strategy to maximise its interests. The study employs international relations theories such as grand strategy, techno-economic statecraft and diplomacy to evaluate Taiwan’s importance in US-China tech competition and how Taiwan leverages chip diplomacy to secure US protection. This paper draws on government statements, transcripts and news articles, and adopts a qualitative approach, involving content analysis and case studies, to examine the triangular techno-diplomatic relationships between the US, China and Taiwan.

Semiconductors have often been used as political tools in the US-China conflict. They are indispensable for modern people to lead civilized lives and are used in ICT equipment, automobiles, and even weapons. Thus, the locations of fabs and semiconductor supply chains are major concerns for countries and companies.

Semiconductor production depends heavily on Taiwanese companies. This phenomenon is called “Taiwanization.” (Miller 2022). However, I think “Taiwanization” in semiconductor production can be divided into two types: dependence on Taiwanese companies (particularly TSMC) as manufacturers (“Taiwanization” type 1-a) and dependence on Taiwan as a location of production (“Taiwanization” type 1-b). Furthermore, Taiwanese companies have shown a large presence in semiconductor design (“Taiwanization” type 2) in recent years.

The term “Taiwanization” attracts a lot of attention in Taiwan. However, some Taiwanese people view the current situation as a crisis of “de-Taiwanization,” expressing strong concerns that advanced semiconductors will be produced outside Taiwan (US, Japan, and Germany). This is based on the “silicon shield,” being feared that if Taiwan’s share of semiconductor production declines, national security will weaken under the US-China conflict.

In this study, I clarify the various aspects related to the “Taiwanization” of semiconductors under the US-China conflict: How are the different types of “Taiwanization” advancing? How do Taiwanese people react to Taiwanization and the US-China conflict? This study explores these issues concerning Taiwan in the modern world.

The strategic relationship between the United States (US) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) evolved from competitive cooperation to strategic rivalry. The situation is becoming increasingly complex due to rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific region. A notable factor is the growing influence of middle powers, such as India, which is strengthening its strategic partnership with the US within the framework of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD). The complex relations among the US, China, and India present both challenges and opportunities for Asia’s secondary powers, like Taiwan, in this era of multipolarity. This paper contributes uniquely by connecting the US-China-India triangle with Taiwan's strategic approach to managing asymmetry in the Indo-Pacific. Drawing on Putnam’s two-level game theory, this paper argues that Taiwan has developed a "three-level game" approach—engaging at international, regional, and domestic levels—to navigate its relations with hegemonic powers like the US and China, as well as with the emerging middle power of India between 2012 and 2024. Twenty elite semi-structured interviews and government documents/policy papers compose the qualitative data of this paper. The paper starts with a discussion of power and the distinction of characteristics among different powers in IR, then proceeds with an empirical analysis of Taiwan with these powers at three different levels. The final section provides a comprehensive analysis, revisiting the initial discussion and questions surrounding the definition of ‘power’ in light of Taiwan’s unique status.

This anthropological and ethnographic research project aims to unveil the complexities within Taiwan’s influential semiconductor industry—often referred to as the ‘silicon shield’. Focusing on the perspectives of workers, particularly those in Hsinchu, the study examines how these individuals perceive their expectations, hope, and the future of both the industry and Taiwan’s sovereignty. This project posits that workers’ viewpoints significantly shape their daily decision-making processes, whether they choose to migrate abroad, invest domestically, or support alternative political candidates within Taiwan’s traditionally polarised two-party system. As those who constitute what Jasanoff and Kim (2009) term the ‘sociotechnical imaginary’ of Taiwan, these workers occupy a critical position at the intersection of global trade and geopolitics. Taiwan’s semiconductor sector is not only a cornerstone of the nation’s economy but also a focal point in the increasingly isolationist policies of the United States and its intensifying rivalry with China. In this context, a qualitative analysis of the lives and emerging aspirations of Hsinchu Science Park workers offers valuable insights into the politicisation of this strategic industry. By representing the narratives from within the 'shield', the project contributes to a deeper understanding of how Taiwan’s semiconductor industry both reflects and shapes national identity, global significance, and future directions in a rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape. This presentations seeks to receive comments and suggestions as a project that is at the begnning stage of field research.

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.

In recent years, Taiwan has emerged as a regional leader in LGBT rights, with its legalization of same-sex marriage in 2019 marking a pivotal moment. Beyond legal reforms, Taiwan leverages its progressive stance through the production and dissemination of LGBT-themed media and film, becoming a soft power tool in the Indo-Pacific. Films such as Dear Ex and Your Name Engraved Herein not only showcase Taiwan’s cultural diversity but also serve as mechanisms to shape perceptions of Taiwan as a modern, inclusive society.

This paper explores how Taiwan’s LGBT media and film contribute to its soft power in the Indo-Pacific, positioning Taiwan as a beacon of liberal values amidst regional conservatism. It examines the reception of these media portrayals in neighboring countries with varying degrees of LGBT acceptance, from liberal democracies like Japan to conservative societies such as Indonesia and Malaysia. Additionally, it analyzes the role of film co-productions between Taiwan and other East Asian nations in promoting progressive values, fostering cultural exchange, and expanding Taiwan’s influence.

By focusing on the intersection of media, LGBT rights, and soft power, this study highlights the challenges and opportunities Taiwan faces in using cultural diplomacy to shape its international image. The research offers a critical look at the limits of Taiwan’s LGBT soft power in the broader context of Indo-Pacific geopolitics and cultural dynamics.

History as a tool for nation-building can be incredibly powerful, whether the hand is right or wrong. This paper looks at China and seeks to evaluate the role of history in Beijing’s Taiwan policy, arguing its fundamental part in attempts to bind China and the unwilling Taiwan. Utilising qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, this paper is divided into two sections: first, the methods of applied historical revisionism will be assessed, encompassing the weaponisation of ethnicity and historical ties in stripping Taiwanese autonomy. Second, a disproval of the former, highlighting the blatant historical lies, selectiveness of primary sources and legal irregularities that form the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ‘One-China’ policy. Taiwan’s separation from the mainland has been an embarrassing stain on the CCP and Xi Jinping is pushing harder than ever for reunification, employing constructivism theory to do so – we see history be manipulated in real-time.

This paper analyses Taiwan’s foreign policy towards the United States using Veto Player Theory to explain the differing outcomes in arms purchases during the first administrations of Presidents Chen Shui-bian (2000–2004) and Tsai Ing-wen (2016–2020). While Taiwan and the Taiwan-Strait have become a focal point of current international relations, the field of International Relations is still short of literature with Taiwan’s foreign policy not as the object but as the subject. Combining public policy theory and International Relations, the study identifies key veto players, both formal and informal, who influenced decision-making processes regarding arms procurement from the U.S., such as the Legislative Yuan (LY), the Executive Yuan (EY), and external actors like China and the United States. By applying George Tsebelis' veto player framework, the thesis investigates why Chen Shui-bian was unable to execute his planned arms deals, while Tsai Ing-wen succeeded in securing significant arms packages. The research finds that the constellation and foreign policy preferences of veto players, particularly the alignment of interests within Taiwan’s legislative bodies, as well as external geopolitical pressures, critically shaped the outcomes of Taiwan’s arms procurement policy. Actors anticipate the decisions and preferences of formal and informal veto players and take measures accordingly. The study concludes that the structure and cohesiveness of veto players within Taiwan's political system were decisive in enabling or hindering policy change, offering insights into how future administrations, especially the current Taiwanese government mirroring Chen Shui-bian’s first administration, might navigate similar challenges.

This dissertation explores how clothing shaped Tsai Ing-Wen as the first female president of the Republic of China (ROC) between 2016 and 2024. Led by the question “Do clothes matter?”, I will examine how her wardrobe choices were deployed to gain credibility as a political leader. By comparing former and current female leaders globally, I will analyse how the convergence of fashion and politics occurred in a Taiwanese setting. To assess how clothes shaped her leadership in a male-dominated sphere, I will couple feminist theories like Judith Butler’s gender performativity with existing debates on the implications of Tsai's presidency on gender equality, as raised by W.A. Tang, E.J. Teng. The methodology used will include image sampling from her election campaigns in 2016 and 2020 respectively, along with the period of her two terms in office. Additionally, local and international news reports regarding her image will also be utilised to identify the positive and negative attitudes towards her choice of dress and their implications on a wider social scale. Due to limited literature available on Tsai specifically, my research will be supported by global studies on fashion’s role in politics, as well as feminist work on female participation in Taiwanese politics. Fashion is political and, in this dissertation, I will argue that it provides a fresh perspective on existing studies on her leadership. In short, I will argue that Tsai Ing-Wen cannot be comprehensively understood as a leader if one does not take a look at what she’s wearing.

Taiwan’s declining birthrate has been on its government’s radar since the 1980s, and on an international stage when it was labelled as a national security issue in 2006. Reasons given for this are numerous, but few focus on Taiwan’s future: its youth. This research explores how Taiwan’s young women are shaping the future of their society through their views on romantic relationships and sex – namely, whether women see marriage as a formality to their relationship with no real purpose and how the rise internet dating culture, one-night stands and unofficial but exclusive relationships have affected the perception of traditional romantic relationships.

Often in direct opposition to media portrayal and pressures, young Taiwanese women are engaging in more pre-marital sex and leaning towards love matches for marriage. Additionally, the new digital dating scene, offering platforms such as Omi and Tinder allow these women to explore what they want from romantic partnerships through organic and digital means. Through quantitative analysis of survey data available via Academica Sinica, we investigate how dating trends have changed over the years. Furthermore, by interviewing the focus group of 18-25 year old heterosexual Taiwanese women living in Taiwan, we also develop a more qualitive understanding of Taiwan’s contemporary dating society. Through these approaches, we explore how changing views on romantic relationships have affected marriage age and, naturally, birthrate.

Southeast Asian scam centres found themselves in the global spotlight over the summer of 2022 when western media reported on their use of people trafficked from overseas. This was followed by many reports in Taiwanese media of Taiwanese victims being trapped in these scam centres. This leads to the question of how well Taiwan has supported its own citizens who have been trafficked. My dissertation will explore the different approaches to helping Taiwanese victims of these scam centres, looking at both the government’s response and that of civil society (including NGOs). To do this, my dissertation will focus on the evidence provided at international conferences, allowing me to analyse the government and civil society's response to the problem. I will also examine media reports and conduct interviews with activists and conference participants where possible, to gain an understanding of the approaches used and their effectiveness in dealing with this issue.

This study examines the subsidization of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in Taiwan as a new form of anticipatory governance in response to declining birth rates. The data includes in-depth interviews with 60 stakeholders and archival documents. I identify two waves of "techniques of futuring". The first wave (2004–2020) refrained from explicitly linking ART subsidies to declining birth rates, focusing instead on stratified reproduction. Although the government intermittently considered following Japan and South Korea in viewing ART subsidies as a solution, concerns about high costs and limited population growth benefits delayed its implementation. Demographers, feminists, and public health scholars framed declining birth rates as a social welfare issue, criticizing the government’s reliance on medical strategies. Unlike its East Asian counterparts, Taiwan lacked strong advocacy groups for infertile women, which hindered policy mobilization. The second wave (2021–present) marks the introduction of subsidized IVF as a new policy solution. Amidst widely reported predictions of Taiwan’s potential to have the world’s lowest birth rate, the government reframed the policy to address both health risk prevention and declining birth rates, offering subsidies to women under 45 opting for IVF. The policy's emphasis on limiting embryo transfers resulted in fewer multiple and preterm births, enhancing its legitimacy. Collaboration between the Taiwan Society of Reproductive Medicine and the government framed delayed motherhood as a physiological infertility risk, shaping societal perceptions of low fertility. Assisted reproductive technologies now play a prominent role in Taiwan’s strategies to address declining birth rates.

Although the significance and urgency of studies on energy poverty are rapidly increasing, there is a lack of research focused on the Global South and the most resource-deprived groups, such as homeless individuals in cities. This study aims to address this empirical gap and contribute theoretically by highlighting the interplay between the agency of disadvantaged individuals, infrastructure development, and the destigmatizing efforts of street-level bureaucrats in combating energy poverty. The author draws on fifteen months of relational fieldwork conducted with both the homeless community and frontline social workers in Taipei. The findings indicate that homeless individuals, facing the problems caused by cold winter, hot summer, low-battery phones, take initiatives to access urban public transportation facilities designed to enhance Taipei's status as a top “Smart City” globally. This challenges the notion of a benevolent state plan effectively executed for those in need, underscoring the importance of wisdom and reciprocal relationship on streets. However, individual agency alone cannot ensure the access, as the stigma on homelessness often results in exclusion and expulsion by hostile venue managers. Consequently, empathetic social workers, “the wise” in the Goffmanian term, play a crucial role in facilitating access by extending their professional influence horizontally to other street-level bureaucrats.

The #MeToo movement has raised unprecedented awareness on sexual harassments, assaults, and violence since it went viral across the globe in 2017. Many scholars have studied the impact of the #MeToo movement, particularly how the media and the public perceive and describe the movement. Little is known, however, about how legislators discuss and frame #MeToo and thereby introduce and implement bills that address sexual assaults and violence. Using corpus analyses of speeches and debates taking place in the Taiwan Legislature between May 31 and July 31, 2023, we find that legislators use both the oppressor-blaming frame in which attention is paid to the behavior of the perpetrators and the sexual victimhood frame in which survivors are portrayed as vulnerable victims who are in need of protection and saving. While we also find that legislators have increasingly acknowledged the power imbalances when sexual assaults and violence occur, we also demonstrate that policymakers are solution-driven where they treat combatting sexual violence as a linear process, instead of seeing the multilevel, multidimensional aspects of violence as a by-product of patriarchy. Particularly, by focusing on the neoliberal notion of agency, the findings show that systematic barriers that offer abused women a way out, for example, are still persistent. Therefore, our study offers important implications for the ways in which violence could be dismantled if policymakers focus on the collective agency of survivors with a more comprehensive approach.

When the KMT first arrived in Taiwan, they took this island as a base for counterattacking the mainland China and had no intention or related policies for long-term residence here. The recently highlighted living culture of military dependents originally allowed soldiers from mainland China and their families to reside temporarily, which later developed into a particularly cohesive living style rich in diverse cultural integration. Subsequently, the R.O.C. gradually took root in Taiwan, with various different housing policies being introduced one after another. In 1994, a community development policy was launched to address how to connect land with people. The Housing Law was announced in 2011, and after the revision of the housing law in 2017, provisions for providing social housing were included. Since then, ensuring the housing rights of the people has not only focused on home and land ownership but has also begun to involve the government providing a large number of new housing policies and tools that are for rent only and not for sale. Furthermore, under this policy tool, innovative programs such as artistic interventions, co-housing experimental projects, and the selection of seed residents have been continuously introduced, aiming to form a richer contemporary housing culture in Taiwan. This article intends to explore from a historical perspective and the changes in housing culture how this island responds to an uncertain future and grasps the genuine living conditions of the present under special international relations, providing an understanding of Taiwan through the evolution of housing culture and policies.

In 2019, the Taiwanese parliament legalized same-sex marriage. Hailed abroad as a monumental step, same-sex marriage nevertheless remains a hotly contested issue in Taiwanese domestic politics, with supporters and opponents split along generational and rural-urban lines. While most foreign discussions emphasize the country’s progressive side, taking an implicit or explicit vantage point from cosmopolitan Taipei, the capital, in this presentation I am interested in what political negotiations look like at the grassroots level in a rural township. What role does popular religion play in such processes?

In Taiwan as elsewhere, the rural and the urban are not diametrically opposed but interconnected through a multitude of movements of people and goods, but also deities. In the presentation, I explore these connections by walking with participants walking in mass pilgrimages in honor of the goddess Mazu. What kinds of exchanges do their pathways offer, leading from urban to rural environments? In particular, I follow one group of young Mazu devotees that has made this move to the countryside permanently. What is more, the group started out as an interest group for genderqueer worshipers, many of whom still live in the cities and return regularly. I examine how these members negotiate the different environments and the attitudes each holds of the group’s gendered and sexual identities. I suggest that strategically employed, knowing silences play an important role in allowing fundamentally different opinions to exist side by side, highlighting a wider cultural potential of accepting variation.

This paper explores the intersection between mobility studies and queer studies. More specifically, it examines the linkages between queerness and the diasporic identity through an analysis of the documentary Hebei Taipei (2015) by Taiwanese female filmmaker Li Nien-hsiu. The documentary focuses on Li’s father, Old Li, a native of Hebei province, China, whose family broke apart during the 1920s warlord era. Seeking survival, Old Li first became a monk in a temple and then joined the army at a young age without any political beliefs, going to war for whoever provided subsistence to him. In the early 1950s he was sent to the Korean peninsula to fight in the Korean War but ended up being captured and sent to Taiwan. In Taiwan, Old Li spent several decades trying to fit in. At the age of sixty, he separated from his wife and children and lived alone for 20 years. Only when he dressed up as a woman did Old Li seem to find enjoyment and comfort. An example of a trans subject before the language about transgender was available to him, Old Li was also a diasporic subject who lived in-between places or was constantly feeling out of place. The film thus highlights the conjuncture between queerness and exile, and between transitivity and an imaginary but delayed return to home. Furthermore, his double displacement is reminiscent of similar motifs in several Taiwanese queer classics where queerness is intimately linked to feelings of uprootedness, homelessness, and questions of citizenship and belonging.