Subscribe by Email
Pages
Blogroll
- Al Masry Al Youm (Cairo) [In English]
- AlterNet
- Ampontan
- Anna in the Winter
- AsiaEye
- Blake Carter
- Cheng History
- Crossroads Arabia
- Daily Kos
- David on Formosa
- David Simon
- EastSouthNorthWest
- Enemies of Reason
- Fear of a Red Planet
- Global Voices
- Hidden Harmonies
- Hiking in Taiwan
- Hiking Taiwan
- Iberoblog
- Jadaliyya
- Lao Ren Cha
- Laogai blog
- Laowiseass
- Mike Corsini's blog
- Mirror Signal Move
- MqVu (Exporting China's Development to the World)
- My Kafkaesque Life
- My Several Worlds
- Off the Beaten Track
- OzSoapbox
- Patrick Cowsill
- RConversation
- Rebel With A Cause
- Savage Minds
- Shanghaiist
- Steven Crook
- Taihoku 1937
- Taiwan Angler
- Taiwan Blogs
- Taiwan in Perspective
- Taiwan Matters
- Taiwanese Identity
- The Afghanistan Analysts Network
- The Battle of Fisherman's Wharf
- The Chronikler
- The Far-Eastern Sweet Potato
- The Northern Light
- The Peking Duck
- The View from Taiwan
- Wayward UN Traveller
- Wendell Minnick
- Yang Tsung-hua
Categories
- AI
- Albania
- Arts
- Avdullah Hoti
- Baltics
- Book reviews
- Boris Johnson
- Burma
- Business
- Chiang Kai-shek
- Culture
- Daniel Ortega
- Decolonialization
- Food
- History
- Ho Te-lai
- Indonesia
- Karl Popper
- Ko Wen-je
- Kosovo
- Labor rights
- Labour rights
- Lee Teng-hui
- Lithuania
- Macedonia
- Myanmar
- Nicaragua
- Palestine
- Penghu
- People
- Philippines
- Philosophy
- Places
- Poetry
- Politics and polemic
- Quest for the Golden Horns
- rants
- Sport
- Sri Lanka
- Taiwan
- Taiwan
- Technology
- Tedros
- Travel
- Ukraine
- Vietnam
- Western Sahara
- WWII
- Xi Jinping
- Yangmingshan
History Archive
-
Ko Wen-je and Taiwan’s political theatre
The following article appeared on UnHerd’s website on January 3, 2024. Theatre and politics have a long history in Taiwan. During the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945), lookouts were posted outside Taiwanese opera performances to warn of approaching police patrols. These raids were part of a Japanisation policy known as kominka, designed to transform the Formosans, as […] -
An uneven illumination of statehood struggles (Global Asia review of Palestine, Taiwan, and Western Sahara)
The following review appeared in the December 2023 issue of Global Asia. QUESTIONS OF STATE sovereignty, in the modern sense, begin in the late 16th century with the French political philosopher Jean Bodin’s masterpiece Six Books of the Commonwealth. In the following century, the English thinker Thomas Hobbes produced perhaps the defining work on sovereign power, Leviathan. […] -
Albania, China, and Taiwan: a history of tangled relations
The following article appeared on the New Lens’ website today. Albanian perceptions of Taiwan, where they exist, are hazy. Parku Rinia (Youth Park) in downtown Tirana is a testament to this. Close to Skanderbeg Square – with its equestrian monument to the Albanian national hero – this green space in downtown Tirana is labeled “Taiwan […] -
Tracking Taiwan’s modern development (Taipei Times review of A Century of Development in Taiwan)
The following book review appeared in Taipei Times on November 9, 2023. It’s no fun beginning a review with an extended whinge; but it’s not often that an academic work is so plagued with errors as to make one wince and mutter in exasperation within the first few pages. Many are basic grammatical mistakes — […] -
Homeward bound: The remarkable career of Ho Te-lai
The following article appeared in today’s Taipei Times. This piece was very personal to me as it is about my children’s great-great-granduncle – a painter who has only really started to gain the recognition he deserves (at least in Taiwan) over the last 30 years. Many hours of research went into this over a course of […] -
Kosovo and Taiwan eye an alliance of outsiders
The following article was published on the Foreign Policy website today: Nowhere is Washington held in higher esteem than in the small Balkan nation of Kosovo. On Bill Clinton Boulevard in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, a statue of the former U.S. president waves cheerily to passersby. Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright—who in 1999 pushed for […] -
Is North Macedonia poised to reboot its ‘Taiwan Adventure?’
The following article was published on The Diplomat’s website today. The “Taiwan adventure,” it was called. Or the “Taiwan billion.” Or – rather more prosaically – the “Taiwan loans case.” It all depends on who you ask. “I guess the ‘Taiwan billion-dollar affair’ could be a working term,” said Filip Stojanovski. “Though maybe not so […] -
Taiwan’s old Southbound Policy (Global Asia review of ‘Imperial Gateway’)
The following book review appeared in the March issue of Global Asia. When Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen unveiled her administration’s “New Southbound Policy” in 2016, it’s unlikely that historical parallels with imperial Japan crossed her mind. Yet as this compelling monograph reveals, from the moment Taiwan was ceded to Japan, plans to turn the island […] -
Taiwanese as second-class imperialists (Taipei Times review of ‘Imperial Gateway’)
The following book review appeared in today’s Taipei Times: Among the many atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II, the Sook Ching massacre was notable for the involvement of Taiwanese. Having captured Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese army and its accomplices killed at least 25,000 Chinese. Prominent among the invaders’ henchmen was […] -
Taiwan’s Ukrainian community shows a little goes a long way
The following article appeared in today’s Taipei Times: Ukrainians are nothing if not determined. The Russian invasion of their country and atrocities against its population has made that clear. Taiwan’s small Ukrainian community and its supporters have also demonstrated their doggedness this week through a campaign to have a performance by a pro-Putin opera singer […]