Taiwan Brief: KMT women own central Taiwan, transcript
The very first primary of the 2022 electoral season was just completed recently.Using opinion polling, the KMT chose sitting lawmaker Hsu Shu-hua as their candidate for Nantou County Commissioner, whose incumbent will be term-limited out.Unless you’re the Froze, you’re probably thinking who cares about Nantou, and who the heck is she?Hsu Shu-hua was frequently the […]
Taiwan Brief: 3Q Sacked, Freddy Lim next? (transcript)
So, Chen Po-wei (aka 3Q), the only legislator from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party got sacked in a recall vote in the Taichung 2 electoral constituency.This is the third of the so-called “revenge” recalls launched by the pan-blue camp following the successful recall of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu.Chen was very active in that recall campaign, and […]
Taiwan Brief: Porn’s potential to disrupt politics transcript
3 have been arrested for “deepfake” porn targeting local celebrities…and local politicians like Huang Jie and Kao Chia-yu. Though these weren’t political, in today’s highly polarized political climate, this could be weaponized in frightening and unpredictable ways. But first, a big shout out to Patron Sabastian for increasing his donation on Patreon.com/taiwanreport!Your support, and all […]
China’s Growing Influence in Human Rights Institutions: Slow Progress on Human Rights Abuse in Xinjiang
It is not uncommon for states to engage in conflicting behaviors regarding human rights issues in domestic and foreign affairs. When a state’s domestic human rights abuse receives international criticism, the escape approach taken by the criticized state is to claim that it’s a matter of state sovereignty. As a result, we often see the […]
Taiwan Brief, the KMT just got Chu’d up badly transcript
So, the KMT chair candidates battled it out down to the wire with their differing visions for the future of the party.The results are in, a new chair-elect is making moves while waiting to assume office and the future of the party is now looking…as grim as ever. But before we begin this look at […]
Taiwan Brief: The critical KMT chair race, part 5 transcript
Well, the race for KMT chair has been turned on its head.After the first debate, which I discussed in Parts 3 & 4, the situation was essentially that Eric Chu was the presumed frontrunner, but had been directing his attacks and energies towards heading off Johnny Chiang–who appeared to be nipping at his heels.Cho Po-yuan […]
Taiwan Headlines: Politicians and their handles transcript
There are three main social media outlets that Taiwanese politicians might have accounts on for self-promotion.Twitter is the least common of the three, in general it is used by local politicians who are interested in reaching an international audience, and the posts are usually in English, Japanese or whatever the target language is.Many local politicians […]
Taiwan Brief: The critical KMT chair race, part 4, transcript
In our last show we took a deep dive on the KMT candidates, and in this show we’ll take a look at the state of the race, some intriguing hints of change in discourse and tone what the polling tells us, who has endorsed whom and what might be key to winning this thing–and who […]
Taiwan Brief: The critical KMT chair race, part 3, transcript
We now know the candidates for KMT chair. To spare you the suffering, I watched both candidate registrations and presentations, the debate and scoured local media and their social media accounts to bring you a deep dive on the candidates.
Is the National Security Risk in the India-China Relationship the Linchpin to Strengthen the Taiwan-India Economic Relationship?
China’s rise has led to a revival of interest in the role of rising new powers. In this context, we see the geopolitical term “Indo-Pacific” creating a buzz worldwide. The objective behind the idea of Indo-Pacific is to curtail China’s economic, political and military expansion across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. China’s rapid ascent as […]
