Speakeasy: Taiwan’s Response to the Hong Kong Crackdown
This SNA Speakeasy features Brian Hioe on the theme of “Taiwan’s Response to the Hong Kong Crackdown.”
This SNA Speakeasy features Brian Hioe on the theme of “Taiwan’s Response to the Hong Kong Crackdown.”
The only museum about Taiwanese Comfort Women closed down this month after its four years of operating at a loss. The women’s rights foundation that runs the Ama Museum said that they would try again in a cheaper location beginning in April next year.
Taiwanese environmental groups demonstrated in front of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Taipei to protest against a proposed plan by the Japanese government to dump 1.2 million tons of wastewater from the 2011 Fukushima disaster into the Pacific Ocean.
According to organizers, over 130,000 marched in the annual pride parade in Taipei on Saturday. Lower turnout had been expected due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and in fact numbers were down from the record 200,000 participants in the October 2019 event.
For a time, Chi Chia-wei says many people thought he was the only gay person in Taiwan. He was the first Taiwanese to come out publicly on television, and for many the only gay person they could see.
Nagashi is a Japanese musical tradition that lives on in Taiwan
An ongoing corruption probe into a group of pan-Green and pan-Blue politicians accused of taking bribes in a case related to the ownership of the Pacific Sogo department store chain has the potential to be a major scandal faced by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and for the Tsai Ing-wen administration.
Changhua is a county of contradictions. It’s Taiwan’s largest by population but doesn’t have a single department store. It’s full of farms and conservative values, and will also be home to Taiwan’s only legal red-light district if local councilors get their way.
While New York Times reporters have relocated to Taipei earlier this year due to media expulsions from China, it remains to be seen whether or not other western media outlets intend to open bureaus in Taiwan.
Two recent incidents reveal of the long road ahead for transitional justice to be achieved in Taiwan.