'As of the end of October, Taiwan's population stood at 23,310,853 -- a decrease of 91,951 compared with the same period last year. That translates to an average daily decline of 251.92 people.' Taipei City: 65+ = 24%. focustaiwan.tw/society/2025...

On Jingxing Street 📷: Minolta Autocord 🎞️: Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 #BelieveInFilm

A map of population decline in Taiwan from 1980 to 2020 from an article by Di Hu in the International Journal of Geo-Information. Local populations sometimes peaked in the 1960s, particularly in eastern Taiwan, so that decline is already baked-in by 1980. Not surprised to see Yunlin here!

New KMT Chair Cheng Li-wen attends memorial event for White Terror victims organized by pro-unification group. The event honored, among many others, convicted and executed CCP spy General Wu Shi, whom the CPP named a Revolutionary Martyr in 1973. www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/...

A few pictures I sourced when researching my latest story for Substack — it's about Soul Food in wartime Saigon and the racial division that made 'Soul Alley' (in all of its manifestations) such a refuge for Black soldiers in #Saigon. Story is here: connla.substack.com/p/a-history-...

[“Female Student” (女學生)] was one of 240 works included in the 1930 Poetry of Chin-chuan (金川詩草), making Huang the first Taiwanese woman to have her own poetry collection. www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

Control Yuan alleges TaiwanPlus discriminates against broadcasters with Taiwanese accents, that its coverage is guided by foreign staff who may not be as knowledgeable of Taiwan focustaiwan.tw/politics/202...

'I had never been to Taiwan. I went over there, and just immediately I was hit by, like how different it was... And I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly, but I think later on what it was is I was looking at Taiwan through Chinese eyes or through a China lens.' chinabooksreview.com/2025/11/04/e...

Sharp @michaelturton9.bsky.social piece on the recent "flood of pro-China propaganda" pieces in US media outlets. "Painting Taiwan’s leaders as 'reckless' makes a moral case for US abandonment of Taiwan that shifts the blame to Taiwan for resisting PRC annexation" www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

Man fined NT$2,000 (about US$ 65) for exercising with his shirt off in Kaohsiung park. news.tvbs.com.tw/local/3034018

🚨London🚨: I'll be speaking at SOAS for the #GhostNation UK launch on 11 November. Stop by if you can! www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/...

Today I took a look at the apparently coordinated effort to move US Taiwan policy in pro-China directions ahead of the Xi-Trump meetup. www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

'It left me wondering if U.S. companies sourcing from Taiwan really knew what was going on here.' news.diocesetucson.org/news/marykno...

Backhoes in Taiwan's Taroko Gorge salute the mountains. www.ettoday.net/news/2025102...

Good afternoon, Taiwan! Some kind of landscape 📷: Hasselblad SWC 🎞️: Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 II #BelieveInFilm

I don't read many substacks, but Broad & Ample Road by Michelle Kuo & Albert Wu is special, for insights on Taiwan above all, but good on various other issues, too, eg hwere trends in publishing/patterns of translation/graphic novels ampleroad.substack.com/p/underdog-s... cc @wwborders.bsky.social

The Honduran Emerald, a beautiful hummingbird endemic to the dry oak-pine forests of Honduras. I recently had the pleasure of being in Honduras to learn more about their conservation and sustainable ecoutourism efforts. Honduras has so much to offer, from birds to geology to amazing culture.

Hey UK/EU! My new book "Contested Taiwan: Sovereignty, Social Movements, and Party Formation" is officially available for order, and will arrive early August! www.combinedacademic.co.uk/978029575392...

Patriot missle batteries deployed to Taipei City's riverside parks. The tactical purpose is said to deter a decapitation strike on the capital by using the river terrain (smart). Psychologically this will make an impression on Taipei residents. tw.news.yahoo.com/%E6%BC%A2%E5...

Taiwanese investment in China steadily declining – Taipei Times: ‘In terms of Taiwan’s total outward investment, the percentage of businesses investing in China has dropped from 83.8 percent in 2010 to 11.4 percent in 2023, 7.5 percent last year and 2.7 percent in the first quarter of this year’

@michaelturton.bsky.social considers the mass recalls in the context of the long history of Taiwanese resistance to misrule--powerful grassroots social movements and even armed rebellion have been a feature of Taiwanese history for a very long time. www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

Interesting failed recall in Nantou. The target was a DPP county councillor. 12,000 votes favored recalling her; 6,000 voted no. But the recall failed because the number of votes for the recall did not meet the 1/4 threshold of 14,000. Turnout was only around 32%. www.cna.com.tw/news/aipl/20...

Before tea, indigo. 'During the town’s heyday in the late 1800s, more than 80 ships traversed these waters [from Sanxia to Bangka), transporting not just indigo but local tea, camphor, timber, furniture, coal and rice noodles.' www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

@donovan-smith.bsky.social with a great analysis of the proposed recall of one of the KMT's most flamboyant and obnoxious legislators. She's a briliant example of a politician who is more of an influencer than a traditional politician. Very blue district though. www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

Taiwan's TOIEC scores continue to rise. In 2015, the average reading and listening score was 532. In 2024, it was 581. The average score for students aged 5-17 is 611. Average score was highest for 25-29 age group: 634. Speaking and writing score also up slightly. tw.news.yahoo.com/%E8%87%BA%E7...

Chinese fighter jets twice risked collisions with Air Self-Defense Force surveillance aircraft over the East China Sea on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the Defense Ministry in Tokyo, in the latest close encounters between the two militaries. www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/07...

Sanity check: state media coverage does not support speculations that Xi has lost power. Maybe there's oher evidence, but not here.

@thomchau.bsky.social on the recalls with special attention to KMT position as articulated by a senior leader firmly in the Ma camp. The recalls are not going to change their China policy founded on the 1992 consensus but they support increased defense spending. asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Tai...

Tariffs and recalls--On “Taiwan This Week” @ICRTNews today with Gavin Phipps and @brianhioe.bsky.social. Available now on usual podcast platforms. podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/t...

Fascinating and nuanced read by @tw_reporter_org on increased fears of Chinese infiltration in Taiwanese society, including random individuals being accosted on subways, how this links to past authoritarianism, and connects to other contexts www.twreporter.org/a/street-sna...

Taiwan's population declined for the 18th consecutive month in June. YOY -66,158. There were 8,499 fewer births in 2025 H1 than in 2024 H1. 2024 recorded the lowest number of annual births ever despite being a Dragon Year. Looks like 2025 will be even lower. health.ltn.com.tw/article/brea...

SPIEGEL reports that Chinese military used laser several times against German frigate passing through Taiwan Strait in fall of 2024 but that chancellery at the time decided to not make this public or express displeasure vis-à-vis Beijing. www.spiegel.de/politik/deut...

Marble sculpture by Kuo JengTseng of Taiwan

'The Dalai Lama on Sunday was seen wearing a cap embroidered with the word, “Team Taiwan” while watching a modern neo-techno performance of the traditional San Taizi (三太子) dance, as he celebrated his 90th birthday in Dharamsala, northern India.' www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/...

Helping colleagues at the Huntington garden with a donation of Japanese painting manuals. Nothing super fancy, but a wonderful collection to show different publics how wood block printing supported artistic production in the Tokugawa and Meiji periods

#TaiwanSensibility: 'The hashtag is often attached to shots of walkup apartment buildings built at least 40 or 50 years ago, or lush greenery, or colorful neon signage...They say that this kind of urban scenery is charming, retro, and relaxing.' www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/Articles/...

Nearly 400,000 people in Taiwan, including 80 percent of residents in residential care facilities, depend on nasogastric tubes for nutrition. About 1/3 of Taiwan's 350,000 people 65+ with dementia are fed via nasogastric tubes. udn.com/news/story/7...

As someone who has read *a lot* of pop Taiwan books over the last few years, this one stands out in quality. Dawley’s retelling of Taiwanese history humanises Taiwan in a way that is desperately needed in today’s great-power focused world. It is a must read. reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/taiwan?...

Tiny oil painting from a photo I took in Hualien, Taiwan. This one humbled me lol — and painting on canvas feels pretty different from wood.

Japanese reading practice of the day: a lengthy "Report of the Colonization Inspection Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina," written in 1907 by the Civil Affairs Department of the Government-General of Taiwan's Office – comparative Habsburg-Japanese colonialism!

This could foreshadow similar debates in Taiwan before long. Proportionally, Taiwan had a lot more foreign workers than Japan does and numbers are increasing.

@michaelturton.bsky.social on the games the PRC plays: 'The PRC engages in aggression because it wants to, not because its agency is controlled by the words of Lai, or any other action of Taiwan.' www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

Taipei City's population of people aged 15-34 declined from about 534,000 to around 470,000 between 2020 and 2024. While the city's overall unemployment rate is 3.5%, almost 16% of this cohort is unemployed. vip.udn.com/vip/story/12...

Quanzhou 泉州 used to be known as Chhì-tông Siâⁿ 刺桐城 (Coral Tree City; MC *tsʰieH-duŋ). This found an Arabic phono-semantic match in Zaytun زيتون (Olive City), which is the name you can read in Marco Polo (<Çayton> etc.). Zaytun in turn is the origin of the name of 'satin' fabric! 🤩

"Seediq Digital Language Activist Sayun Pihaw Wonders, 'How to Find an Angle to Facilitate Understanding?'" by Yanne C

People bringing pro-recall banners to special screening of Invisible Nation.

'The question is, are “humanistic” actors even feasible within the system that the Chinese Communist Party somehow brought into being the country we today recognize as China.' www.chinadiction.com/p/making-rev...

China changing the status quo again.

Good morning, Taiwan! It is a rainy morning in Kaohsiung as Typhoon Danas approaches. 📷: Nikon F3P 🎞️: Kodak TMax 100 (expired) #BelieveInFilm #FilmPhotography

Taiwan in Time's fourth article on the fierce Hakka resistance to Japan's invasion of Taiwan in 1895. This one recounts the final Hakka stand in the deep south centered around Liudui in Pingtung. www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...