Journalism, Activism, and the Art of Storytelling: A Conversation with Brian Hioe (Editor of New Bloom Magazine)

In this episode of Taiwanese Change Makers, host Adrian de Courcey sits down with Brian Hioe, a multifaceted force in Taiwan’s media, activism, and cultural scenes. Brian is one of the founders of New Bloom Magazine, an online publication dedicated to covering activism, social issues, and youth politics across Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region. As a journalist and commentator, he has contributed to major outlets like The Guardian, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, and the BBC.

Brian is also the custodian of the Daybreak Project, an archive preserving the history of Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement, and has recently added “published author” to his impressive resume with the release of his debut work of fiction, Taipei at Daybreak. Oh, and in his spare time? He’s a DJ spinning techno and house music.

Join us as Brian shares his unique journey—from being born in the U.S. and studying at Columbia University to making Taiwan his home and becoming a key voice in its social and political discourse. We’ll explore his motivations for moving to Taiwan, his work in journalism and activism, and how his creative pursuits, from writing to DJing, reflect his deep connection to the island’s vibrant culture.

Whether you’re interested in Taiwan’s social movements, the power of storytelling, or the life of a modern-day magazine editor, this conversation with Brian Hu is sure to inspire. Tune in to hear how one individual is driving positive change and shaping the narrative of Taiwan’s future.

Transcript

Welcome to Taiwanese Change Makers, a podcast exploring the stories of individuals driving positive change and transformation in Taiwan. I'm your host, Adrian de Courcey. Today, I'm delighted to welcome Brian Hioe to the podcast. Brian is a man of many talents and many professions. He's one of the founders of New Bloom Magazine, an online magazine covering activism, social issues, and youth politics in Taiwan and across Asia Pacific. 

Brian is also a well-known journalist and commentator and has appeared on Al Jazeera and the BBC amongst other news outlets. He has had articles published in the Washington Post and The Guardian. I, in fact, came across Brian's work in The Guardian. He's also a custodian of the Daybreak Project, which maintains an archive of the Sunflower Movement. 

Brian is now a published author and has just had his first work of fiction, Taipei at Daybreak, published in January this year. In his spare time, and I'm amazed that Brian finds any spare time, but he's also a DJ playing techno and house music. Brian, welcome to Taiwanese Change Makers.

Thank you for having me and thank you for the introduction.

Great, great that you're here. So let's start at the beginning because I think your journey is quite interesting. Lots of Taiwanese people, they moved to the US and go to school there or work there. But you were actually born in the US, you went to Colombia and then you moved to Taiwan. So tell me about your early motivations, why you moved to Taiwan and so forth.

Yeah, I grew up in the US, so some of my early childhoods were in Taiwan, and most of my former two years were in America, in New York specifically. And then as a child I was visiting Taiwan very often, so for me a lot of when I moved back it was just this kind of desire to explore Taiwan as an adult, to see what things were like not as a child. And then because I had a history of social activism, I got pulled into the Sunflower Movement because a lot of the friends I made very quickly were activists.

And I guess from there the rest is sort of history, but it was from the background that I got pulled into activism. Before that I had not been really involved in causes that had to do with Taiwan. I mean there are, for example, Taiwanese Americans or Taiwan diaspora who are involved in lot of these causes for lobbying or advocating for Taiwan, and I was never involved until after the sunflower event in Taiwan.

And the Sunflower Movement, it's obviously very well known in Taiwan, but it's not so well known outside of Taiwan. And given that we have a lot of international listeners, can you give us an overview of the Sunflower Movement, what it was about, and also the Daybreak Project?

Yeah, absolutely. So the Sunflower Movement was the month long occupation of the Taiwanese legislature in response to a trade agreement that the then ruling KMT, the former authoritarian party in Taiwan that come back to power, wished to pass. And so the way in which they sought to pass it outraged the public that it was passed in under 30 seconds without any review or discussion. Also that it was a free trade agreement that the government hoped to sign with China and it allowed for investment in the service sector industry in Taiwan, which is 65 % of GDP. 

This galvanised what turned out to be among the largest, if not the largest social movement in Taiwan's history, where students broke into the legislature and occupied for 23 days, before an eventual withdrawal. And so that led to this kind of civic awakening among young people, where many young people entered politics, and then many went to civil society or formal organisations, or joined media. So New Bloom Magazine, which I founded with some others, was one of the outputs of that, this kind of wave of young people that wanted to do something after the movement. 

So a few years after the movement, around like 2017 or 18, I found myself really wanting to document the movement because it really did feel like people internationally were not aware of this, or if they were they thought it was a small thing of just a few hundred people. For example, I once went to this event in New York City where the editor of a publication was saying Taiwanese young people are not resisting and it astonished me that this is just a few years after the Sunflower Movement. And so interviewing the participants which numbered to
about a hundred in documenting their old histories, but also larger history, was a way of giving a thick description to the movement, showing that it was something with breadth and was quite large, and that it was very powerful for a generation of so many young people. And so I attempted to document movement because I realised that at that point, basically four or five years down the line, the memory was already starting to fade among people and people had different verdicts on the movement. So it was key to kind of move fast and document it.

I think the Sunflower Movement is really pivotal because it changed the narrative. And actually the legacy of the Sunflower Movement is in Taiwan today because as an outsider looking in at Taiwan, Taiwan is much more of an open liberal democracy and no society will ever be a perfect democracy, but there's much more openness than in many other countries in Asia Pacific. And I would say,
What makes the Sunflower Movement quite successful is the fact that actually it is quite deep rooted and it has been successful in a way that compared to other countries where there have been similar activism, they've been overwhelmed by the state, but that wasn't the case here.

Yeah, absolutely. I think what is actually quite interesting and comparatively unique about the Sunflower Movement is the fact that there was this ability to win office and put for change from within government. And so people that had charged legislature found themselves occupied, sorry, charged and occupied the legislature, found themselves being elected to the very same legislature just a few years later. And so there's that because I think in terms of looking at the Sunflower Movement, it is very similar to the other movements that occurred in the early 2010s. Occupation and stop movements that are very kind of decentralised in some way, and there's a lot of infighting and so forth.

Compared to a lot of the other movements that exist in the world, it was much more top down that there was a clear leadership in line of command, that there was those in the legislature who kind of called the shots, but even then it is along the lines of those other movements. And I think then what is surprising is that it created this wave of political momentum that has lasted until now, because I think that though many people may not always be conscious of it, you still see the influence of the movement today in terms of the young generation of politicians that came to be, or just this focus on young people after the movement, because before the movement, you people were seen as weak and soft and unable and unwilling to take up the burden of society, whereas after the movement there was much more focus on young people and the sacrifices they were willing to make and this desire to actually give them political power or opportunities or the spotlight.

I think that that is the key difference because at the same time there were lots of similar movements in Eastern Europe. But those movements often petered out and went nowhere. While actually in Taiwan there's lasting change. As you said, people who occupy parliament are now sitting in parliament. So you actually, it has had a meaningful impact. And the Daybreak Project, yep, sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I think that's one thing that's interesting because there has long been this kind of dynamic in which people that are part of activist politics or social movement politics later become elected to office. DPP, the Democratic Progressive Party, even if I only say it's as left-wing as it used to be, still has this history of being a social movement party. And so it often recruits from activists as its candidates. And then key figures in the party can be traced back to certain groups, for example, in the activism of the democracy movement. And so some of the factions actually have their origins in that. And so that's also quite interesting.

Now you went on from actually the Sunflower Movement then to form New Bloom Magazine. Can you tell us a little bit about New Bloom Magazine?

Yeah, absolutely. And so we started talking about forming a publication around April when the movement was winding down. And then we launched in July. And so we had basically three months of preparation. But we were influenced by that there was all these publications that emerged after movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, for example, in the US. And that this was a way of communicating ideas for more progressive change. But also a lot of us that were kind of my group of friends, like there are people that have higher English ability. We had like a reading group of political texts, for example. And lot of texts are not translated into Mandarin.

So there was that. so people ended up doing things like translation in the Sunflower Movement, which are being part of the kind of attempts to outreach to international media, because there was just not a lot of focus on Taiwan at that point in time. There was more news of the Malaysian flight that disappeared the same month. And so we felt there was a need to really try to allow more voices of young Taiwanese people to be heard internationally. And so that's what led to the decision to form a media outlet. And so we had an outlet. then it's gone on for 10 years now. And five years ago, we started doing physical spaces, like a bar, cafe. We do talks and discussions and things

And the Daybreak Project was another product of that as well, this desire to document the movement and have also something that kind of reflects it on where we come from.

And I think often in the Western media, Taiwan is overlooked because when people think of Taiwan, they think of either TSMC or they think of the geopolitical tension, but actually leaving that aside, Taiwan is a country which in just a few decades has been radically transformed. And what's impressive about Taiwan is Audrey Tang. It's a true pioneer in becoming a digital society and a true pioneer in AI.

People don't really necessarily scratch under the surface of the politics. What I think is really interesting about New Bloom is the focus on social issues and can you give our listeners an overview of the economic inequalities in Taiwan and what it's like in Taiwan to be a young person trying to get a house or an apartment and the economic issues.

Yeah, absolutely. Taiwan is a very unequal society like many in the world. So for example, young people can't afford homes, they work long hours for meager pay. Around the time of the Sunflower Movement, when people were, often discontent was that young people were, had college degrees or being paid only 22,000 NT per month at 22k salaries. And then to afford a home in Taipei, you'd have to not eat or drink for 15 years. And so there's that challenge. And I think particularly the Sunflower Movement in many ways also was expressive of how many of the youth movements

The 2010s were focused on economic inequality facing young people such as Occupy Wall Street, but that also dovetailed with the China factor, this issue of the KMT trying to pass a free treaty agreement with China, with the Chinese government. And so that kind of came together in that way. We often focus on social inequalities such as, sure, economic inequality, but also race, for example, indigenous issues is one issue we face and focus on a lot. Gender inequalities, sexual discrimination with the legalisation of gay marriage, example, Taiwan receives much international accolades, but there's still a lot of things to be worked on regarding homophobia, transphobia. So we try to cover a bit of everything, honestly. I mean, when there's something that happens, like a protest regarding eviction, we'll go cover that. Regarding rulings on, let's say, ID recognition, we'll cover that. Traditional land back and traditional territories for indigenous, that as well. So it's a bit of everything.

The legalisation of gay marriage has given Taiwan a very high profile move. Taiwan was the first country in Asia. It is a very pioneering move. But how do you feel gay or bisexual or transgender people are? Are they accepted by the majority? What are your thoughts on that?

The strange thing is I actually think not, I actually think the public has just kind of become a bit indifferent to it. I mean, I live near, fairly close to the Red House, the place with a of gay bars in Taipei, and you'll hear like homophobic comments from the elderly residents just like across the block. And so that actually points there's a lot to be worked on. In some sense, I actually don't totally understand even now how or why gay marriage passed, because there's a ruling from the Constitutional Court. And the Constitutional Court in Taiwan, as with many highest courts in other places, it's usually run by academics, legal academics, who actually are
not necessarily practicing judges, and so they often go in and they have much more progressive views than society, and so they decide, okay, well, we believe in this, or we confuse the constitution along the lines of this, and so they get legalised, but then it's not clear to me why, and actually that's also how I feel a bit about when the US legalised gay marriage, which also occurred through the Supreme Court. But then I think all these years later people are fine with it because of the fact that society has not disintegrated, as the naysayers said, but there's still a lot to be worked on in terms of attitudes, and so honestly it's a start, not a finish.

DPP, for example, was the party that pushed for it, and there were some KMT lawmakers that actually broke off and were more willing to kind of allow for it. But the DPP is also internally sometimes quite homophobic, because there's a part of it which is very strongly Christian, specifically Presbyterian, and not everyone's in favor of it. So I think actually a lot of the desire, which undergirds many things in Taiwan, is that there's a desire for Taiwan to be recognized as the first at something, or having a world accomplishment. And so that led to Taiwan wanting to be the first in Asia to legalise gay marriage.

But I guess also there's the issue especially with elderly people where if someone is in their 80s, it's really a mindset change. And I think in many countries where gay marriage has been legalised, you have similar issues where there's a more liberal and acceptance by younger population and where the legislation has changed more by, there's a disconnect between some members of the population, but over time, there's a wider acceptance.

Yeah, absolutely, which I think is a positive thing.

So you'd see that trend across the board in Taiwan as well. Young people are much more accepting. But then, yeah, it is actually kind of interesting the way it passed in that people now have to kind of live with it. The interesting thing is also the conservative Christian right, which is a minority in Taiwan. There's not that many Christians, even if some of them are influential in the DPP and other political parties. The conservative right, in that sense, became organised to try to oppose gay marriage and didn't succeed, but they tried to form a legislative slate at one point to enact their fundamentalist vision of the world. And much of that fundamentalism is actually specifically derived from American Christian fundamentalism, but that ultimately petered out and disintegrated. They never managed to run that site of legislators they wanted to.

So that's a sign of success because it's an attempt that failed and I think from an outside point of view it does seem that progressive politics is more active in Taiwan and has more traction than in other Asian countries. Would you agree?

Yes, I think apparently so, but honestly I think Asia sets a rather low bar for that.

So I think in default in Taiwan, but I think a lot of it is actually driven by this desire again to receive international recognition. And progressive thought is often thought as being the most advanced thought. You do have kind of pushback, especially in the past, let's say, five years in the form of Sun Yung people that are more kind of focused on these machismo politics, these very macho male politicians like Wang Guo-chang or Ke Wen-je or Ho Kuo-chen and the Taiwan People's Party. But that is still, I think, smaller compared to progressive young people. We saw the emergence of, for example, the largest set of protests in the 10 years, last year and that outnumbered anything of those who are more attracted to that kind of machismo in politics. Very similar to let's say the alt-right or insult movement in other parts of the world.

And there's a danger as well that we're in a world in which there's an apparent popularity of the strongman leader and obviously you see it in America with Trump and who did win the popular vote now in the second term and that can always pose a threat to civil society and the nature of progressive politics. So tell me, Bloom is now over 10 years old and it's achieved a lot as a very liberal and activist vice in Taiwan but what are your plans or vision for New Bloom in the second decade of his life?

Honestly, I have no idea. Part of it is just continuing to go. And so I think it's a miracle we got to near somehow. And that's the thing that surprises me. But I think it's always been a struggle to keep it sustainable because basically, we're all volunteers. Nobody gets paid. People get on and busy with their lives. And so some projects are, for example, maintaining the space. But then how long can we keep it going? And how do we make it more sustainable? But I think also we want to do it to more connect, I think, local voices from, for example, local civil society with international civil society.

Increased focus on Taiwan now and civil society groups are trying to figure out how to navigate that. For example, this influx of INGOs, international NGOs. So do you try to change your working style, become like them? Do you maintain things as they are? How do you navigate that? How do you get used to the different forms of socialisation with international organisations or bodies? That's another kind of cultural thing to navigate. was trying to assist with those efforts in that sense. So we tried to do that. But also I think we may have other products, for example, try to publish more for example, more like a magazine style where you have specific issues on a topic or we also have a sub stack, which is a more recent project, more newsletter focused to try to bring together things because we find that there's the publication, New Bloom, New Bloom Magazine, the online website, but then also the physical space daybreak and how to connect the two and have two conversations in conversation with each other can be a bit of a challenge sometimes because those are inherently separate things, an online publication in a physical space that does events.

In many ways, it's very similar to a sort of embryonic version of The Guardian, where The Guardian, so I know The Guardian is a newspaper more than a magazine, and it's physical, but The Guardian also has a physical space, which is an open forum for discussion, and that's my impression of what Daybreak is. So it's more of a hybrid online magazine, physical space, sub stack, and the sub stack gives you an audience outside Taiwan as well.

Yeah, I think so. And so there's that. mean, I think that a lot of publications do create spaces, for example, such as, let's say, Verso books, for example, they have the Verso loft in New York City. And so there's that attempt to kind of have these different conversations. And it's a way of kind of knowing who your audience is, because what we found after five years of publishing online is we didn't really have a good sense of who our audience was until we started having a space. I mean, we did events regularly and we started events more and more once or twice a month. And that gave us some sense of an audience. But I think after we started a space, gives us much a clearer sense of who that is. But also I think that we want to expand to other forms of mediums because we did have a podcast, but then the person that does the podcast went to grad school and got busy. And for example, we also want to do video content at a certain point. And that just became very cost intensive actually, required a lot of labor, which we don't normally have the capacity to do. And so find ways to simplify the process, but also do other mediums because people consume information differently, I think.

I agree and the issue is this is a trial and error process. So the different mediums you try, the better because you get to broaden your audience and also by physically meeting them, you build that loyalty and customer intimacy. Tell me, going back to the economic inequalities in Taiwan, this impacts you personally because you're in that age group.

If you were a government minister, what would you do? What would be your policy plan to reduce those economic inequalities? What would you want the government to do?

Yeah, that's a good question. I I think it's a challenge. think part of it is that there's a need to make housing more affordable. And so various measures have been tried. For example, having a database of houses. You can see if there's been the transactions where the value gets inflated. But then that's also why there's all these products to build social housing. And somehow they just never get completed. They don't build enough of it. It doesn't get done in time. It takes years and years. There's fighting between local and central government about who's responsible. So that's been a challenge. And then, for example, young people are not having children, which is true in a lot of countries, because nobody can afford it, and so the government usually acts by handing out cash stipends. But I think generally just Taiwan needs a better work-life balance, and so if there's ways to do that, for example, higher pay and less working hours or changing the working culture, having stronger unions, for example, those are ways to change things. But then the government is often very unwilling to go there. Even the former administration, which was socially very progressive, more so than the current Lai administration, there was this kind of undoing of labour reform, which saw substantial protests from vast segments of the youth, including many of the leaders of the Sunflower  Movement.

People that later on did actually join the DPP. But then that's actually one of issues that the labor laws in Taiwan are still quite weak. And so I think there's a real need to really work on that. And so if I were a policymaker, that's what I would try to do, just put more labor protections in that. And that affects everybody. For example, now Taiwan is seeing a mass departure of doctors and nurses because they are overworked. And so people don't want to work those jobs. You don't want to work the graveyard shifts that are in the dead of night. And it affects survivability and potentially patient care as well. the surgeon, my wife is a plastic surgeon. So I see this on the front line where if you are exhausted, there's the possibility of it will impact the patient care inevitably. But it's also.

Exactly, Yeah, I mean, working these long hours is not helpful for patients, mean, yeah.

On the housing, the housing is difficult to solve because Taiwan is a relatively small island and the population of 23 million. Social housing is maybe one outlet but fundamentally you would need to build a lot more social housing.

I'm actually not sure about that. The thing is that there's still more empty apartments there are, for example, compared to people. And that's quite surprising. For example, Taiwan has pretty low rates of homelessness because rent is actually still quite cheap. They're not great houses, but people still have a roof over their heads. But even in spite of Taiwan having a really limited space, there's still actually a place to develop. And you still have this thing where basically real estate companies come and build a high rise in the middle of nowhere and they're to be sold and then nobody's buying because nobody can buy. And so this keeps happening.

There are thousands of empty homes.

So those empty homes are because the properties are built in the wrong area and maybe not connected to transport or the grid or so on. Or they're because...

It depends. Some are actually pretty essential, but still empty. I mean, you get a lot of projects that basically exist for no reason except to invest. And that's the other issue. So that's one of the attempts of the government is crack down the phenomenon of house hoarding, people that have more than one home as a form of investment, basically rich people investing further by buying homes that they're not using and hope to sell eventually at a high price, but then nobody's actually buying. And so I think that's the challenge.

So it's essentially speculation where they're investing in the hope that the price would go up. But that could potentially be resolved through taxation where you increase the tax on second homes or third homes. So there's lots of potential measures that can be used to, yeah, yeah. But they are.

Yeah, the attempt is taxation right now.


So no, many people do not want to pay more tax. So they're controversial. obviously, but essentially the tax levers are one way of doing that. Trade unions. So trade unions are interesting in terms of, you will know that over the past 40 years,
there's been since the Chicago School of Economics and Milton Friedman became very prominent. It moved from a stakeholder form of capitalism to a shareholder form of capitalism. So you are on the front lines of Occupy Wall Street after the great financial crash. And one of the issues here is societies globally have often become more unequal.

Trade unions have become weaker and enfeebled. So the origin of trade unions is the bargaining power and to negotiate on behalf of their members. But if they have been weakened through legislation, that bargaining power is reduced. Can you give us an overview of a trade union movement in Taiwan? How strong it is, what is happening, possible changes?

Yeah, absolutely. mean, there is a trade movement in Taiwan. The history is very linked with democratisation because unions were used by the KMT as a way to control people, manage companies, to actually even hit production quotas, for example, for companies through using the union as a lever. And so in the process of democratisation, there's a need to form new unions that were not subordinate to the KMT. But those are often very industrial unions. And so what's interesting, too, is that particularly in the 10 years since Sun Fire movement, a lot of labor activity is actually very much among young people. But there are young people in specific industries, often the transportation industry for example. And then a lot of the labor organisations that you see emerging are more like labor NGOs, they're not traditional unions, and some of them have to be kind of cross-company and cross-industry. And so for example a pilots union, example representing pilots in more than one country, or a flight attendants union representing flight attendants in more than one company. Whereas there's an official company, yeah exactly, there's an official company union which is often more conservative, but then a lot of it has been in the transportation industry. So for example, in 2016, I believe there was the China Airlines flight attendants strike, which was then the largest strike in the transportation industry, later surpassed by another flight attendants strike in Eva Air. But those are the ones that got a lot of attention and that had a lot of support from CIT, particularly because they are young people. But then there was also later pushback. And so a lot of union busing activity took place and was, in fact, legalised in the sense that, for example, there's a recent ruling in which the company was able to demand compensation for the union for all the days in which there was loss because they were on strike. And that in spite of the fact that the company fired, for example, the union head and carried out other forms of retaliation.

And then there was this attempt to really push for unions having to give advanced notice of strikes, which of course really weakens strikes. And then unions are often made to force to sign agreements that they won't strike for a while. And oftentimes the company will not follow through on the rest of the agreement and the union now does not able to strike. It's not able to strike. And so there's that challenge. And it's interesting to me that's still confined to certain industries because the unions in Taiwan historically have a weakness as well that they're often appealing to the central government to intervene in local struggle.

And so they're always directing their appeals to the general public to pressure the government for the government to come in, not for the company to fold. And that has to do with that sometimes the places that are more prone to strikes, like the transportation industry, there's government investment in these industries. For example, various airlines or bus companies and things like that. It applies back to that the structure of the economy in Taiwan has a lot of state intervention. And so there's a lot of state-owned enterprises or part-owned state-owned enterprises. And sometimes that's where the labor activity is.

So the union would actually then the goal of the union to improve the deal for the members is to put to appeal to the public and then in the hope that the public then puts pressure on the politicians to actually renegotiate basically because of the state interest.

Yes, that's right.

And so it's actually really good question how to get beyond that kind of paradigm, because I think that strategy is sort of running out of steam. Again, some of the other stuff, the other labor activity has been reacting against the undoing of 20 years of labor reforms and the Labor Standards Act. And a lot of young people are involved, but that was actually not really through traditional organizations. It just through spontaneous social movement activity, forming new networks or leveraging existing networks that are not traditional unions, some labor NGOs and things like that, but not traditional unions, actually. And so that's another phenomenon. But actually, one sees that in many countries, in the East and Southeast Asia. It shows a shift from unions to more like labor NGOs that are much more young people. So actually that's another structural phenomenon.

I guess the other issue is that the workplace is undergoing massive change because while if you go back say 40, 50 years ago, people would work for a large employer, there'd be hundreds, maybe thousands of employees, but now it's fragmenting because of digitalisation, digital nomads, gig workers and so on. more freelancers. So in ways the NGO option is better because the freelancers opt out. It's not so much that they opt out of the union, but they're harder to bring within a formal union because the structures aren't developed for that type of work.

Yeah, that's right. And so there's much more casualisation of work and so forth, and also the gig economy and the rise of that. And so, for example, there are unionisation attempts among delivery drivers, for example, or food delivery drivers. But then sometimes the companies are up against are just pretty willing to defy the law anyway. For example, Uber, which is big in Taiwan, which is now run by Delivery Hero. They just, you know, when they entered the market, they just kind of racked up violations and didn't really care. And then actually the government just had to make way and they had to live with it. And so it's actually very hard in those situations. But I think there are much more freelance workers and so there's that but I think sometimes the unionisation models or are not always keeping keeping up with the times actually.

The other thing is, if you look at company like Uber, the Uber business model is move fast and break things. And they're fine with that because they move so fast and they believe that the policymakers will pander to them because they want to keep them in the country. it's about navigating the balance between that and knowing what the end vision is and how to get that. So in any conversation on Taiwan.

Yeah, exactly.

People will always bring up the geopolitics and China and so on. And I often see in my own mind, there's many comparisons between Taiwan and Ukraine. For example, at the time of the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan, there was also a similar movement in Ukraine. And Ukraine obviously now is at the center of global politics because it's a relatively small, it's not small geographical area, but it's very much dependent on US support and it has obviously been invaded. So do you think the war in Ukraine weakens Taiwan's position because it's shown the US under the Trump administration not to be committed?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think that Ukraine often serves as a template for Taiwan to imagine what its own potential future could be. And so I think before Ukraine, many people, regular people, were not necessarily policymakers or experts, had a vision of the US directly getting involved right away. For example, just seeing Iraq and Afghanistan and thinking, well, the US is always going to get involved. But of course, Ukraine is a case in which the US did not put boots on the ground, rather supported from afar because of this fear of escalation with Russia. And so there's that. And so now I think people are increasing contemplating the possibility of going forward without US getting directly involved, but at best offering arms or supporting from afar. And so that's also interesting because I think that in some ways then Taiwan has learned from Ukraine and so it has actually benefited because I think that's, oh these dynamics were true for a long time, but people didn't really reckon with that until there was a concrete example of what happened. Taiwan generally I think views support for Ukraine as helpful for it because of the fact that this shores up the will to resist in Taiwan, showing that a much smaller country can still fend off a much more powerful and many times larger neighbor. So I think that there has actually been this kind of projection onto Ukraine. And also there was originally some views that perhaps if the lesson of Ukraine is that Russia cannot succeed, then that actually Taino will think twice about trying to take Taiwan. Unfortunately, after all these years of war, it's not necessarily the case that they can hold out forever, particularly with US support in question. And so Taiwan is also, I think, watching that somewhat anxiously. I mean, seeing the exchange that happened last week, for example, between Trump and Zelensky in the White House.

What Ukraine has shown is with a very charismatic leader, you can win a lot of international support, international goodwill. And that happened after the invasion and even now there's immense global support for Ukraine. But there's also been a fundamental shift in global politics because the old alliances are fragmenting and if America takes a very mercantilist view of the world and a very transactional view, they see Ukraine potentially as just a trading chip of limited value to them. And
while everything you say about Russia's invasion is correct and that Russia has struggled to really make any inroads, Ukraine is effectively defended by US military weapons and we're drawing the intelligence support, we're drawing the military support, even though the European countries can step up, it takes time. So I think it shows Taiwan an alarming future, but also gives Taiwan time to potentially prepare and build alliances and so on.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's actually, in that sense, a double-edged sword. I mean, there's some positives but some negatives. And so I think Taiwan is watching very carefully. mean, for example, even the military science of drones, let's say, but also just how the world has reacted to Ukraine and the kind of alliances that Taiwan can build up, for example. And so think these are things that Taiwan has really kind of kept in mind in watching the war. But unfortunately, now it looks like things are quite challenging with the state of the White House as it is.

Exactly, but also given that Taiwan is an island it is an invasion be much more difficult because in the case of Ukraine the Putin's troops literally just came across the border in the case of Taiwan it will be far far more challenging there will be heavy troop losses fatalities.

Absolutely.

Yeah, mean, it'd be on the scale of D-Day. I mean, there has not been a logistical operation of this magnitude since World War II. And the question is, would China really want to have such an immense death toll within just a few weeks of fighting just because of how difficult it is to take an island? So Taiwan does have that going for it, this geostrategic advantage in that sense, being an island. But then the challenge is also resupplying that, for example, Ukraine can resupply because it is connected by land to other countries, whereas that is not the case with Taiwan. So you need everything in place before an invasion.

The question is how to have prepared us for that and what can deter China, what can prevent them from taking Taiwan by knowing it is quite costly.

Exactly. One of the other interesting issues going with the Ukrainian example and so on is that since Trump's election, there's been, I believe, a 40 % increase in the number of Chinese Air Force flights into Taiwanese airspace and so on. But on the streets of Taiwan and streets of Taipei, it's very calm. And people have become somewhat acclimatised to this, basically, that the Chinese military maneuvers, they might be perceived as threats but people aren't so fearful of them.

Yeah, that's right. think part of it is that they occur at such a distance from Taiwan that Taiwan never sees it. But I think the other fact of it is that China hasn't really built up a narrative around it, that, for example, people don't pay attention to how many planes it is today or tomorrow. If there's an increase, they just see planes or they see it as a news item. And as China has carried it on, it's becoming increasingly regularised, so people don't really pay attention. Again, moving goalposts. And that is actually precisely the aim of Grey's own tactics, actually, to move the goalposts, to regularise this kind of activity to the extent that it becomes not just signaling or threats directed at Taiwan, but also a form of practice. And so it is also quite interesting in that regard. People do feel a sense of threat, but it's interestingly enough, people react when it's actually not occurring around Taiwan. So people react to Ukraine happening or Hong Kong, the protests in 2019, or when elections are happening and they feel a sense of threat if the KMT comes back to power. But paradoxically, in the event of actual Chinese military planes or ships and things of like nature, Taiwanese don't actually react. And I think that part of it's on the Chinese government because again, it's become very repetitive, but that's also what they aim to do, but also on the Taiwanese government for not communicating that sense of threat enough to the public, let's say.

Taiwan's often historically spoken of as having a so-called silicon shield with TSMC. It's a global center of chip development, chip expertise, manufacturing and so on. But since the Trump administration came to power, TSMC have announced a $165 billion investment in the US, but in manufacturing facilities and also in actually an R &D center.

So is there concern that as TSMC may have outgrown Taiwan and as it diversifies globally, it actually weakens the silicon shield protection?

Yeah, there is concern about that actually, that for example, the KMT will criticise the DPP as giving away the crown jewels to the US for free in exchange for very flimsy security guarantees. And so I think there is definitely that concern, which I think is valid. TSMC has grown and so TSMC should actually try to frame it, I think, increasing the reliance of other parts of the world on Taiwan. But then can they actually do that? That's a question. They've always stressed the most advanced chips will remain in Taiwan. But on the paradox, I think what is interesting is that when you look at, for example, what Morris Chang, the TSMC founder, was saying,

In past decades, he very much actually wanted to get to China. And so now TSMC has been forced to take sides, actually. And so it's of chips in literally with the US, but also Taiwan, and also in terms of Taiwanese politics with the DPP specifically. And so that's also interesting. I think TSMC, if it really is forced to commit to being a Taiwanese company for now and forever, then it really will want to keep the world invested in Taiwan's defense. And so then it actually will make sure to keep the crown jewels in Taiwan. And so I think it's a question, but also in that sense, TSMC does need pressure actually from the public. A fear again of TSMC leaving, which I think is valid, will actually further entrench them in Taiwan. I think that is Taiwan's strategic advantage.

But the issue is in many cases, TSMC, it's outgrown Taiwan and there's always the poor and the challenge it faces is you have a hegemonic power in the US at the moment and the leverage that they can use against TSMC. Although TSMC does have many ace cards, but we're at a...I think what's interesting is actually looking at some of the other places that TSMC has built facilities, for example Germany and Europe, or in Japan. That also seems geostrategic, for example, don't put all eggs in one basket of the US, but also Europe and also Japan, the other regional military power. And so think actually that is also by design, but that's speculative.

I mean it's a company where it plays with politics and geopolitics and business and actually it's investing in so-called allies in terms of Japan, Germany and so on. So in many ways it's building up those alliances. So moving on from the tension of geopolitics, you have become a published author this year with Taipei Daybreak. Tell me a little about the book and the process of writing it.

Yeah, it's actually kind of funny because I keep using the word Daybreak for things. Daybreak the space, Daybreak project, and now Taipei at Daybreak. And so I was thinking of calling the launch party Taipei at Daybreak, at Daybreak, but not at Daybreak, it's not at Daybreak like morning. But then I think it's, I wrote it basically drawing from my own experiences in this environment. And I think reflecting on that after a decade, it's actually very much an early 20s novel. I wrote it basically in my early to mid 20s and just sat on my desk for like five years and I turned 30 and I was like, I should try to get it published.

Actually when I wrote it, was actually around the time I was doing the interviews for the Daybreak project. So was actually very informed by hearing all these views from other participants in the Sunflower Movement and writing down my experiences actually in the Sunflower Movement. lot of the text actually I wrote down shortly after the movement itself, whether that's the Sunflower Movement or Occupy Wall Street or other movements I participated in, because I knew that memories change and so if you don't write down something immediately after it happens, your memory is going to change. And so it is actually drawing from my writing during that time. Part of me kind of wonders why I really want to get it out there in the world and I don't know. I I always wanted to be a fiction author and I ended up becoming a journalist. And originally I studied literature, example, English literature as an undergrad and I have an MA in Chinese literature. And so it's kind of like, I'm not sure why, but I still want to get it out there. And so now it's out there in the world now.

It's a great achievement. I'm always said there's a book in everybody, but very few people actually go through the process and you've got it published. I mean, huge congratulations. And as an author and now you have a work of fiction on sale, would you, what are your own plans? Would you like to move towards more, more producing, more books or focus more on New Bloom or how do you, how would you see your own career going?

Thank you.

Yeah, I think I'm working on another book probably in the next year, which is more nonfiction, I think on social movements in Asia. But then particularly, think for me, I knew that because I'm a journalist, probably if I wrote just the first nonfiction book and then followed up with a fiction book, people are why is he writing fiction now? So was kind of thinking about my public profile in that sense, that I went with publishing this first. But then after that, I do think I do have more fiction books in me as well. think there are ideas for other books, questions that come up in the book that I still want to contemplate in fiction form, for example. But I think that's still kind of long term plan and what I also realised from publishing a book is how difficult it is getting a publisher that is willing to stake all this you know money and resources on a book that may or may not sell because it is one of those industries in which a lot of things just there's so much content out there and so just kind of disappears and some things are popular but that's very, very rare.

I actually think it's incredibly hard because many authors they have to send the the manuscript to 100 200 publishers before they can get there's a famous case of the Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling who who I think she was turned down by every single publisher The only reason she got a deal was one Bloomsbury, which is the end publisher the guy she sent it to he did not even read the actual draft. He gave it to his seven-year-old daughter and said take a look at this is it something you would be interested in and then she came back after a few days and said daddy you definitely need to publish this and hence now we have Harry Potter so so there's a huge amount of luck but I think you are very much a renascence man because you have so many interests and definitely the book. So

Thank you.

As we come to the end of the podcast, there are two questions which we ask every guest, they're more fun than lighthearted questions about Taiwan. So for international listeners, what is your favourite place or must see destination in Taiwan, which you would recommend everybody to go to?

That's a good question. I think it may be the Sijang Street night market, which is not very well known as a night market, but it's next to the Longshan Temple, which is very well known as a temple. But especially on Sundays, it has a very bizarre market where people just sell all sorts of random things, and it draws all sorts of random people. So I see everything from used CDs to Buddhist statuary to knives to toys from the 1980s to records for sale, and there just all these odd characters around there. For example, there's one time I was eating from a stall nearby and this man just picked up and grab some of knives that are on display and start waving them around and I'm kind of looking at him like should I like call the police? You see an attack somebody and he just puts it down and walks away and there's like a pig that lives in the night market that the owner walks around and I see him walking around his pig in the local area so that place I like a lot and it shows a lot of the different layers I think of Taiwanese material culture in that sense just the random objects people have around and try to put for sale on a market for some reason.

And it's eclectic, it's different. So I always think that the best memories are made by going off the beaten track. And from everything you said, you see that snapshot of Taiwanese life at night, which you would not get in a more cleansed environment. So I think it's a wonderful suggestion. One final question. So Taiwan is internationally famous for food and it's become in recent years very much a foodie destination. Do you have a favourite Taiwanese restaurant or food that you can recommend and why?

That's a very hard question, actually. I think the thing...

It might be the hardest question to podcast, but yeah.

Yeah, like, the interesting thing is I find there's a lot of Taiwanese food that doesn't realise it's Taiwanese food until later on. For example, the most famous example is beef noodles. It was thought to be from China, but then turned out actually when it was traveled open to China, was allowed that it's actually not from China. It's actually a Taiwanese invention. And then you have, let's say Mongolian barbecue, which is not actually Mongolian at all, but a Taiwanese invention. General Tso's chicken actually, believe it or not, is also a Taiwanese invention. But then that poses as a food invented by General Tso. And this is documentary where they interview General Tso's descendants and have him eat it they're like, what is this? And I think then my favourite is the Thai mooncakes actually, because those are, again, pretending to be Thai. And they're not actually Thai, they're Taiwanese. But then Taiwan is so often mistaken for Thailand. And then now, strangely enough, you can find it in Thailand.

And so that's another, I think, way in which actually Taiwanese culture is very pluralistic. It has a lot of influences. But then it took a long time for there to be this kind of coming to self-confidence about Taiwanese culture, that there is a culture of its own and that there is unique products of it. And so I think that's one example. There's so much products or food posing at things from other places, but now people are kind of recognising it as Taiwanese.

I think that's a great way to explain Taiwan because it's...

There's a richness and a depth and a diversity to Taiwan, which is not really fully appreciated and often overlooked, but the country has gained more more self-confidence. And I think you see it perfectly, but there's lots of definite food tips for people to check out. So Brian, thank you so much for your time. It's been wonderful to have you on the podcast. Thank you. 

Thank you, good night.