Taiwan Studies Seminar

With the emergence of the so-called new Cold War, Taiwan is again thrusted to stand in the geopolitical fault line of contending powers. The dominant narrative revolves around potential flashpoints in Taiwan Strait and their disruption to the world economy, tacitly assuming the self-governing island as a passive pawn in the global chessboard. This lecture brings back Taiwan’s civil-society actors by examining their interventions to the crisis of democracies and the repressions of pro-democracy movements beyond the borders over the three decades. In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, Taiwanese initially responded with a nationalistic patriotism. Democratization consolidated a distinctive Taiwanese identity, and thus, subsequent commemorations proceeded with a cosmopolitan perspective grounded in universal values of human rights. The same democratic identity set off spontaneous waves of solidarity actions with Hong Kong (2019) and Ukraine (2022). The lecture will conclude with a reflection on how these international activisms mean for Taiwan’s own political future.

Ming-sho Ho is professor at the Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University and the Director of Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Science, National Science and Technology Council (Taiwan). His research interests include social movements, labour, and environmental issues.