Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

“Where land ends, the world begins.”
This quotation sets the tone as we present our Focus on Taiwan in the Pacific, transcending land’s natural boundaries and turning our attention to the ocean, as we explore a world so unfamiliar to Taiwan. Most of the authors in our Focus are members of the newly established Taiwan Society for Pacific Studies, the creation of which is not inconsequential to Renlai. As the publication and website of the Taipei Ricci Institute, Renlai and eRenlai are key components of the research organisation originally set up by a group of foreign missionaries. Back then, these Jesuits were also navigating bravely beyond the boundaries of their own lands in Europe and America, to experience their own new world...

Read more: A new world begins

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

Professor Hsia Li-Ming talks about the need for mainstream society to start realizing their role in the Pacific and calls on the arts to provide the impetus for the Taiwanese to turn their heads East to the strange, terrifying and unattainable waters on the other side of the Island.

Read more: The Land-Locked Island: Taiwan's Lack of Pacific Perspective

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

Indigenous Taiwanese take to the seas

The circular flow of the warm Kuroshio Current from the equator, forms a sea path which links Taiwan and other islands together in an interrelated cultural area. Within this cultural circle the Kavalan, who once had exquisite maritime navigation skills, left many precious historical records...

Read more: Crossing Kuroshio

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

Edwin Yang talks about the development of Pacific Studies academic tradition in Taiwan. Though focused on the establishment of Pacific theory native to Taiwan, it is also relevant to Pacific discourse in other establishments and to any current or future scholars with an interest in the Pacific.

Read more: The development of Pacific Studies in Taiwan

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

[inset side="right" title="Fabrizio Bozzato"] is a doctoral candidate in International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University. He is researching Taiwan’s diplomacy in the South Pacific.[/inset]Six of the twenty-three countries that currently bestow diplomatic allegiance on the ROC are in the South Pacific. Therefore, the Oceanic region is of prime geopolitical importance to Taipei. The chief motivation behind Taiwan’s activities in the Pacific Islands is the defense of its ‘diplomatic space’ by countering China’s efforts to extirpate Taipei’s diplomatic presence. In addition, Taiwan uses its aid policy as a means to raise its international profile through promoting itself as a humanitarian power and aims to...

Read more: Looking south: Taiwan’s diplomacy and rivalry with China in the Pacific Islands region

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

Professor Tung Yuan-Chao discusses the problems of anthropology in the contemporary world, given the questionable moral origins of this academic field. She attempts to define a new framework in which Taiwan can look at its Pacific neighbours without echoes of Western imperialism affecting their gaze. As well as discussing how body habits can be more important to identity than ancestry.

Read more: Dispelling Cultural Imperialism: Taiwan's Gaze towards the Pacific

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

Article abstracted from the original Subjectivities in the Crossover Action: A note on the ‘Keeping Rowing Project’ from Lanyu to Taiwan, 2007. The project was initiated by Chien-Hsiang Lin (林建享), who did much of the organisation and directed an accompanying documentary of the whole process called Kawut na Cinat'kelang (Rowing the Big Assembled Boat).



Lanyu (Orchid Island) is an offshore island in eastern Taiwan. Because of its distance from mainland Taiwan, the Tao, indigenous people living on Lanyu Island, still maintain a relatively traditional culture. For example, the traditional houses, T-pants, fishing rituals, plank boats etc., are distinctive features of Tao culture, and they still now remain part of Tao...

Read more: Keep Rowing: The subjectivities in the crossover action

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

Maka sagaz ka mo katowan.[1]
-May you have the soul of great fish.

Syaman Rapongan[2] (b. 1957) is a contemporary Tao (or Tawo)[3] writer in Taiwan. Since his debut publication in 1992, he has brought Chinese-language readers literally back to Tao-speaking people on Pongso no Tao (Island of Man)[4] on the west rim of the Pacific Ocean. This indigenous writer’s blue-water literature (poems, myths, essays, short stories and novels)[5] has often been praised by Taiwanese literary critics as one of the few windows to the beauty of tidal waters running about and especially on the east coast of the island. His special contribution includes introducing an undersea perspective, enabling many lively scenes below sea level to surface...

Read more: A subaqueous loner—Syaman Rapongan

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

Professor Tsang Cheng-Hwa (Institute of History and Philology at the Academia Sinica) discusses the need for researchers to work across disciplines on an international scale towards a more comprehensive understanding of the Pacific and Taiwan's current and future role there.

Read more: Taiwan: Apart from or a Part of the Pacific Region

Focus: Turning East, Taiwan's Pacific Frontier

When discussing Taiwan’s links with the Pacific islands, it is well worth considering the religious dimension.  I have previously written about the connection that Taiwanese religious groups, in particular New Religious Movements, are seeking to forge with Mainland China[1].  However if we look in the other direction, from the gritty megacities of China to the lightly populated islands of the Pacific Ocean, we can see another current of religiosity that is circulating belief, culture and innovation.

The New Testament Church (NTC) is a small charismatic Protestant Church based at Mount Zion in Kaohsiung County in southern Taiwan. It was founded by a Hong Kong movie star in 1963 and has managed to survive leadership disputes...

Read more: Going on a Pacific island 'holyday'