EDITORIAL CARTOON

When people lose faith in the future, they begin looking for answers in the past. As economic opportunities narrow, China’s Gen Z is finding comfort in an idealized version of the imperial era. That might look like a harmless social media trend, but it is a symptom of something much deeper: A disillusioned generation, fearing it will not do as well as the ones before it. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the nostalgia has become a valuable political tool.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) once derived much of its legitimacy by rejecting imperial China. During the Cultural Revolution, temples were destroyed,

The strategic architecture of East Asia and the Western Pacific is routinely criticized as inherently fragile due to the lack of a collective, multilateral defense treaty like NATO. Instead, the region relies on the US-led “hub-and-spokes” network of bilateral alliances. This fragmented structure exists for pragmatic reasons: America’s regional partners — including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand — possess vastly disparate threat perceptions, historical grievances and constitutional limits.

Consequently, when then-Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba revived the concept of an “Asian NATO” in October 2024, his proposal was swiftly dismissed as geopolitically unrealistic. Yet, this perceived vulnerability

Taipei LAST MONTH reached the dizzying heights of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) delivered a almost two-hour long keynote at Nvidia’s GTC Taipei, touting the arrival of the era of agentic AI, AI factories, AI PCs and physical AI, and crowds filled the halls of Computex; once again, Taiwan found itself at the center of the global technology stage. Among the most attention grabbing displays were the humanoid robots.

No longer confined to science fiction scenarios, as Huang said, “useful AI has arrived.” It is set to move into factories, warehouses, hospitals, care facilities and hazardous work

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) has proposed cutting more than NT$1 billion (US$30.9 million) from the Ministry of Culture’s proposed budget during the second round of legislative reviews. The proposal would eliminate the ministry’s entire NT$47.38 million public communications budget and reduce funding for than 30 other items covering operations, personnel, administration, equipment and subsidies.

The ministry said the cuts would affect funding for performing arts groups, visual arts organizations, publishers, bookstores, community cultural projects and local museums, adding that they would undermine efforts to strengthen Taiwan’s cultural sector and expand its international presence. Cultural organizations have criticized the