This is my last show for Rti, but I am keeping the show going on a new feed! If you want to keep listening to the show, you can find it at https://shows.acast.com/the-strait-up-podcast Today on the show I have a very special guest, Mike Chinoy. Mike was the first head of CNN's Beijing Bureau which opened in 1987, and led the coverage of important events such as the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. He is now a non-resident senior fellow at the University of Southern California's U.S.-China Institute. Mike is also the author of the recent book Assignment China: An Oral History of America ..read more

Most people are probably aware that Taiwan has an aging population. In fact, Taiwan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. According to the National Development Council, Taiwan’s fertility rate in 2022 was 0.87. That makes it either the lowest or nearly lowest in the entire world, with similar rates to South Korea, Hong Kong, and Puerto Rico. Thus, one can see how government policies that support working children are also tied to Taiwan’s fertility rates.  Today I have on the show Grace Huang. Grace is a professor at St. Lawrence University in New York. She is currently a Fullbri ..read more

Today we tackle an issue that is unavoidable if one lives in Taiwan, which is road safety. And I don’t just mean road safety for drivers on the road, but also for pedestrians on the sidewalk. However as you will discover in this episode, Taiwan often lacks sidewalks on many roads. Roads in Taiwan thus must share their narrow spaces among pedestrians, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and everything else that needs to move. Taiwan’s chaotic streets are well known to residents, but most international audiences will likely only have heard about this issue after CNN published an article that referred t ..read more

Today, I am very honored to have on the show Alicia Kearns, Chairperson of the U.K. House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. Alicia’s committee released a report a few weeks back which contained some very strong language regarding Taiwan’s sovereignty and how the U.K. government should handle the Taiwan issue moving forward. We talk about that along with a few other issues such as the government’s still-classified China policy, the expansion of Indo-Pacific defense arrangements, and the conflict in Gaza.    This episode is shorter than most as our time was limited. There’s also no ..read more

Today I bring you another episode focusing on what is, on its face at least,  a domestic issue in Taiwan, but I bring it to you with a comparative international perspective. That issue is Taiwan’s minimum wage, and why is it so low compared to other developed countries?  My guest today is Roy Ngerng, a researcher and writer who has worked on issues such as the minimum wage for many years. Roy is from Singapore and currently resides in Taiwan where he writes for The New Lens. Roy’s work as an activist and writer in Singapore actually got him into a bit of hot water over there, which y ..read more

Hello and welcome to the Strait Up Podcast, a show about international affairs with a focus on East Asia and of course Taiwan. That focus on Taiwan will be much tighter in the next several episodes including today, as I take a look at several issues that affect Taiwan, but which have an international component. And today, that topic is Taiwan’s upcoming 2024 presidential election.  The election will see current president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) reach her term limit which means there will be new blood in the Presidential Office one way or the other. Tsai’s vice president Lai Ching-te ..read more

Today I bring you a conversation with Ian Chong, associate professor at the National University of Singapore and Nonresident Scholar at Carnegie China, which is part of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. Ian’s research has focused on topics such as the international relations of Northeast and Southeast Asia, and important for our discussion, Taiwan politics and cross-strait relations.  Ian has done quite a bit of fascinating research which covers a lot of ground. Likewise, my conversation with him also covers quite a bit of ground, with a few too many topics ..read more

A look back at the biggest news and events impacting Taiwan in 2022 with commentary by Bonnie Glaser, Asia Program Director of the German Marshall Fund, Stanford University Political Scientist Kharis Templeman, Democratic Progressive Party Deputy Secretary General Lin Fei Fan, National Chengchi University Political Scientist Lev Nachman and the people of Taiwan ..read more

Natalie Tso speaks with Voice of America Correspondent in Washington D.C. Jessica Stone about how the US midterm elections could affect policy towards Taiwan and China ..read more

DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan talks about why the world's democracies need to support Taiwan to deter China from attacking Taiwan.  Lin was a prominent leader of the 2014 Sunflower Movement which occupied the legislature in protest of a trade pact with China. He was recently boycotted by Beijing ..read more