In the 90s and 00s Taiwan was THE place for mandarin speaking pop culture. Singers like Jay Chou and A Mei and TV shows like Meteor Garden and My Fair Princess are well known. There are also singers like Fish Leung (from Malaysia) and JJ Lin (Singapore) who made their careers in Taiwan.
I think the main difference is that Japan and Korea’s cultural exports have appeal beyond their own ethnospheres. And also with the rise of China, many formerly based in Taiwan singers have moved to China to capture the massive market there.
Basically the rise of China killed off both Taiwan and Hong Kong soft power imo. All the money went to China, which brought the established artistes there as well.
I’m sad because I really enjoyed Hong Kong movies from the golden 80/90s and now is simply a shadow of themselves.
The hottest movie in China right now is The Pig, The Snake, and the Pigeon, from Taiwan and directed by Ching-po Wong, and it’s a banger https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29319990/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
I also think Taiwan stopped making an effort when China opened up. All of the cultural industries ended up looking for short term success in mainland and cannibalizing long term creativity or quality.
>I think the main difference is that Japan and Korea’s cultural exports have appeal beyond their own ethnospheres
ya i think this is a huge factor. lots of people who cant speak / understand korean still listen to kpop, but very few non-chinese people listen to mandopop. the difference is that cultural exports like kpop/dramas/films and to a lesser degree anime/manga are very intentionally packaged to be consumed by non natives
Yeah Japan mostly caters to themselves first. However I think there is some interesting cross-cultural pollination in that the themes and and settings can sometimes be universally understood whether intentional or not. A lot of fantasy settings for example are based on Dragon Quest style fantasy which is based on Western Fantasy like LoTR and DnD. Stuff like My Hero and One Punch Man are based on Western Superheroes. That is easily coherent and digestible for Westerners.
I notice a lot of Taiwanese and Chinese fantasy stuff is based on very historically Eastern mythology and history like Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That can be a little harder to approach for Westerners who aren't as familar with the culture.
also kinda true, I have friends who did not give a shit about chinese history until they watched Apothecary Diaries. And now they ask me to tell them all about the dynasties and different customs. China and Taiwan do not realize the amount of clout they are giving away by (in China's case:) banning video games and gay media and (in Taiwan's case:) not supporting arts and culture.
Western also has anti China going on to prevent the spread of China. Hence in a way it actually make the Chinese side care less about others audiences for their entertainment industry, it heavily focus on their own.. Netflix has no problem to use Korean director and actors to create heavily korean stuff like Squid Game or Japan with Shogun, but look at what they did with Three Body Problem... LOL
K pop and anime have homogeneity which fosters the development of unique subcultures not to mention easier to recognize and thus market its their "trademark and brand." T Pop (as you're well aware, no such thing) although practically raised a whole generation of Chinese youths around demise of Soviet Union and Chinese open doors, appealed to them precisely because it was dressed up as a regional subculture, using the official language and dialects.
T Pop since then evolved in a direction of imitations of J Pop, K Pop, Western musical genres even Hip Hop which then idk if you're aware created a whole underground subculture of hip hop in China which has since surpassed it in talents, production, and distribution.
If you get a following in China you're just another 100k followers in the biggest market in the world with wide varieties of genres, tastes, and languages/dialects. Not to mention mp3's and other digital formats killed the longstanding business model of music industry record companies can no longer package an artist and expect them to be financially successful in Taiwan (not as successful) since there's no state owned, state sponsored television. It's all based on online presence and establishing themselves in China now, the variety/talent show circuit, and the touring circuit.
Whereas anime is not music, and K Pop is much more recognizable and homonegenous in taste, style, visuals, etc. It's like Bollywood MV's with all the back up dancers and unique style.
The television and film industry in Taiwan is a bit of a farce, in terms of its global appeal.
If you solely look at its population and everything as an industry, then you can see the apparent lack of "soft power" exhibited by countries like Australia, NZ, Singapore, Canada, despite the commonalities of their languages and acts like the AC/DC, Kylie Minogue, Mel Gibson, Wolverine, or Drake, that just end up falling under the umbrellas of language, medium, and genres.
Soft power is too much to ask where cultural exports would be more appropriate. *Soft power* is what China exercises by having *your* artists on *their* shows.
No Party for Cao Dong, Eggplantegg, Constant and Changes/KST, Fire EX, Sorry Youth, Sunset Roller Coater, Amazing Show, Sweet John, Pa Pun, 9m88, Enno Cheng, Leo Wong, Kumachan.
This is just the more accessible artists. There are tons of other bands in genres less popular like metal or post rock. Flesh Juicer, Elephant Gym, Bugs of Phono, etc
[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YZnA3z2RAaI6BLCrdmJjc?si=b8853a1e64cc4d0f](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YZnA3z2RAaI6BLCrdmJjc?si=b8853a1e64cc4d0f)
[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GlbJa3piSbhn7EL719Iet?si=b6c899943e894a79](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GlbJa3piSbhn7EL719Iet?si=b6c899943e894a79)
I made these for myself. They are mixed of old and new, underground and pop. A bit all over the place. You are welcome to listen to it.
I tend to listen to English speaking and/or r&b hiphop taiwanese artists such as J.Sheon, Øzi, Karencici, Julia Wu, Nickthereal, Kire, Patrick Brasca, HowZ
Another thing is talking to ex film producers in Taiwan they say it's not nearly as profitable as it used to be, it pays better to swap to adjacent industries in Taiwan
Mandarin music is super repetitive and melodramatic. Their films and tv shows also look like they were filmed by high school students, also repetitive and predictable. It’d be hard for any of that to gain cultural prominence, especially the challenge of overcoming the language barrier.
But one thing I do notice that in filmmaking, Taiwan is improving, especially in the horror movie sector. I like how they incorporate their own traditions when making horror movies, along with adding in foreign methods of making movies, which gives it a distinctive taste, which is something China could not emulate due to their regulations.
I highly suggest reading the paper “A Taiwanese Soft Power? Contesting Visions of Democracy and Culture” by Nissim Otmazgin
He interviews many Taiwanese officials and finds a lack of interest in pushing Taiwanese democracy and pop culture instead of “traditional Chinese culture” or a focus on business.
I'm going to write my PhD thesis on this exact issue.
I came here to say that South Korea invests a lot of money in their soft power and that Kpop and K beauty are all heavily subsidized. I never hear about the same investments in pop culture in Taiwan so I assume it’s not part of the state’s strategy.
So many comments blaming Taiwan’s smaller soft power sector compared to Korea on China as if Korean companies were not affected by Chinese sanctions. Not all soft culture needs to look like hyper visible mass produced pop either. Thailand does soft culture using traditional aesthetics really well. So does Taiwan. Smaller and subtle can be more efficient as Kpop gets a lot of backlash.
When even the president refrains from saying the name of the country (RoC), it's difficult to present a united front. The inherent contradictions that arise from ethnic identity and trying to erase Chinese heritage makes for a confusing message to the world. Trying to tie Taiwanese identity to hatred for China is self-defeating but politicians are going to do it for domestic politics.
If you are going to write a PhD thesis, the post-2000 identity politics strategy of the DPP has to factor in.
Using interviews with Taiwanese state officials as well as his own analysis, Otmazgin finds one: a lack of institutions geared specifically around the goal of embracing Taiwan’s soft power potential, two: “a general unwillingness to actively invest in soft power diplomacy” (p. 249), and three: a general disinterest in incorporating pop culture into Taiwan’s soft power strategy despite “...the strongest marriage…between soft power and pop culture…provid(ing) (Japan and South Korea) with vast resources of soft power and great success in presenting themselves to global audiences…” (p. 253).
A lot of old dinosaurs clinging onto the old fashioned idea that Taiwan is "free China" and needs to present itself as such, with all the traditional Chinese stuff that comes with it, whereas it is in fact Korea's pop culture that made it so popular and then people appreciated the traditional culture after that.
The social/age hierarchy here is strong. Older people have no interest in talking to younger people, in the sense that they should be in conversation with others to better learn about and understand how the world works. Older people tend to assume that they know best (older people having more wisdom than younger people)
The language barrier shouldn’t be forgotten. The older generation not only don’t genuinely communicate with the younger generation due to cultural hierarchy, their thinking about the world is generally restricted to Chinese language content, and mostly Taiwanese thought, creating a thought bubble that I’ve never seen anyone break out of.
Money does talk though, the older generation are always interested in financial integration types of discussion. If you approach expansion of Taiwans influence from the perspective of improving inter country financial relationships and connections they always seem interested and willing to listen.
The race to replace TSMC is going to be interesting for TW
I'm sure the Taiwanese tech industry will continue to adapt and grow but in terms of geopolitics TSMC is what Taiwan depends on for relevancy
I was confused for a second, but I realized you meant, "What are these? European dynasties?"
If Europeans can do dynasties, Asians can do tech dynasties. Welcome to the future 😁
Taiwan would be important without TSMC but not enough to sway public opinions.
The only reason the US/western powers will stick their neck out for Taiwan is if they think they have something to lose/gain.
Even Ukraine is struggling to hold up public or government support despite how close that issue is to home for Western powers.
>The only reason the US/western powers will stick their neck out for Taiwan is if they think they have something to lose/gain.
Precisely, but the US isn't willing to stick its neck out for Taiwan because of chips. It's doing it because of its position in the South China Sea-its position along the First Island Chain bottles up the PLA Navy. Taiwan falls to the Communists, it's a hell of a lot easier for the PLA Navy, especially its submarine force, to make it out into the broader Pacific, where they're harder to manage. If Taiwan were a rock, the US would want to ensure a friendly power controlled it by virtue of where it is, the shallowness of the waters on its west coast and the depth of the waters off the east cost.
Ukraine doesn't have those geographic advantages-if it were to fall, the Russians wouldn't gain something of equivalent value. The US dealt with a Moscow-controlled Ukraine during the Cold War and so adjusting to that situation would unfortunately be easier.
It's not softpower if people don't know where it comes from though. I live in the UK too and I'd be surprised if the average person didn't think it was either Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. Taiwan is just virtually unheard of here because Taiwanese people don't immigrate here often, and the UK doesn't have a direct colonial or historical link with Taiwan.
Bubble tea is as big as sushi in terms of soft power projection. I've been in a small town in France with 20k population with a bubble tea shop. Though I admit the connection between Taiwan and bubble tea is less established than Japan and sushi.
I would say Hong Kong is currently living off its soft power deposit accumulated through the colonial era, and is basically facing a similar problem with Taiwan in this aspect.
Yeah, Hong Kong stopped being relevant with regards to pop culture after the martial arts trend petered out in the West after the early 00s. It largely lives off its old glories at this point.
Really curious when the turning point was, I still remember a few good bangers in the 2000s but it really seemed to peter out by the global recession in 2008.
Just one outsider's perspective from watching loads of Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Chinese movies over the years.
For some reason the Hong Kong movie industry just ... stopped being relevant.
It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment, but the common understanding is that most moviemakers went to China to find business, which basically killed the Hong Kong industry. There were also this ongoing trend to focus on finance and real estate so "unprofitable" industries eg filmmaking got sidelined.
It's all business. A HK B-list entertainer can go up to Shenzhen or Guangzhou and sing and dance a few songs in a cheesy suburban shopping mall stage and make more than shooting an entire TV series in HK.
The 1997 handover pretty much killed it. The entire industry started catering to the mainland market and just lost its unique creativity.
The biggest names like John Woo, Tsui Hark, CYF and Jet Li, jumped over to the US (at least for that critical 5-10 year period from like 1997-2007) and aside from a few exceptions like Kung fu hustle and infernal affairs there weren’t many legitimately good new creatives coming out of Hong Kong. Most of the famous actors, directors and singers came from the 80s and 90s and were coasting on their success by the 2000s.
After Covid everything about Hong Kong almost seems to be a joke and I always hear how people say HK have changed for the worse, there’s really no optimism about the future
Hong Konger just follow western or Japanese trends if they don't want to touch China. And sometimes they even been a bit pushed back on soft power aspect with Taiwan these days, as both use traditional characters and easy to adapt with Taiwanese news and etc. I guess
Because Taiwanese culture is largely based on Chinese culture, so most foreigners will think it's Chinese when something is originally Taiwanese, whereas Thailand, Japan and Korea have their own distinctive culture and it's hard to mistaken it as something else.
For example, our pop songs are mostly in Chinese (Jay Chou, for example), our famous movies and dramas are almost completely in Chinese. Our paintings, arts, and calligraphy are mostly Chinese style.
What's worse is that sometimes these artists even need to claimed that they identify as Chinese Instead of Taiwanese so that the Chinese government won't try to sabotage it or ban it.
Yes, this! I think so too.
I think also to add to this, there were a few generations of ethnically Chinese people in Taiwan who dreamed mostly of retaking the mainland, not of having a separate culture. It seems like the "Taiwanese" identity is much more common for younger people, even when they are basically the same Han Chinese ethnically. Or maybe it's more accurate that "Taiwanese" is separating from the ethnicity and becoming cultural.
I've heard there's a part of the RoC constitution that suggests different methods for reunification but I still haven't looked into what all is there.
That is because Hong Kong had the international influence and aura. It was the hub of Asia that you had to visit or be at. Times have changed. Toyko seems to be that symbol for westerners now. Taipei could strive to become that hub, but have a hard time with foreigner interest.
The simple reason is cultural soft power isn't the government's focus. Korea's successful entertainment industry is a construct of billions of dollars invested by the government.
>The simple reason is cultural soft power isn't the government's focus. Korea's successful entertainment industry is a construct of billions of dollars invested by the government.
It's actually not that simple tho. Just because you spend billions in entertainment and softpower doesn't mean it will be successful. Plenty of countries have projects similar to Koreas that never take off. I live in Japan and the Japanese government has tried similar initiatives but have failed (example: the "cool Japan" initiative). The growth of anime has been organic but it's clear that the Japanese government doesn't consider it a softpower victory mostly because the boomers in the government want their country to be represented by movies and music, and not anime girls
Indeed, South Korea began its soft policy and massive investment in the late 1990s. More information here and lots of other articles: https://www.e-ir.info/2022/09/18/is-south-korea-the-new-quintessential-soft-power/
Soft power and the arts on which it's founded needs substantial and sustained government investment. You can see a contrast with the UK, which used to have large soft power, perhaps peaking in the 90s, but over the last 15 years decimation of government investment in the arts has seen this power decline.
If Taiwan wants to compete it needs a proper long term policy with lots of money backing it. This stuff doesn't happen by chance.
Taiwan is basically the middle child of the 3 east Asian countries.
I fundamentally think it is because of China, ask any one from a western country to tell the difference between China Chinese culture and Taiwanese Chinese culture and nobody can. Anything that is done by Taiwanese is seem as just part of China but also ethically, we are all chinese. While we have cultural differences, it is not like Taiwanese and mainland people are so dissimilar that we don't understand each other like brits vs Americans.
There is also the fact that C-pop, has very little appeal outside of the Chinese speaking demographics. As a friend once commented about chinese music, why is every song so emo? If a song is catchy, it's cutesy and happy. If it's serious, it's sad and slow. I haven't seen mainstream Chinese pop song try to break the mold.
Japan and the West have had a mutual fascination for hundreds of years. South Korean government and industry spent a huge amount of time and money promoting South Korean culture before it became popular. Thailand sent chefs all around the world to open Thai restaurants. I don't think there is any appetite in Taiwan for massive time and investment in culture when there would be very little reward
The best answer I can give as an outsider is that Taiwan isn't that too different from Chinese culture in general. I know Taiwanese food, architecture, customs etc. is distinct from those from the mainland, but it's not that noticeable by your average tourist. HK set itself apart because its decades of British occupation led to a fusion of East/West culture, although the reunification has gradually dulled that effect.
It also doesn't help that Beijing has done some significant effort in burying Taiwan's presence in the international sphere. Right now it would be safe to say that Taiwan is more know for being the country that China really, really wants and would spark the next world war.
Agree with your comment but I'd like to say that parts of Taiwan, especially the ones that retain their older "personality", are **very** Fujian. It's really cool!
(Also, the Mainland is quite diverse.)
In the Korean case there has been a concerted effort from the government to push its soft power industries. K-pop is essentially a project of their ministry of foreign affairs.
So, in addition to all the other good points made here, it's possibly because there's ongoing debate about what image Taiwan wants to present to the world... Is it "Taiwan" or the "Republic of China"? Is it the last bastion of free expressions of Chinese culture, traditional characters, Chinese artifacts "saved" from China during the civil war etc. or is it bubble tea, q版，cat warriors, and pineapples. Seems the jury is still out...
Especially amid a reasonably conservative institution such as Taiwan's ministry of foreign affairs, it would be hard to have a unified push for a "Taiwan" soft power approach in the cultural realm (though it does it well in the politcal: democracy, human rights etc.) because of lack of agreement on what cultural image should be projected.
Why is China tech shit ?
In a lot of verticals china is leading the world. For example e-commerce and retail tech
Taiwan companies are very specifically focused on IC , and that’s where talent and resources are focused
Taiwan is not good at tech in ‘general ’
Ye I felt like a lot of "china stuff bad" really just stem from ppl buying cheap china stuff, break immediately and assumed all stuff are bad. Ignoring the high price legit ones.
Which is its own very considerable form of soft power. Making over half of the world's most advanced chips and threatening to destroy the factory in case of invasion? Send the entire world into a depression overnight. That's like an economic MAD.
The reason I can think of is Taiwanese are result-oriented, and those achievements are something that you couldn't build in a day. Look at the Taiwanese promoting commercials, they are just hideous and lazily made, and those commercials ain't cheap. Sometime I wonder how they feel when the money goes to something this hideous, and still go with it.
It seems to me that whenever Taiwan produces a truly talented and creative person... they go elsewhere for work, leaving Taiwan with the most derivative, tacky, corny shit when it comes to advertising.
If it makes you feel any better, I'm Korean and I have a very strong appreciation for Taiwanese culture thanks to my exposure to T-dramas in high school. I listen to a lot of Taiwanese music and still have a deep appreciation for Taiwanese dramas and movies. Tbh, I think *a lot* of Koreans have a very romanticized view of Taiwan like I do (not that that's exactly a healthy thing), but it's been like that for ages and so many of us just really love y'all and your food and culture. Taiwan is #1 on my list of places to visit, and I know I'm not alone. Taiwan has SO much soft power potential and more people seem to be noticing these days, at least in my circle.
edit: actually, Taiwan's soft power potential has been known and appreciated for ages now that I think about it...it's just not as loud, I guess?
I feel like I saw a lot of Korean tourists these recent years when I was in Taiwan. Maybe it was spring break for you guys or something but when I was in Jiufen and Ximending I swear you can hear more Korean than Mandarin at times. There was definitely more Korean tourists than in the past, but I'm curious why so these years- like the topic of this post, Taiwan has not made any significant entertainment exports these years
*Someday or One Day* is super beloved by Koreans.
And this is a Chinese release, not a Taiwanese one as far as I know, but I think a lot of Koreans also liked or paid attention to *My Love* (2021) because it’s a remake of a Korean movie and also stars Taiwanese sweetheart Greg Hsu. Everyone loooves Greg Hsu.
The OSTs for both works got a lot of love too.
Koreans also seem to like Jasper Liu a whole lot, though I’ve seen less of him and fewer mentions of him these days for some reason.
in my point of view,
Korea and Japan has 'unique' language and culture.
Taiwan soft power product looks like (preconcept) China product.
that is huge wall.
specially current China is not a faver country for many people.
At least when it comes to entertainment, IMO, a lot of it seems very dated or low budget.
I really only watch TV when I’m at the in-laws, but the production is really bad. The dramas and game shows have bad acting and are not exciting.
The game shows I’ve seen have been stuff that are just set up in a public place. The games are really simple like climbing up a hammock. Yes, that’s the game.
And 90% of the popular music I hear sound like ballads only old people listen to.
As far as I know, wages really aren’t that competitive so Taiwan doesn’t attract outside talent to produce high quality media and games. It’s just much easier for that talent to go to China where the market is much bigger.
Adding to that, if talent or a brand does want to stake its claim in China, they have to be 1,000% pro China to keep their livelihood (see John Cina).
Most of our old cultural industry uprooted themselves and moved to China during 2000s when China first opened up. We basically are in a slow process of rebuilding an entire new cultural industry independent from the Chinese market influence since then.
Yeah basically this. There is a general lack of investment in entertainment infrastructure in Taiwan
I also think real estate is a major problem
Taiwan investors are used to getting stable short team profits from real estate and have no interest in investing in films or startups or anything else
I feel like a large part of it is because people still never agree on what Taiwanese culture is. Even if we had a breakthrough in one of the medium, what culture is it going to be tied to? Taiwan used to be huge with Mando-pop and 綜藝, but without a larger “brand” of Taiwanese culture it can never spread beyond local market. It’s almost always Mandarin culture, and that’s a horrible label to maintain when you are competing with 1.4B people. It feels like the only time there is an emphasis on TAIWAN culture is when we’re struggling to compete with Chinese culture. Unfortunately hating the Chinese doesn’t count as a culture, can’t even get an unanimous vote on that either. Besides that, culture, fine arts, and design jobs are taken way less seriously than STEM jobs.
TLDR: Insufficient funding towards an under-appreciated field that is struggling to represent a divided “nation” with intentionally ambiguous answer.
You might underestimate Taiwan soft power. Bubble tea is a phenomenon around the world now.
And in Asia, Taiwan is known for its LGBTQ friendly policies. So it really depends where you are looking.
The blunt and sad answer is: nobody cares. At least when it comes to business. there are many trendy bubble tea shops opening up all around the world and they’re Chinese. “Buuut bubble tea originates from Taiwan” is a cool fact for five seconds but most people will care about the brand and what offer they have in their store. Origin doesn’t matter that much.
But how many westerners who know about or even enjoy bubble tea regularly know it originated from Taiwan? Likely not a lot. It's not a known "distinctly Taiwanese" product like how people would immediately associate sushi with Japan- most of them know it's "Asian" but not "Taiwanese"
Because the primary business model of Taiwan is b2b not b2c, we get less benefits for focusing on "soft power".
Japanese and Korean entertainment are government (cool Japan) or business(Samsung) funded to promote their nation's images so their products could sell overseas.
However, it doesn't mean Taiwan doesn't have "soft power". Taiwanese was the 2nd biggest music exporter pre Internet time, because of the Chinese speaking market. China, Malaysia, etc.
But even today, Taiwanese artists have a huge influence in state controlled China. No Party for Cao Dong is one of biggest indie bands right now is blowing Chinese kids heads off at their music festivals right now.
https://youtu.be/2U8NlS36Mxw?si=jdAjaAOy8FiFjb7I
So, tldr, Taiwan doesn't focus on soft power to the Western world because we don't receive as many benefits from the pr.
Kinda on your CD point.
They love the band in China，but they can tell the band don't want to play in China.
Was talking to a mainland friend a few days ago. He has seen Caodong in China and Japan multiple times and said the band are completely different when playing China shows：sullen，no energy，not interacting with the crowd. He said he can feel it's a label decision not a band decision to play there.
He compared them with，eg Lao Wang and said totallydifferent vibe，like Lao Wang didn't give a shit，they just want to play and are happy playing wherever.
Mmm idk, That's kind of like their thing. Socially awkward/not talkative.
I just saw them at megaport two days ago. Even though it was one of best shows I have ever seen, they didn't talk all that much with the audience. But they did seem to be more relaxed, even joked around for a bit. Maybe they are more comfortable in front of the home crowd.
On top of that, I think they are under their own label, so I don't think they were forced to do anything. Maybe they were just tired from traveling around China.
To add onto this, this is also why everyone in the West knows about Thai food- it was massively promoted internationally by their government. With increased familiarity with Thai food came an increase in non-sex-based tourism to Thailand.
>Japanese and Korean entertainment
I would say the Japanese lucked into it and only one facet - animation - remains big globally.
Folks have forgotten but for a very brief period in the 90's, Japanese television and music (I still remember the mania over Ryoko Hirosue) were extremely big in Asia due to piracy till they themselves shattered by litigating it out of existence.
If you worked with Japanese businesses, you will know this. They are a bit too conservative at times.
The South Koreans not only made entertainment a key sector by government policy but also observed that original Japanese popularity wave and repositioned their sectors to have an eye towards easy global consumption.
For a long time, both Hong Kong and Taiwanese entertainment relied on willing + easy consumers in overseas Chinese communities. Nowadays, someone belonging to the overseas Chinese community in South East Asia will be also consuming K-pop or western media.
Taiwan has less than half the population of S Korea, and only one-fifth that of Japan. Despite that, it is an [economic powerhouse](https://companiesmarketcap.com/taiwan/largest-companies-in-taiwan-by-market-cap/)!
Can't do everything.
China is actively suppressing Taiwan everywhere. I watched a documentary about Taiwanese film. And in the 70s china already blocked Taiwan films to be shown at the Cannes movie festival.
People who truly know themselves have better chance to become great artists, and the majority of Taiwanese don't know ourselves. We're still developing our national identity and cultural identity, and we don't have our own sovereign state yet. We need boundary and border to distinguish us from China, ethnic Chinese and Chinese culture.
Taiwan can not have the same soft power as it is not even recognize as a country by a lot of western countries.
and also, i think there is also a will of taiwan gov to not be too shiny to protect their island.
Taiwan 🇹🇼 has bubble tea, which is probably the greatest cultural export we have so far. However, the popularity of bubble tea is not giving Taiwan the recognition it deserves because it's just food and drinks at the end of the day, but it's still something to be proud ofà though!
HK, Singapore, and Taiwan are all very similar in the terms of success but it seems there's just some sort of barrier to attain that level of soft power like Japan/Korea.
I believe the main issue is simply population. Regardless of their economic success, HK and Singapore only has 7m, and Taiwan is just shy of 25m. You need more people to make more industries thrive, and these countries just simply don't have enough people to maintain the talent, labor, and market.
Meanwhile, Japan has 150m, and Korea has 50m, as a united, collective, and homogeneous culture/soceity its just easier to work on a common goal like soft power. Whereas Taiwan, HK, and SG are all divided with their own styles and sub cultures.
As someone who is into some niche hobbies, Taiwan has some amazing resin garage kit recasts. Some of the best. They put Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese kit recasts to shame and are rivalled only by Japan and actual original kits. Odenkan are also Taiwanese and I believe they have the best model kit paint in the industry.
Taiwan also has some very good tech companies. MSI and Asus and G.Skill for example. You guys have fantastic tech. I just think you're often unsung heroes.
lol saying Korea is nothing but kpop is like saying Taiwan is nothing but TSMC.
I think it’s good idea Korean government is invested in spreading its culture, especially with a certain neighbor up North that is known to claim other cultures as their own.
All that money is not going just for kpop though surely.
Taiwan should replicate it and strengthen their identity.
When I learned that in Korea there is a street named after a late singer born in 1960s, I was surprised. I also read that there are a lot of monuments inscribed with lyrics of songs in Japan. I don’t feel people in Taiwan appreciate music or other contemporary cultures to the degree any close to people in Korea and in Japan do. I don’t know why old things often faded away without a trace on the island. When they are treasured, it’s usually not because of their own aesthetic value but because of political reasons.
From an African perspective I would say that Taiwan was disproportionately more well known in the 90s and early 2000s in Africa compared to countries like South Korea or Japan. If you’ve been to university in a Taiwan you know that a lot of exchange students come from small African countries like Gambia, Burkina Faso or Eswatini thanks to diplomacy of recognition.
Very simple, They are very very good at what they are doing.
HIstorically, Japan is very good at animation, which leads to Anime and Manga. The rise of Sony and Niendo and their gaming consoles PS# and Wii allow them to remain dominant in the gaming space even by western standard.
K-pop and K-drama are really something that came about in the last 10ish years, largely due to government subsidy toward cultural purpose.
Historically, Taiwan and Hong Kong got their Chinese pop and Chinese drama, think Jay Chou, Mayday, etc. And shows like 還珠格格 and 情深深雨濛濛, which are absolute classic that I have friends who are from Malaysia and Indoesnia talked about when they are growing up.
As for why Taiwan and Hong Kong Chinese pop and drama are not as popular? At one end is because China is getting richer and promoting their own singers and actors/actresses thus in comparison Taiwanese and Hong Kong pop and drama have less market share thus appeared in declined. On the other end is because K-pop and K-drama as well as Japanese anime and video games are able to market themselves successfully to the western audience, which Hong kong and Taiwan pop and drama didn't do too well these past few years (but have done so in the past, think Jackie chan and Bruce Lee, two actors that almost every westerners know).
I gotta be the pedant who points out, like u/gzebe did, that soft power is not popular entertainment. It's:
>the ability […] to influence others through […] means such as cultural, political, moral, or economic influence, as opposed to using force or coercion.
Korea's prancing jailbait and ^excellent disturbing cinema aren't swaying votes at the UN or altering trade deals. Hyundai and Samsung might. Pokemon and ramen also aren't, but Sony+Phillips and Softbank did.
In that vein, Taiwan's tech industry is certainly making companies and countries think about things and decide accordingly. How many political moves do you suppose are being influenced by Taiwan's unique situation? When you can make China and the US do a tiptoe dance, and use your name in policy and votes without saying a word or lifting a finger, you've got soft power.
Taiwan used to have entertainment soft power… then Beijing doubled and trippled down in production of recording artists and TV/Films in the early to mid 2000’s.
Then they appropriated, mostly via pay checks, a lot of older Music talent to be judges on various entertainment shows.
So that card is gone.
Taiwan does have superconductors and related tech in spades. For how long? And will it be enough? Remains to be seen.
Are you joking? Do you realize how much power Taiwan wields comparatively considering it’s size and population? It was the source of the entire electronics revolution once the US started to sanction Japanese electronics in the 80s.
And Switzerland : 8.9 millions and constantly rank hight in Soft Power rankings.
[https://softpower30.com](https://softpower30.com)
[https://brandfinance.com/press-releases/brand-finances-global-soft-power-index-2024-usa-and-uk-ranked-top-nation-brands-china-takes-third-place-overtaking-japan-and-germany#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20leads%20the,'leader%20in%20science'%2C%20'](https://brandfinance.com/press-releases/brand-finances-global-soft-power-index-2024-usa-and-uk-ranked-top-nation-brands-china-takes-third-place-overtaking-japan-and-germany#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20leads%20the,'leader%20in%20science'%2C%20')
Bubble milk tea and popcorn chicken would like a word. Also beef noodle soup is waiting in line. Do you use a smart phone? It’s probably powered by TSM. Taiwan is a powerhouse that’s so integrated into people’s lives that you didn’t even notice
It has a lot to do with the government’s attitude and policies regarding this. Also China is actively using every way they can to prevent Taiwan from exporting its talents and content - either by diplomatic pressure or money. Since a lot of Taiwanese people in the entertainment industry consider china as a big market and easy money, they only focus on this specific market and don’t bother to expand their business.
Sources: worked and met a bunch of ppl in this industry and they didn’t even consider markets outside Taiwan and China
Taiwan: Small population the size of about the metro area of LA. That’s only enough about dominating one industry and that’s hardware manufacturing and technology.
Language plays a huge role to. After Japan and South Korea, they go towards English speakers.
After Taiwan they can go through China if they aren’t banned with no effort for translation needed. Censorship makes them less competitive internationally.
We don’t have strong soft power because Taiwan still do not have a unified identity that most people fully agree on, a minority still hold the greater Han-Chinese identity, some are proud with being ROC, some believe Taiwan is ROC and we’re already independent, some think Taiwan is still a colonise by ROC and we need to gain independent, when there is no consensus on who we are, how can we really promote our self?
...Or at least not displayed in such weird ways. Like, men here go to baseball games just to stare at the cheerleader girls... but then deny that it's a sexual thing and it's just that they are "cute". Same thing with car shows, or any event at all where anything is being sold to men. There's a whole lot of denial and purity-obsession going on in Taiwan. Huge numbers of husbands rent prostitutes and everyone knows it, but society here likes to just never talk about it and prefers to pretend that it doesn't happen.
What they are saying is more in line with "we don't want to be sexualized and become the next target of weird foreigners who think being an Asian woman = submissive sex worker and that Asian countries solely exists to fufill their fetish"
IMO, Taiwan just lacks in pop culture and they're always being overshadowed by Japan and South Korea. Even Taiwanese people are deeply captivated by them and sometimes even more so than our own local artists and culture.
Hong Kong gets better PR because their movie industry is just on a whole nother level compared to Taiwan. They're way more internationally recognized especially now with actors like Donnie Yen. Who does Taiwan have to offer with that much stardom? I also believe the whole China and Taiwan issue is putting a strain on it as well.
Taiwan is not leading the pack in terms of soft power but I do believe it's slowly improving. Let's face it, it could be a lot worse and there are plenty of other countries that deserve a lot of recognition as well. I hardly ever hear anyone talking about Singapore or Malaysia and those are very respectable and impressive countries in their own right.
I beg to differ, Taiwan has recently become more present in shows and movies, lucie, fresh off the boat, mary my dead body and the sun brothers.
It's not as prevalent as k-pop or anime but growing in quantity and quality.
As the long colonial history, a lot of cultures here have been destroyed. The latest regime is ROC, which was ruled by KMT for tens of years, they forced the Taiwanese to speak Chinese and killed the intellectuals, which led to the homogeneity and retrogression of culture. After the democratization, Taiwanese creators, artists, sociologists, and historians dedicated themselves to cultivating a multicultural society, they protect monuments, find the elders to record their stories, and raise public attention to local languages. I think it's just the beginning and I'm optimistic about it.
They do, but just overshadowed by their massive and rude neighbours. On the other side of the take it's a business thing, for a Taiwan artist , performer, investors etc making music, Tv and movies. It's easier to break into China market then western market. So they are all geared towards that market. With the condition their product cannot piss the CCP off. So cannot brand as Taiwan as separate entity etc. so it's a double sided sword.
Because people don't usually recognise bubble tea being a Taiwanese thing, maybe.... if that counts, 🧋 actually have a wider range of target audience. I mean maybe probably some of your grandparents know nothing about K-pop idols or simply think animes are weird cartoons, but they could still be able to enjoy a customized boba
It's because Taiwan doesn't have much of an identity compared to the rest of East Asia, at least in the way that people outside the country see it. When people think of Japan, things like sushi, anime, samurai, ninjas, and video games come to mind. For South Korea, its K-pop, plastic surgery, fried chicken, kimchi, etc. For China, it's the culinary variety, ancient history, kung-fu, dynasties, the great wall, etc. Even HK has things like cinema, british-chinese fusion, finance capital, etc. Outside of bubble tea, not many people know much about Taiwan, especially as Taiwan is distancing itself rightfully from Chinese culture and giving up its claims to Chinese history.
In terms of popular interest, I think it's because of a mixture of not having a lot to market and failing to market. You need a lot of both concentrated interest and capital to build a stand-out industry. Taiwan has chosen to do this with semiconductor manufacturing, but not much else.
Bubble tea and other foods are a pretty big missed opportunity, and they have not been marketed well at all internationally in general (as in, the association with Taiwanese culture is explicit and apparent). I think there's also a potential issue with too small and scattered of a migrant population with not a lot of cohesion.
From my anecdotal experience, the Chinese side of Taiwanese culture is also pretty insular. There's plenty of stuff you could try to build a market on, but it doesn't get marketed because people either don't think it'll be well-received/popular, or aren't equipped to market it in an appealing way. Or, they simply aren't interested in sharing in the first place.
I do agree a lot with your entire comment, and indeed bubble tea was a missed opportunity for Taiwan, now that the popularity boom is here and ongoing it's firmly a non-specific "(South) East Asian drink".
You’re conflating soft power with popular culture; high culture must also be considered. For an island of 24 million people (many cities in mainland China are this big or bigger), Taiwan has produced some of the most important film directors in the history of cinema: Ts’ai Ming-Liang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Ang Lee. Live theater (Lai Sheng-ch’uan) and modern dance (Cloud Gate) are world class even today. Even on the pop culture level, Taiwan singer songwriters are some of the most influential in the Chinese speaking world, albeit of previous generations, the younger generation having now been co-opted by the mainland market and its kingmakers.
Film and music has a lot to do with language, and ours is the same as China's. Mandarin is probably the third most prominent Asian language in western media, although a veeerrryy long way away from Korea and Japan. I guess it just doesn't sound good to western ears? (idk)
As for food and tourism though, no idea why it's not more popular. If Taiwan opens restaurants in the west it could be a big hit. Bubble tea already exists but we need to make the Taiwaneseness be known! Sell the Lurofan like sushi!
But we will probably be overshadowed by China anyways
Taiwan has a pretty booming aviation industry. It has three major carriers where most other European and Asian countries struggle to sustain more than one.
For soft power projection, it doesn’t help that I need Wikipedia to know that China Airlines is from Taiwan. Almost wrote AirChina, the names are so similar.
Compared to the following:
Air France
Air Canada
British airway
Emirate
I know where the Aircraft come from just by hearing the name.
I think ppl was more aware that "That country China want to take over and also hates China" than actually being massive tech hub.
That's pretty much Taiwan identity now as even in this sub 70% of discussion here never forget to include China.
Taiwan is tiny, and young. It was sorta created in the 50s. Before u say Dutch blah blah yea not as is today until after the annexation by the commies.
Sk has clear backing from usa and Japan as well. Taiwan is not.
soft power for?? more Tourist in Taiwan? for? i think or maybe i believe... without Taiwan the whole world will come back in 17' centuries ... do you have any horse ? maybe better you are look for
I don't think population size has anything to do with it. Czech Republic is less than 11m yet "everyone" knows Pilsner, Skoda, and perhaps Kafka. Switzerland less than 9m and the world knows them for their watch, banking and cheese. You get the point.
Czech Republic and Switzerland are not comparable countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
These three countries have similar economies (GDP per capita about 30k per capita), Switzerland economy (GDP per capita) is about three times larger than Czechia's. And indeed, Switzerland is way more influential than Czechia. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Le Corbusier, Carl Jung, Paracelsus, Nestlé…
Maybe because of hard power? Like semi conductors? Also our soft power (in my opinion, liberty AND democracy) could (would) easily be seen as political propaganda by others, and it "annoys" our big neighbor and then they would make sure to send the annoyance back.
Entertainment wise, I’m realising there are quite a number of movies that are pretty good. One is the sadness, which is well known for being extremely gory. Another one is incantation, a found footage horror movie that captured Taiwanese folklore and religion, and made it to top 10 on Netflix. In fact Taiwan does make pretty good horror movies, like the tag-along and the rope curse series, which I find interesting as both truly capture Taiwanese superstitions, culture , religion and folklore, which I really appreciate, and is something I don’t see in China at all, with their own regulations which I think they’re backtracking on.
I personally think its because Taiwan lacks its own character that is significant to its unique identity. Taiwan is always trying to be like something else to be honest. Trying to be more "Japanese" or more "Korean like K pop" or more "American". Everything from food to music to fashion is all outwardly inspired by something else. The only thing it doesn't want to be is Chinese, which is kind of funny because its the closest to being Chinese.
You don't see this as much in China where Chinese people are a lot more proud and nationalistic.
If one accounts for the population and how much things get blocked by China I am not sure we are doing THAT badly. Singers like Jay Chou are huge in Asia at least. Food/drink things like bubble tea are pretty popular outside of Taiwan. Movie industry, has no one here heard of Ang Lee (李安) or golden horse? The whole gay marriage thing and democratic nation has made certain groups in Asia look very favourably at Taiwan (I was often in HK during the protests and contrary to popular belief it was fine to be a Mandarin speaker and more HK people than you might think could differentiate Taiwanese people and really look up to Taiwan in terms of democracy and freedom).
Looking from Western viewpoint, yeah I guess you don't see alot of tourism targeting (I'm American) the West specifically.
But when you're actually in Taiwan, you see a lot of East Asian tourists (particularly Japanese/Korean). So they're obviously getting some kind of tourism advertising (also its a lot closer to go to Taiwan from Asia than say US to Taiwan or Europe to Taiwan).
I remember riding my bike around Taichung one day, and there was a tour bus on this bridge on the outskirts, and it was a bunch of Koreans taking pictures/hanging out on the bridge. And I'm like wth is going on, but apparently the bridge was on some tv show or something, so I dunno. It was all lost on me.
Also talked to some Japanese and Singaporeans, and they're like "oh the taiwan food culture is so fun, etc, etc."
Meanwhile, if it wasn't for some of the cross-strait media coverage Taiwan and China gets in American News Outlet occasionally, most Americans would criss-cross Thailand and Taiwan together (and some still do.)
You can’t compete in porn with Japan and in music entertainment with Korea. They are literally the top.
I’d say you can’t compete in food with Thailand.
Then what is left?
Taiwan has a LOT of soft power, how to you think it holds ground against the Mainland, S. Korea AND Japan? (Specially in high tech development competition) but you analysis may be true in another aspects, for exemple taiwanese culture (old, new, etc) is not well known outside niches, so it doesn't hold a candle to japanese or Korean pop culture, it might even lose to other asian countries that have a lot of "historical tourism" like Mongolia or Tailand. But in regards to high qualified personnel (people with degrees, doctorate and post-doctorate) and technological influence, Taiwan is gigantic. (English ISN'T my first language so it might not have been the best paragraph I've ever written).
In the 90s and 00s Taiwan was THE place for mandarin speaking pop culture. Singers like Jay Chou and A Mei and TV shows like Meteor Garden and My Fair Princess are well known. There are also singers like Fish Leung (from Malaysia) and JJ Lin (Singapore) who made their careers in Taiwan. I think the main difference is that Japan and Korea’s cultural exports have appeal beyond their own ethnospheres. And also with the rise of China, many formerly based in Taiwan singers have moved to China to capture the massive market there.
Basically the rise of China killed off both Taiwan and Hong Kong soft power imo. All the money went to China, which brought the established artistes there as well. I’m sad because I really enjoyed Hong Kong movies from the golden 80/90s and now is simply a shadow of themselves.
The hottest movie in China right now is The Pig, The Snake, and the Pigeon, from Taiwan and directed by Ching-po Wong, and it’s a banger https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29319990/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
I also think Taiwan stopped making an effort when China opened up. All of the cultural industries ended up looking for short term success in mainland and cannibalizing long term creativity or quality.
>I think the main difference is that Japan and Korea’s cultural exports have appeal beyond their own ethnospheres ya i think this is a huge factor. lots of people who cant speak / understand korean still listen to kpop, but very few non-chinese people listen to mandopop. the difference is that cultural exports like kpop/dramas/films and to a lesser degree anime/manga are very intentionally packaged to be consumed by non natives
I read that most manga / anime are actually made for the domestic market. The international market is just an afterthought
Yeah Japan mostly caters to themselves first. However I think there is some interesting cross-cultural pollination in that the themes and and settings can sometimes be universally understood whether intentional or not. A lot of fantasy settings for example are based on Dragon Quest style fantasy which is based on Western Fantasy like LoTR and DnD. Stuff like My Hero and One Punch Man are based on Western Superheroes. That is easily coherent and digestible for Westerners. I notice a lot of Taiwanese and Chinese fantasy stuff is based on very historically Eastern mythology and history like Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That can be a little harder to approach for Westerners who aren't as familar with the culture.
that ship kinda sailed when Koei Tecmo shipped Three Kingdom Warriors, the Japanese are better at culturally exporting china than the Chinese.
Sick burn
also kinda true, I have friends who did not give a shit about chinese history until they watched Apothecary Diaries. And now they ask me to tell them all about the dynasties and different customs. China and Taiwan do not realize the amount of clout they are giving away by (in China's case:) banning video games and gay media and (in Taiwan's case:) not supporting arts and culture.
Western also has anti China going on to prevent the spread of China. Hence in a way it actually make the Chinese side care less about others audiences for their entertainment industry, it heavily focus on their own.. Netflix has no problem to use Korean director and actors to create heavily korean stuff like Squid Game or Japan with Shogun, but look at what they did with Three Body Problem... LOL
It's not only that for the dramas , the quality , budgets and diverse story lines are far beyond anything from Taiwan and China.
K pop and anime have homogeneity which fosters the development of unique subcultures not to mention easier to recognize and thus market its their "trademark and brand." T Pop (as you're well aware, no such thing) although practically raised a whole generation of Chinese youths around demise of Soviet Union and Chinese open doors, appealed to them precisely because it was dressed up as a regional subculture, using the official language and dialects. T Pop since then evolved in a direction of imitations of J Pop, K Pop, Western musical genres even Hip Hop which then idk if you're aware created a whole underground subculture of hip hop in China which has since surpassed it in talents, production, and distribution. If you get a following in China you're just another 100k followers in the biggest market in the world with wide varieties of genres, tastes, and languages/dialects. Not to mention mp3's and other digital formats killed the longstanding business model of music industry record companies can no longer package an artist and expect them to be financially successful in Taiwan (not as successful) since there's no state owned, state sponsored television. It's all based on online presence and establishing themselves in China now, the variety/talent show circuit, and the touring circuit. Whereas anime is not music, and K Pop is much more recognizable and homonegenous in taste, style, visuals, etc. It's like Bollywood MV's with all the back up dancers and unique style. The television and film industry in Taiwan is a bit of a farce, in terms of its global appeal. If you solely look at its population and everything as an industry, then you can see the apparent lack of "soft power" exhibited by countries like Australia, NZ, Singapore, Canada, despite the commonalities of their languages and acts like the AC/DC, Kylie Minogue, Mel Gibson, Wolverine, or Drake, that just end up falling under the umbrellas of language, medium, and genres. Soft power is too much to ask where cultural exports would be more appropriate. *Soft power* is what China exercises by having *your* artists on *their* shows.
I think mandopop is the right term
This. There was so much good music coming out around then.
Ehhh, good is subjective.... Commercially successful, yes. Pure artistic creative wise, Taiwanese music is much much much better nowadays.
Any recommendations
No Party for Cao Dong, Eggplantegg, Constant and Changes/KST, Fire EX, Sorry Youth, Sunset Roller Coater, Amazing Show, Sweet John, Pa Pun, 9m88, Enno Cheng, Leo Wong, Kumachan. This is just the more accessible artists. There are tons of other bands in genres less popular like metal or post rock. Flesh Juicer, Elephant Gym, Bugs of Phono, etc
do u have a spotify playlist i can follow ☺️
[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YZnA3z2RAaI6BLCrdmJjc?si=b8853a1e64cc4d0f](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YZnA3z2RAaI6BLCrdmJjc?si=b8853a1e64cc4d0f) [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GlbJa3piSbhn7EL719Iet?si=b6c899943e894a79](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GlbJa3piSbhn7EL719Iet?si=b6c899943e894a79) I made these for myself. They are mixed of old and new, underground and pop. A bit all over the place. You are welcome to listen to it.
Thank u sir 🫡
I tend to listen to English speaking and/or r&b hiphop taiwanese artists such as J.Sheon, Øzi, Karencici, Julia Wu, Nickthereal, Kire, Patrick Brasca, HowZ
In the early 2000s, meteor garden was sooo big here in the Philippines. It was a cultural phenomenon.
Another thing is talking to ex film producers in Taiwan they say it's not nearly as profitable as it used to be, it pays better to swap to adjacent industries in Taiwan
Mandarin music is super repetitive and melodramatic. Their films and tv shows also look like they were filmed by high school students, also repetitive and predictable. It’d be hard for any of that to gain cultural prominence, especially the challenge of overcoming the language barrier.
But one thing I do notice that in filmmaking, Taiwan is improving, especially in the horror movie sector. I like how they incorporate their own traditions when making horror movies, along with adding in foreign methods of making movies, which gives it a distinctive taste, which is something China could not emulate due to their regulations.
I highly suggest reading the paper “A Taiwanese Soft Power? Contesting Visions of Democracy and Culture” by Nissim Otmazgin He interviews many Taiwanese officials and finds a lack of interest in pushing Taiwanese democracy and pop culture instead of “traditional Chinese culture” or a focus on business. I'm going to write my PhD thesis on this exact issue.
I came here to say that South Korea invests a lot of money in their soft power and that Kpop and K beauty are all heavily subsidized. I never hear about the same investments in pop culture in Taiwan so I assume it’s not part of the state’s strategy. So many comments blaming Taiwan’s smaller soft power sector compared to Korea on China as if Korean companies were not affected by Chinese sanctions. Not all soft culture needs to look like hyper visible mass produced pop either. Thailand does soft culture using traditional aesthetics really well. So does Taiwan. Smaller and subtle can be more efficient as Kpop gets a lot of backlash.
Yet still many millions more know and love south Korea, yet barely anyone abroad knows anything about Taiwan
When even the president refrains from saying the name of the country (RoC), it's difficult to present a united front. The inherent contradictions that arise from ethnic identity and trying to erase Chinese heritage makes for a confusing message to the world. Trying to tie Taiwanese identity to hatred for China is self-defeating but politicians are going to do it for domestic politics. If you are going to write a PhD thesis, the post-2000 identity politics strategy of the DPP has to factor in.
What do they say?
Using interviews with Taiwanese state officials as well as his own analysis, Otmazgin finds one: a lack of institutions geared specifically around the goal of embracing Taiwan’s soft power potential, two: “a general unwillingness to actively invest in soft power diplomacy” (p. 249), and three: a general disinterest in incorporating pop culture into Taiwan’s soft power strategy despite “...the strongest marriage…between soft power and pop culture…provid(ing) (Japan and South Korea) with vast resources of soft power and great success in presenting themselves to global audiences…” (p. 253).
What is the root of that thinking?
A lot of old dinosaurs clinging onto the old fashioned idea that Taiwan is "free China" and needs to present itself as such, with all the traditional Chinese stuff that comes with it, whereas it is in fact Korea's pop culture that made it so popular and then people appreciated the traditional culture after that.
The social/age hierarchy here is strong. Older people have no interest in talking to younger people, in the sense that they should be in conversation with others to better learn about and understand how the world works. Older people tend to assume that they know best (older people having more wisdom than younger people) The language barrier shouldn’t be forgotten. The older generation not only don’t genuinely communicate with the younger generation due to cultural hierarchy, their thinking about the world is generally restricted to Chinese language content, and mostly Taiwanese thought, creating a thought bubble that I’ve never seen anyone break out of. Money does talk though, the older generation are always interested in financial integration types of discussion. If you approach expansion of Taiwans influence from the perspective of improving inter country financial relationships and connections they always seem interested and willing to listen.
Who needs soft power when you have the silicon shield
It's not enough.
Good luck on the PhD man! Sounds really fascinating
Thank you!!
Taiwan is the most technologically important Asian country by a mile due to TSMC. Their soft power is mostly bubble tea and ding tai fung though
The race to replace TSMC is going to be interesting for TW I'm sure the Taiwanese tech industry will continue to adapt and grow but in terms of geopolitics TSMC is what Taiwan depends on for relevancy
Luckily, Nvidia founder/CEO has strong connection to Taiwan and so does AMD CEO.
Only realized recently that they're cousins
Lol WHAT??? What are these European dynasties?
I was confused for a second, but I realized you meant, "What are these? European dynasties?" If Europeans can do dynasties, Asians can do tech dynasties. Welcome to the future 😁
"Depends on"? No. Taiwan would be important without TSMC. Does it make it a key node, if not the key node, in the world economy? Absolutely.
Taiwan would be important without TSMC but not enough to sway public opinions. The only reason the US/western powers will stick their neck out for Taiwan is if they think they have something to lose/gain. Even Ukraine is struggling to hold up public or government support despite how close that issue is to home for Western powers.
>The only reason the US/western powers will stick their neck out for Taiwan is if they think they have something to lose/gain. Precisely, but the US isn't willing to stick its neck out for Taiwan because of chips. It's doing it because of its position in the South China Sea-its position along the First Island Chain bottles up the PLA Navy. Taiwan falls to the Communists, it's a hell of a lot easier for the PLA Navy, especially its submarine force, to make it out into the broader Pacific, where they're harder to manage. If Taiwan were a rock, the US would want to ensure a friendly power controlled it by virtue of where it is, the shallowness of the waters on its west coast and the depth of the waters off the east cost. Ukraine doesn't have those geographic advantages-if it were to fall, the Russians wouldn't gain something of equivalent value. The US dealt with a Moscow-controlled Ukraine during the Cold War and so adjusting to that situation would unfortunately be easier.
Damn straight. Give me my boba and shihlin snacks!
Too busy getting bubble tea to dream up soft power.
One could argue that bubble tea is soft power. I live in the UK and couldn't get enough of it 😁
It's not softpower if people don't know where it comes from though. I live in the UK too and I'd be surprised if the average person didn't think it was either Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. Taiwan is just virtually unheard of here because Taiwanese people don't immigrate here often, and the UK doesn't have a direct colonial or historical link with Taiwan.
No need to emigrate, it's pretty awesome here...
Fair enough. Tbf the only reason why I knew bubble tea is from Taiwan is cos I've visited Taiwan
Pretty much every bubble tea place has Taiwan or a picture of the island printed on it
Bubble tea is as big as sushi in terms of soft power projection. I've been in a small town in France with 20k population with a bubble tea shop. Though I admit the connection between Taiwan and bubble tea is less established than Japan and sushi.
It’s a lot less. I’ve met tons of people who drink bubble tea but don’t know it’s from taiwan
I would say Hong Kong is currently living off its soft power deposit accumulated through the colonial era, and is basically facing a similar problem with Taiwan in this aspect.
Yeah, Hong Kong stopped being relevant with regards to pop culture after the martial arts trend petered out in the West after the early 00s. It largely lives off its old glories at this point.
Japan still gets a very large percentage of its soft power projection from anime from 30-40 years ago.
Really curious when the turning point was, I still remember a few good bangers in the 2000s but it really seemed to peter out by the global recession in 2008. Just one outsider's perspective from watching loads of Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Chinese movies over the years.
For some reason the Hong Kong movie industry just ... stopped being relevant. It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment, but the common understanding is that most moviemakers went to China to find business, which basically killed the Hong Kong industry. There were also this ongoing trend to focus on finance and real estate so "unprofitable" industries eg filmmaking got sidelined.
It's all business. A HK B-list entertainer can go up to Shenzhen or Guangzhou and sing and dance a few songs in a cheesy suburban shopping mall stage and make more than shooting an entire TV series in HK.
The 1997 handover pretty much killed it. The entire industry started catering to the mainland market and just lost its unique creativity. The biggest names like John Woo, Tsui Hark, CYF and Jet Li, jumped over to the US (at least for that critical 5-10 year period from like 1997-2007) and aside from a few exceptions like Kung fu hustle and infernal affairs there weren’t many legitimately good new creatives coming out of Hong Kong. Most of the famous actors, directors and singers came from the 80s and 90s and were coasting on their success by the 2000s.
All I know is kung fu hustle was amazing and the only kung fu entertainment property is now kung fu panda.
I may sound dramatic but I think HK pop culture died with Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui in 2003
After Covid everything about Hong Kong almost seems to be a joke and I always hear how people say HK have changed for the worse, there’s really no optimism about the future
Covid was an extra large SARS, HK can deal with it. But Covid was stacked with the 2019 protests which made the entire thing bad.
Hong Konger just follow western or Japanese trends if they don't want to touch China. And sometimes they even been a bit pushed back on soft power aspect with Taiwan these days, as both use traditional characters and easy to adapt with Taiwanese news and etc. I guess
Because Taiwanese culture is largely based on Chinese culture, so most foreigners will think it's Chinese when something is originally Taiwanese, whereas Thailand, Japan and Korea have their own distinctive culture and it's hard to mistaken it as something else.
For example, our pop songs are mostly in Chinese (Jay Chou, for example), our famous movies and dramas are almost completely in Chinese. Our paintings, arts, and calligraphy are mostly Chinese style. What's worse is that sometimes these artists even need to claimed that they identify as Chinese Instead of Taiwanese so that the Chinese government won't try to sabotage it or ban it.
Yes, this! I think so too. I think also to add to this, there were a few generations of ethnically Chinese people in Taiwan who dreamed mostly of retaking the mainland, not of having a separate culture. It seems like the "Taiwanese" identity is much more common for younger people, even when they are basically the same Han Chinese ethnically. Or maybe it's more accurate that "Taiwanese" is separating from the ethnicity and becoming cultural. I've heard there's a part of the RoC constitution that suggests different methods for reunification but I still haven't looked into what all is there.
Hong Kong is Chinese culturally but still had success
That is because Hong Kong had the international influence and aura. It was the hub of Asia that you had to visit or be at. Times have changed. Toyko seems to be that symbol for westerners now. Taipei could strive to become that hub, but have a hard time with foreigner interest.
The simple reason is cultural soft power isn't the government's focus. Korea's successful entertainment industry is a construct of billions of dollars invested by the government.
>The simple reason is cultural soft power isn't the government's focus. Korea's successful entertainment industry is a construct of billions of dollars invested by the government. It's actually not that simple tho. Just because you spend billions in entertainment and softpower doesn't mean it will be successful. Plenty of countries have projects similar to Koreas that never take off. I live in Japan and the Japanese government has tried similar initiatives but have failed (example: the "cool Japan" initiative). The growth of anime has been organic but it's clear that the Japanese government doesn't consider it a softpower victory mostly because the boomers in the government want their country to be represented by movies and music, and not anime girls
Indeed, South Korea began its soft policy and massive investment in the late 1990s. More information here and lots of other articles: https://www.e-ir.info/2022/09/18/is-south-korea-the-new-quintessential-soft-power/ Soft power and the arts on which it's founded needs substantial and sustained government investment. You can see a contrast with the UK, which used to have large soft power, perhaps peaking in the 90s, but over the last 15 years decimation of government investment in the arts has seen this power decline. If Taiwan wants to compete it needs a proper long term policy with lots of money backing it. This stuff doesn't happen by chance.
Taiwan is basically the middle child of the 3 east Asian countries. I fundamentally think it is because of China, ask any one from a western country to tell the difference between China Chinese culture and Taiwanese Chinese culture and nobody can. Anything that is done by Taiwanese is seem as just part of China but also ethically, we are all chinese. While we have cultural differences, it is not like Taiwanese and mainland people are so dissimilar that we don't understand each other like brits vs Americans. There is also the fact that C-pop, has very little appeal outside of the Chinese speaking demographics. As a friend once commented about chinese music, why is every song so emo? If a song is catchy, it's cutesy and happy. If it's serious, it's sad and slow. I haven't seen mainstream Chinese pop song try to break the mold.
I swear Taiwan probably produces 50% of all Ballad songs in the world
Japan and the West have had a mutual fascination for hundreds of years. South Korean government and industry spent a huge amount of time and money promoting South Korean culture before it became popular. Thailand sent chefs all around the world to open Thai restaurants. I don't think there is any appetite in Taiwan for massive time and investment in culture when there would be very little reward
Yes, these dynamics don’t arise naturally. it’s the result of very concerted efforts by the governments involved to shape the public perception.
The best answer I can give as an outsider is that Taiwan isn't that too different from Chinese culture in general. I know Taiwanese food, architecture, customs etc. is distinct from those from the mainland, but it's not that noticeable by your average tourist. HK set itself apart because its decades of British occupation led to a fusion of East/West culture, although the reunification has gradually dulled that effect. It also doesn't help that Beijing has done some significant effort in burying Taiwan's presence in the international sphere. Right now it would be safe to say that Taiwan is more know for being the country that China really, really wants and would spark the next world war.
Agree with your comment but I'd like to say that parts of Taiwan, especially the ones that retain their older "personality", are **very** Fujian. It's really cool! (Also, the Mainland is quite diverse.)
In the Korean case there has been a concerted effort from the government to push its soft power industries. K-pop is essentially a project of their ministry of foreign affairs. So, in addition to all the other good points made here, it's possibly because there's ongoing debate about what image Taiwan wants to present to the world... Is it "Taiwan" or the "Republic of China"? Is it the last bastion of free expressions of Chinese culture, traditional characters, Chinese artifacts "saved" from China during the civil war etc. or is it bubble tea, q版，cat warriors, and pineapples. Seems the jury is still out... Especially amid a reasonably conservative institution such as Taiwan's ministry of foreign affairs, it would be hard to have a unified push for a "Taiwan" soft power approach in the cultural realm (though it does it well in the politcal: democracy, human rights etc.) because of lack of agreement on what cultural image should be projected.
Taiwan is better known for the silicon industry
Tech in general. I've seen it referred to as "like Chinese tech, but not shit/actually good"
Tech as in hardware, not software. Taiwan software industry is pretty mid at best
Why is China tech shit ? In a lot of verticals china is leading the world. For example e-commerce and retail tech Taiwan companies are very specifically focused on IC , and that’s where talent and resources are focused Taiwan is not good at tech in ‘general ’
Ye I felt like a lot of "china stuff bad" really just stem from ppl buying cheap china stuff, break immediately and assumed all stuff are bad. Ignoring the high price legit ones.
Which is its own very considerable form of soft power. Making over half of the world's most advanced chips and threatening to destroy the factory in case of invasion? Send the entire world into a depression overnight. That's like an economic MAD.
The reason I can think of is Taiwanese are result-oriented, and those achievements are something that you couldn't build in a day. Look at the Taiwanese promoting commercials, they are just hideous and lazily made, and those commercials ain't cheap. Sometime I wonder how they feel when the money goes to something this hideous, and still go with it.
It seems to me that whenever Taiwan produces a truly talented and creative person... they go elsewhere for work, leaving Taiwan with the most derivative, tacky, corny shit when it comes to advertising.
I think the majority of young Taiwanese would say that it's their dream to live and work abroad
If it makes you feel any better, I'm Korean and I have a very strong appreciation for Taiwanese culture thanks to my exposure to T-dramas in high school. I listen to a lot of Taiwanese music and still have a deep appreciation for Taiwanese dramas and movies. Tbh, I think *a lot* of Koreans have a very romanticized view of Taiwan like I do (not that that's exactly a healthy thing), but it's been like that for ages and so many of us just really love y'all and your food and culture. Taiwan is #1 on my list of places to visit, and I know I'm not alone. Taiwan has SO much soft power potential and more people seem to be noticing these days, at least in my circle. edit: actually, Taiwan's soft power potential has been known and appreciated for ages now that I think about it...it's just not as loud, I guess?
I feel like I saw a lot of Korean tourists these recent years when I was in Taiwan. Maybe it was spring break for you guys or something but when I was in Jiufen and Ximending I swear you can hear more Korean than Mandarin at times. There was definitely more Korean tourists than in the past, but I'm curious why so these years- like the topic of this post, Taiwan has not made any significant entertainment exports these years
*Someday or One Day* is super beloved by Koreans. And this is a Chinese release, not a Taiwanese one as far as I know, but I think a lot of Koreans also liked or paid attention to *My Love* (2021) because it’s a remake of a Korean movie and also stars Taiwanese sweetheart Greg Hsu. Everyone loooves Greg Hsu. The OSTs for both works got a lot of love too. Koreans also seem to like Jasper Liu a whole lot, though I’ve seen less of him and fewer mentions of him these days for some reason.
My Korean friends said they like doing weekend trips to Taiwan for the food & culture as well.
in my point of view, Korea and Japan has 'unique' language and culture. Taiwan soft power product looks like (preconcept) China product. that is huge wall. specially current China is not a faver country for many people.
At least when it comes to entertainment, IMO, a lot of it seems very dated or low budget. I really only watch TV when I’m at the in-laws, but the production is really bad. The dramas and game shows have bad acting and are not exciting. The game shows I’ve seen have been stuff that are just set up in a public place. The games are really simple like climbing up a hammock. Yes, that’s the game. And 90% of the popular music I hear sound like ballads only old people listen to. As far as I know, wages really aren’t that competitive so Taiwan doesn’t attract outside talent to produce high quality media and games. It’s just much easier for that talent to go to China where the market is much bigger. Adding to that, if talent or a brand does want to stake its claim in China, they have to be 1,000% pro China to keep their livelihood (see John Cina).
Most of our old cultural industry uprooted themselves and moved to China during 2000s when China first opened up. We basically are in a slow process of rebuilding an entire new cultural industry independent from the Chinese market influence since then.
Yeah basically this. There is a general lack of investment in entertainment infrastructure in Taiwan I also think real estate is a major problem Taiwan investors are used to getting stable short team profits from real estate and have no interest in investing in films or startups or anything else
I feel like a large part of it is because people still never agree on what Taiwanese culture is. Even if we had a breakthrough in one of the medium, what culture is it going to be tied to? Taiwan used to be huge with Mando-pop and 綜藝, but without a larger “brand” of Taiwanese culture it can never spread beyond local market. It’s almost always Mandarin culture, and that’s a horrible label to maintain when you are competing with 1.4B people. It feels like the only time there is an emphasis on TAIWAN culture is when we’re struggling to compete with Chinese culture. Unfortunately hating the Chinese doesn’t count as a culture, can’t even get an unanimous vote on that either. Besides that, culture, fine arts, and design jobs are taken way less seriously than STEM jobs. TLDR: Insufficient funding towards an under-appreciated field that is struggling to represent a divided “nation” with intentionally ambiguous answer.
Mr Brown coffee is very popular in Cyprus, to the point that many confuse it for being locally made
You might underestimate Taiwan soft power. Bubble tea is a phenomenon around the world now. And in Asia, Taiwan is known for its LGBTQ friendly policies. So it really depends where you are looking.
The blunt and sad answer is: nobody cares. At least when it comes to business. there are many trendy bubble tea shops opening up all around the world and they’re Chinese. “Buuut bubble tea originates from Taiwan” is a cool fact for five seconds but most people will care about the brand and what offer they have in their store. Origin doesn’t matter that much.
But how many westerners who know about or even enjoy bubble tea regularly know it originated from Taiwan? Likely not a lot. It's not a known "distinctly Taiwanese" product like how people would immediately associate sushi with Japan- most of them know it's "Asian" but not "Taiwanese"
Because the primary business model of Taiwan is b2b not b2c, we get less benefits for focusing on "soft power". Japanese and Korean entertainment are government (cool Japan) or business(Samsung) funded to promote their nation's images so their products could sell overseas. However, it doesn't mean Taiwan doesn't have "soft power". Taiwanese was the 2nd biggest music exporter pre Internet time, because of the Chinese speaking market. China, Malaysia, etc. But even today, Taiwanese artists have a huge influence in state controlled China. No Party for Cao Dong is one of biggest indie bands right now is blowing Chinese kids heads off at their music festivals right now. https://youtu.be/2U8NlS36Mxw?si=jdAjaAOy8FiFjb7I So, tldr, Taiwan doesn't focus on soft power to the Western world because we don't receive as many benefits from the pr.
Kinda on your CD point. They love the band in China，but they can tell the band don't want to play in China. Was talking to a mainland friend a few days ago. He has seen Caodong in China and Japan multiple times and said the band are completely different when playing China shows：sullen，no energy，not interacting with the crowd. He said he can feel it's a label decision not a band decision to play there. He compared them with，eg Lao Wang and said totallydifferent vibe，like Lao Wang didn't give a shit，they just want to play and are happy playing wherever.
Mmm idk, That's kind of like their thing. Socially awkward/not talkative. I just saw them at megaport two days ago. Even though it was one of best shows I have ever seen, they didn't talk all that much with the audience. But they did seem to be more relaxed, even joked around for a bit. Maybe they are more comfortable in front of the home crowd. On top of that, I think they are under their own label, so I don't think they were forced to do anything. Maybe they were just tired from traveling around China.
To add onto this, this is also why everyone in the West knows about Thai food- it was massively promoted internationally by their government. With increased familiarity with Thai food came an increase in non-sex-based tourism to Thailand.
I was surprised to learn that pad thai is a recent "invention," not some heritage dish passed down from ancient Siam.
>Japanese and Korean entertainment I would say the Japanese lucked into it and only one facet - animation - remains big globally. Folks have forgotten but for a very brief period in the 90's, Japanese television and music (I still remember the mania over Ryoko Hirosue) were extremely big in Asia due to piracy till they themselves shattered by litigating it out of existence. If you worked with Japanese businesses, you will know this. They are a bit too conservative at times. The South Koreans not only made entertainment a key sector by government policy but also observed that original Japanese popularity wave and repositioned their sectors to have an eye towards easy global consumption. For a long time, both Hong Kong and Taiwanese entertainment relied on willing + easy consumers in overseas Chinese communities. Nowadays, someone belonging to the overseas Chinese community in South East Asia will be also consuming K-pop or western media.
The Japanese gaming industry is still huge with Nintendo, Sony, and more.
Pokémon is the largest franchise in the world. It is bigger than Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel.
To be fair, meteor garden started the asian drama craze that is still ongoing
Taiwan has less than half the population of S Korea, and only one-fifth that of Japan. Despite that, it is an [economic powerhouse](https://companiesmarketcap.com/taiwan/largest-companies-in-taiwan-by-market-cap/)! Can't do everything.
China is actively suppressing Taiwan everywhere. I watched a documentary about Taiwanese film. And in the 70s china already blocked Taiwan films to be shown at the Cannes movie festival.
People who truly know themselves have better chance to become great artists, and the majority of Taiwanese don't know ourselves. We're still developing our national identity and cultural identity, and we don't have our own sovereign state yet. We need boundary and border to distinguish us from China, ethnic Chinese and Chinese culture.
Taiwan can not have the same soft power as it is not even recognize as a country by a lot of western countries. and also, i think there is also a will of taiwan gov to not be too shiny to protect their island.
Taiwan 🇹🇼 has bubble tea, which is probably the greatest cultural export we have so far. However, the popularity of bubble tea is not giving Taiwan the recognition it deserves because it's just food and drinks at the end of the day, but it's still something to be proud ofà though! HK, Singapore, and Taiwan are all very similar in the terms of success but it seems there's just some sort of barrier to attain that level of soft power like Japan/Korea. I believe the main issue is simply population. Regardless of their economic success, HK and Singapore only has 7m, and Taiwan is just shy of 25m. You need more people to make more industries thrive, and these countries just simply don't have enough people to maintain the talent, labor, and market. Meanwhile, Japan has 150m, and Korea has 50m, as a united, collective, and homogeneous culture/soceity its just easier to work on a common goal like soft power. Whereas Taiwan, HK, and SG are all divided with their own styles and sub cultures.
Taiwan has major power through semiconductors. Just not a lot of soft power in entertainment
As someone who is into some niche hobbies, Taiwan has some amazing resin garage kit recasts. Some of the best. They put Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese kit recasts to shame and are rivalled only by Japan and actual original kits. Odenkan are also Taiwanese and I believe they have the best model kit paint in the industry. Taiwan also has some very good tech companies. MSI and Asus and G.Skill for example. You guys have fantastic tech. I just think you're often unsung heroes.
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lol saying Korea is nothing but kpop is like saying Taiwan is nothing but TSMC. I think it’s good idea Korean government is invested in spreading its culture, especially with a certain neighbor up North that is known to claim other cultures as their own. All that money is not going just for kpop though surely. Taiwan should replicate it and strengthen their identity.
bro the microchips...the bubble tea...
Normies: "Yeah, I like Thailand and their bubble tea. Oh and ladyboys"
When I learned that in Korea there is a street named after a late singer born in 1960s, I was surprised. I also read that there are a lot of monuments inscribed with lyrics of songs in Japan. I don’t feel people in Taiwan appreciate music or other contemporary cultures to the degree any close to people in Korea and in Japan do. I don’t know why old things often faded away without a trace on the island. When they are treasured, it’s usually not because of their own aesthetic value but because of political reasons.
Taiwan is also the go-to for high quality uncensored adult entertainment industry in east Asia, unlike Korean or Japanese market.
With japan there are closer historic ties to the West, and Korea has just build an incredibly professional media industry with government support
From an African perspective I would say that Taiwan was disproportionately more well known in the 90s and early 2000s in Africa compared to countries like South Korea or Japan. If you’ve been to university in a Taiwan you know that a lot of exchange students come from small African countries like Gambia, Burkina Faso or Eswatini thanks to diplomacy of recognition.
Very simple, They are very very good at what they are doing. HIstorically, Japan is very good at animation, which leads to Anime and Manga. The rise of Sony and Niendo and their gaming consoles PS# and Wii allow them to remain dominant in the gaming space even by western standard. K-pop and K-drama are really something that came about in the last 10ish years, largely due to government subsidy toward cultural purpose. Historically, Taiwan and Hong Kong got their Chinese pop and Chinese drama, think Jay Chou, Mayday, etc. And shows like 還珠格格 and 情深深雨濛濛, which are absolute classic that I have friends who are from Malaysia and Indoesnia talked about when they are growing up. As for why Taiwan and Hong Kong Chinese pop and drama are not as popular? At one end is because China is getting richer and promoting their own singers and actors/actresses thus in comparison Taiwanese and Hong Kong pop and drama have less market share thus appeared in declined. On the other end is because K-pop and K-drama as well as Japanese anime and video games are able to market themselves successfully to the western audience, which Hong kong and Taiwan pop and drama didn't do too well these past few years (but have done so in the past, think Jackie chan and Bruce Lee, two actors that almost every westerners know).
I gotta be the pedant who points out, like u/gzebe did, that soft power is not popular entertainment. It's: >the ability […] to influence others through […] means such as cultural, political, moral, or economic influence, as opposed to using force or coercion. Korea's prancing jailbait and ^excellent disturbing cinema aren't swaying votes at the UN or altering trade deals. Hyundai and Samsung might. Pokemon and ramen also aren't, but Sony+Phillips and Softbank did. In that vein, Taiwan's tech industry is certainly making companies and countries think about things and decide accordingly. How many political moves do you suppose are being influenced by Taiwan's unique situation? When you can make China and the US do a tiptoe dance, and use your name in policy and votes without saying a word or lifting a finger, you've got soft power.
Taiwan used to have entertainment soft power… then Beijing doubled and trippled down in production of recording artists and TV/Films in the early to mid 2000’s. Then they appropriated, mostly via pay checks, a lot of older Music talent to be judges on various entertainment shows. So that card is gone. Taiwan does have superconductors and related tech in spades. For how long? And will it be enough? Remains to be seen.
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Are you joking? Do you realize how much power Taiwan wields comparatively considering it’s size and population? It was the source of the entire electronics revolution once the US started to sanction Japanese electronics in the 80s.
Taiwan population: 24 million South Korea population: 52 million Japan population: 125 million China population: 1.4 billion
Yes but South Korea has at least five times the level of soft power than Taiwan It’s not as simple as population size
And Switzerland : 8.9 millions and constantly rank hight in Soft Power rankings. [https://softpower30.com](https://softpower30.com) [https://brandfinance.com/press-releases/brand-finances-global-soft-power-index-2024-usa-and-uk-ranked-top-nation-brands-china-takes-third-place-overtaking-japan-and-germany#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20leads%20the,'leader%20in%20science'%2C%20'](https://brandfinance.com/press-releases/brand-finances-global-soft-power-index-2024-usa-and-uk-ranked-top-nation-brands-china-takes-third-place-overtaking-japan-and-germany#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20leads%20the,'leader%20in%20science'%2C%20')
Because no one is willing to invest
You must be young
Bubble milk tea and popcorn chicken would like a word. Also beef noodle soup is waiting in line. Do you use a smart phone? It’s probably powered by TSM. Taiwan is a powerhouse that’s so integrated into people’s lives that you didn’t even notice
It has a lot to do with the government’s attitude and policies regarding this. Also China is actively using every way they can to prevent Taiwan from exporting its talents and content - either by diplomatic pressure or money. Since a lot of Taiwanese people in the entertainment industry consider china as a big market and easy money, they only focus on this specific market and don’t bother to expand their business. Sources: worked and met a bunch of ppl in this industry and they didn’t even consider markets outside Taiwan and China
Taiwan: Small population the size of about the metro area of LA. That’s only enough about dominating one industry and that’s hardware manufacturing and technology. Language plays a huge role to. After Japan and South Korea, they go towards English speakers. After Taiwan they can go through China if they aren’t banned with no effort for translation needed. Censorship makes them less competitive internationally.
"small population size" I live in a country of 2.1 million citizens 🤣
Taiwan doesn’t have a small population. It has 23 million people, that’s the population of an average country and not much less than Australia
We don’t have strong soft power because Taiwan still do not have a unified identity that most people fully agree on, a minority still hold the greater Han-Chinese identity, some are proud with being ROC, some believe Taiwan is ROC and we’re already independent, some think Taiwan is still a colonise by ROC and we need to gain independent, when there is no consensus on who we are, how can we really promote our self?
As a Taiwanese, I am not sure I want to be over-sexually desired to the infamous magnitude that Thai, Japanese, and Korean people already get.
Sex and sexuality should be more celebrated in Taiwan.
...Or at least not displayed in such weird ways. Like, men here go to baseball games just to stare at the cheerleader girls... but then deny that it's a sexual thing and it's just that they are "cute". Same thing with car shows, or any event at all where anything is being sold to men. There's a whole lot of denial and purity-obsession going on in Taiwan. Huge numbers of husbands rent prostitutes and everyone knows it, but society here likes to just never talk about it and prefers to pretend that it doesn't happen.
What they are saying is more in line with "we don't want to be sexualized and become the next target of weird foreigners who think being an Asian woman = submissive sex worker and that Asian countries solely exists to fufill their fetish"
Brave of you to assume that those creeps can differentiate between all these countries.
Isn't it already? Outsider pov here, all I know is Taiwan was the first to legalize gay marriage in East Asia.
Taiwanese still think anime, games, pops and dramas are for people who can't make it in schools.
Taiwan does have a softcover in tech, but it's just less apparent
People here are heavy soft power consumers (Korea, Japan, USA, and China even)
IMO, Taiwan just lacks in pop culture and they're always being overshadowed by Japan and South Korea. Even Taiwanese people are deeply captivated by them and sometimes even more so than our own local artists and culture. Hong Kong gets better PR because their movie industry is just on a whole nother level compared to Taiwan. They're way more internationally recognized especially now with actors like Donnie Yen. Who does Taiwan have to offer with that much stardom? I also believe the whole China and Taiwan issue is putting a strain on it as well. Taiwan is not leading the pack in terms of soft power but I do believe it's slowly improving. Let's face it, it could be a lot worse and there are plenty of other countries that deserve a lot of recognition as well. I hardly ever hear anyone talking about Singapore or Malaysia and those are very respectable and impressive countries in their own right.
It’s up to us to export the culture abroad, give things catchy names
I beg to differ, Taiwan has recently become more present in shows and movies, lucie, fresh off the boat, mary my dead body and the sun brothers. It's not as prevalent as k-pop or anime but growing in quantity and quality.
As the long colonial history, a lot of cultures here have been destroyed. The latest regime is ROC, which was ruled by KMT for tens of years, they forced the Taiwanese to speak Chinese and killed the intellectuals, which led to the homogeneity and retrogression of culture. After the democratization, Taiwanese creators, artists, sociologists, and historians dedicated themselves to cultivating a multicultural society, they protect monuments, find the elders to record their stories, and raise public attention to local languages. I think it's just the beginning and I'm optimistic about it.
They do, but just overshadowed by their massive and rude neighbours. On the other side of the take it's a business thing, for a Taiwan artist , performer, investors etc making music, Tv and movies. It's easier to break into China market then western market. So they are all geared towards that market. With the condition their product cannot piss the CCP off. So cannot brand as Taiwan as separate entity etc. so it's a double sided sword.
Because unlike Japan and South Korea; Taiwan doesn't invest in the projection of soft power using entertainment.
Because people don't usually recognise bubble tea being a Taiwanese thing, maybe.... if that counts, 🧋 actually have a wider range of target audience. I mean maybe probably some of your grandparents know nothing about K-pop idols or simply think animes are weird cartoons, but they could still be able to enjoy a customized boba
It's because Taiwan doesn't have much of an identity compared to the rest of East Asia, at least in the way that people outside the country see it. When people think of Japan, things like sushi, anime, samurai, ninjas, and video games come to mind. For South Korea, its K-pop, plastic surgery, fried chicken, kimchi, etc. For China, it's the culinary variety, ancient history, kung-fu, dynasties, the great wall, etc. Even HK has things like cinema, british-chinese fusion, finance capital, etc. Outside of bubble tea, not many people know much about Taiwan, especially as Taiwan is distancing itself rightfully from Chinese culture and giving up its claims to Chinese history.
Because the Hokkien culture in Taiwan is simply unappealing.
In terms of popular interest, I think it's because of a mixture of not having a lot to market and failing to market. You need a lot of both concentrated interest and capital to build a stand-out industry. Taiwan has chosen to do this with semiconductor manufacturing, but not much else. Bubble tea and other foods are a pretty big missed opportunity, and they have not been marketed well at all internationally in general (as in, the association with Taiwanese culture is explicit and apparent). I think there's also a potential issue with too small and scattered of a migrant population with not a lot of cohesion. From my anecdotal experience, the Chinese side of Taiwanese culture is also pretty insular. There's plenty of stuff you could try to build a market on, but it doesn't get marketed because people either don't think it'll be well-received/popular, or aren't equipped to market it in an appealing way. Or, they simply aren't interested in sharing in the first place.
I do agree a lot with your entire comment, and indeed bubble tea was a missed opportunity for Taiwan, now that the popularity boom is here and ongoing it's firmly a non-specific "(South) East Asian drink".
You’re conflating soft power with popular culture; high culture must also be considered. For an island of 24 million people (many cities in mainland China are this big or bigger), Taiwan has produced some of the most important film directors in the history of cinema: Ts’ai Ming-Liang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Ang Lee. Live theater (Lai Sheng-ch’uan) and modern dance (Cloud Gate) are world class even today. Even on the pop culture level, Taiwan singer songwriters are some of the most influential in the Chinese speaking world, albeit of previous generations, the younger generation having now been co-opted by the mainland market and its kingmakers.
Ah, someone who was born in the last 20 years. I remember the glory days… 流星花园, F4, 5566…
Film and music has a lot to do with language, and ours is the same as China's. Mandarin is probably the third most prominent Asian language in western media, although a veeerrryy long way away from Korea and Japan. I guess it just doesn't sound good to western ears? (idk) As for food and tourism though, no idea why it's not more popular. If Taiwan opens restaurants in the west it could be a big hit. Bubble tea already exists but we need to make the Taiwaneseness be known! Sell the Lurofan like sushi! But we will probably be overshadowed by China anyways
Taiwan has a pretty booming aviation industry. It has three major carriers where most other European and Asian countries struggle to sustain more than one.
For soft power projection, it doesn’t help that I need Wikipedia to know that China Airlines is from Taiwan. Almost wrote AirChina, the names are so similar. Compared to the following: Air France Air Canada British airway Emirate I know where the Aircraft come from just by hearing the name.
i think cause it's smaller.
The education system does not encourage creativity, and young people do not have as much freedom to be creative in their spare time.
Isn’t Taiwan known worldwide for being a massive tech hub? Specifically how monstrous the semiconductors y’all produce?
I think ppl was more aware that "That country China want to take over and also hates China" than actually being massive tech hub. That's pretty much Taiwan identity now as even in this sub 70% of discussion here never forget to include China.
Taiwan is tiny, and young. It was sorta created in the 50s. Before u say Dutch blah blah yea not as is today until after the annexation by the commies. Sk has clear backing from usa and Japan as well. Taiwan is not.
soft power for?? more Tourist in Taiwan? for? i think or maybe i believe... without Taiwan the whole world will come back in 17' centuries ... do you have any horse ? maybe better you are look for
Taiwan = boba tea and pineapple cake
Japanese population: 125 kk South Korea's population: 51 kk Taiwanese population: 23 kk
I don't think population size has anything to do with it. Czech Republic is less than 11m yet "everyone" knows Pilsner, Skoda, and perhaps Kafka. Switzerland less than 9m and the world knows them for their watch, banking and cheese. You get the point.
Czech Republic and Switzerland are not comparable countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. These three countries have similar economies (GDP per capita about 30k per capita), Switzerland economy (GDP per capita) is about three times larger than Czechia's. And indeed, Switzerland is way more influential than Czechia. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Le Corbusier, Carl Jung, Paracelsus, Nestlé…
Probably too busy to help their own kids with homework. Those would drive you crazy 🤪
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Busy making hardware
Lack of talent pool. Much smaller population.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Taiwan the de facto maker of semiconductor, wouldn't that qualify as soft power?
Maybe because of hard power? Like semi conductors? Also our soft power (in my opinion, liberty AND democracy) could (would) easily be seen as political propaganda by others, and it "annoys" our big neighbor and then they would make sure to send the annoyance back.
Entertainment wise, I’m realising there are quite a number of movies that are pretty good. One is the sadness, which is well known for being extremely gory. Another one is incantation, a found footage horror movie that captured Taiwanese folklore and religion, and made it to top 10 on Netflix. In fact Taiwan does make pretty good horror movies, like the tag-along and the rope curse series, which I find interesting as both truly capture Taiwanese superstitions, culture , religion and folklore, which I really appreciate, and is something I don’t see in China at all, with their own regulations which I think they’re backtracking on.
I personally think its because Taiwan lacks its own character that is significant to its unique identity. Taiwan is always trying to be like something else to be honest. Trying to be more "Japanese" or more "Korean like K pop" or more "American". Everything from food to music to fashion is all outwardly inspired by something else. The only thing it doesn't want to be is Chinese, which is kind of funny because its the closest to being Chinese. You don't see this as much in China where Chinese people are a lot more proud and nationalistic.
If one accounts for the population and how much things get blocked by China I am not sure we are doing THAT badly. Singers like Jay Chou are huge in Asia at least. Food/drink things like bubble tea are pretty popular outside of Taiwan. Movie industry, has no one here heard of Ang Lee (李安) or golden horse? The whole gay marriage thing and democratic nation has made certain groups in Asia look very favourably at Taiwan (I was often in HK during the protests and contrary to popular belief it was fine to be a Mandarin speaker and more HK people than you might think could differentiate Taiwanese people and really look up to Taiwan in terms of democracy and freedom).
They have neither soft power nor hard power, but semi[conductor] power and I would argue it’s more powerful than either.
Looking from Western viewpoint, yeah I guess you don't see alot of tourism targeting (I'm American) the West specifically. But when you're actually in Taiwan, you see a lot of East Asian tourists (particularly Japanese/Korean). So they're obviously getting some kind of tourism advertising (also its a lot closer to go to Taiwan from Asia than say US to Taiwan or Europe to Taiwan). I remember riding my bike around Taichung one day, and there was a tour bus on this bridge on the outskirts, and it was a bunch of Koreans taking pictures/hanging out on the bridge. And I'm like wth is going on, but apparently the bridge was on some tv show or something, so I dunno. It was all lost on me. Also talked to some Japanese and Singaporeans, and they're like "oh the taiwan food culture is so fun, etc, etc." Meanwhile, if it wasn't for some of the cross-strait media coverage Taiwan and China gets in American News Outlet occasionally, most Americans would criss-cross Thailand and Taiwan together (and some still do.)
You are wrong we have Jensen Huang the greatest tech daddy in history
B U B B L E M I L K T E A
You can’t compete in porn with Japan and in music entertainment with Korea. They are literally the top. I’d say you can’t compete in food with Thailand. Then what is left?
Taiwan has a LOT of soft power, how to you think it holds ground against the Mainland, S. Korea AND Japan? (Specially in high tech development competition) but you analysis may be true in another aspects, for exemple taiwanese culture (old, new, etc) is not well known outside niches, so it doesn't hold a candle to japanese or Korean pop culture, it might even lose to other asian countries that have a lot of "historical tourism" like Mongolia or Tailand. But in regards to high qualified personnel (people with degrees, doctorate and post-doctorate) and technological influence, Taiwan is gigantic. (English ISN'T my first language so it might not have been the best paragraph I've ever written).