Black Island: Two Years of Activism in Taiwan - Paperback

by J. Michael Cole (Author)

Long before the student-led Sunflower Movement stormed the legislature in Taipei on March 18, 2014, sparking the most serious political crisis in Taiwan's modern history, journalist J. Michael Cole was chronicling the rise of civic activism in this young democracy and warning us of the coming troubles. In this long-awaited collection of essays, the author takes us to the heart of this extraordinary recrudescence of activism and shows that there was nothing 'spontaneous' about the Sunflower Movement. With on-site observations and unique access to the protagonists, Black Island brings you to the frontlines of civil unrest-the police shields, pro-Beijing gangsters, victims of injustice, callous government officials and the idealists who are fighting back-and explains why the rise of civil society will change the face of politics in Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait for years to come.

Author Biography

J. Michael Cole is a senior fellow at the China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham, a research associate at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) in Taipei, and a senior officer at the Thinking Taiwan Foundation, where he is editor in chief of www.thinking-taiwan.com. He is a former analyst at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in Ottawa and was deputy news editor at the Taipei Times from 2010-2013. He is a regular columnist for The Diplomat and a contributor for Jane's Defence Weekly and The National Interest. His work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor and the Ottawa Citizen. He is the author of Officially Unofficial: Confessions of a journalist in Taiwan (2014), Democracy in Peril: Taiwan's struggle for survival from Chen Shui-bian to Ma Ying-jeou (2009) and Smokescreen: Canadian security intelligence after September 11, 2001 (2008). He lives in Taipei.