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Mark Harrison

@mhar4.bsky.social
1.5K followers 745 following 647 posts

Taiwan, China, social theory, ideology, politics, foreign policy.

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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
"AUKUS isn't a mistake, it's a necessity". Robust and wide-ranging defence of AUKUS from Lavina Lee.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Legendary German filmmaker Monika Treut premiering her newest film about Taiwan, "Cooking Up Democracy" in Taipei.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
For an international postgraduate researcher from Vietnam in Tasmania facing a dreadful diagnosis. www.gofundme.com/f/unaffordab...
gofundme.com
Donate to Unaffordable Cancer Medication for Hai - stage 4 BC, organized by Skye Targett
Hi, I'm Skye and together with Lydia and Miriam, we are asking for yo… Skye Targett needs your support for Unaffordable Cancer Medication for Hai - stage 4 BC
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Rudd's minor errors (e.g. that the US has been committed to defending Taiwan since 1949) are an interesting tell. www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Ri...
youtube.com
Kevin Rudd sounds alarm on Australia becoming 'complacent' | Insiders On Background
YouTube video by ABC News In-depth
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
This features a number of well-established Australian anti-US alliance activists, but it takes a certain kind of monomania to be unable to conceptualise that China could also drag Australia unwillingly into war.
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Reposted by Mark Harrison
Min Chao @wordsfromtaiwan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
This year's Spirit of Taiwan Award (新世代台灣精神獎) goes to two academics: Chengchi University's @catielila.bsky.social, who co-authored "Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order" with @mhar4.bsky.social, and Soochow University's Chen Fang-yu! english.taup.net/%e3%80%90%e6...
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Good from Richard Herr on the disastrous Pacific Islands Forum.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Unbelievable comments by fmr Chief of the ADF Admiral Chris Barrie at the AUKUS inquiry, equating China attacking Taiwan with US actions in Latin America, unable to condemn both while failing to grasp the scale of the impact on Australia were China to do so
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Gapu Ŋupan, the storytelling collaboration between Yolŋu people in the NT and Amis and Paiwan people from Taiwan, at the Garma Festival this week and the Darwin Festival August 5-6.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
The outcome of many decades of campaigning by Siraya people and a milestone for indigenous reconciliation in Taiwan. The PRC rejects the concept of indigenous and defines all 17 tribes as a single "ethnic minority" and would dismantle all this if it annexed Taiwan. focustaiwan.tw/society/2026...
focustaiwan.tw
Cabinet officially recognizes Siraya as Taiwan's 17th Indigenous tribe - Focus Taiwan
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Thursday approved the official recognition of the Siraya as one of Taiwan's Indigenous tribes, making it the country's 17th officially recognized tribe and the first Plai...
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Fmr foreign minister Gareth Evans in @thesaturdaypaper.com.au, not just unable to conceptualise a China-Taiwan war and its effect on Australia, but implying that Taiwan's exclusion from the international system (by Beijing's ideological monomania), means Taiwanese lives have less moral worth.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
As has been brought to my attention, the speaker has extensive business and political dealing with China focussed on Qingdao back to the early 2000s, through the Australia China Development Company.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
At the anti- #AUKUS public inquiry, former federal minister Chris Schacht ranting about Taiwan in a disgraceful display of ignorance and contempt for policy, history and the region, and of course the Taiwanese. The whole exercise is shameful for all involved.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
"The war in Iran has also demonstrated how a regional conflict can have global economic implications." As good a defence of AUKUS from @peterkhalilmp.bsky.social that can be made while the Australian government sticks to its reluctance to say "Taiwan".
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
The Australian government has tabled the Australia’s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Amendment Bill 2026, which includes the inclusion of transnational education arrangements under its provisions, with one consequential caveat.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Op-ed by PRC ambassador to Australia submitted to the Nine Fairfax papers attacking ASIO. Concluding with the phrase Xi Jinping famously said to Putin: "In the face of profound changes unseen in a century, China stands ready to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Australia..."
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
The demand to only see the world through the lens of US power and the refusal to see PRC power and the PRC system is the Australian political left's version of the monoculture.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
AUKUS has many issues but @davidshoebridge.bsky.social wants a national security policy that assumes that an authoritarian party-state under the control of one man will be a rational actor and believes that Australia can remain isolated from the effects of China going to war with Taiwan.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
From the @nytimes.com interview with @albomp.bsky.social, some long-overdue robust language on China and Beijing's intentions.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Trailer for the documentary In the Making: An Australia–Taiwan Indigenous Art Exchange 生成之間: 澳洲與台灣原住民族藝術交流 An account of the extraordinary multi-year project of exchange and learning between Australia and Taiwan indigenous artists. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYT0...
youtube.com
In The Making 2025 Trailer
YouTube video by Mark
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
😮‍💨 Australian progressive activists like @emmashortis.bsky.social, @leanneminshull.bsky.social and @davidshoebridge.bsky.social still haven't been able to develop a critique AUKUS and the US alliance that doesn't rely on misunderstanding, disregarding and even disparaging the Taiwanese.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Distressing and wrongheaded comments about a PRC invasion of Taiwan from @australiainstitute.org.au's @leanneminshull.bsky.social, a war that would cost countless lives and destroy a society, and directly devastate Australia's economy and the lives of Chinese and Taiwanese communities in Australia.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
At an anti-AUKUS public event in Sydney, a good question about China's threat to Taiwan, a response from @davidshoebridge.bsky.social that starts as uncomprehending and descends into the bizarre.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Another mention of Taiwan in this walled-garden of opinion on Australia foreign policy that is unable to see outside the US alliance (even alluding to the absurd Trump-Xi Iran-Taiwan deal idea). Treating the Taiwanese, and China, as mere metaphors for anti-alliance politics.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Tell me again how Taiwan and war in the Taiwan Strait are "not a vital strategic interest" for Australia. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...
abc.net.au
Australian exports in jeopardy as 'war risk' costs surge
Australian exporters are facing increasing air and sea freight costs, as well as the possibility of diving consumer confidence.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Australian uni sector peak body Universities Australia promotes a keynote at their annual conference by PRC ambassador Xiao Qian using word-for-word CCP slogans.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Vital step in Taiwan's long journey of truth and reconciliation. Authoritarianism and historical trauma continue to shape politics, culture, identities and inter-generational relations in Taiwan very directly. focustaiwan.tw/politics/202...
focustaiwan.tw
Taiwan's Martial Law-era archives fully declassified - Focus Taiwan
Taiwan's top intelligence agency said Monday that it has completely declassified tens of thousands of political archives it possessed from the Martial Law period and transferred them to the National A...
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
The rules-based international order really is over. "South Australia secures Australian MotoGP, world-first street circuit announced" www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...
abc.net.au
Breaking: SA secures Australian MotoGP, world-first street circuit announced
The South Australian government has confirmed the Australian MotoGP will move to Adelaide from 2027.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Everything described here is true, as some of us had seen some years ago, but there is nothing here about what it means for Australian universities to be integrated into the PRC system in this way, just a market logic that occludes the nature of that system.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Shocking comments by the PRC ambassador to Australia about Taiwan. Disinformation, declaring that Taiwanese who oppose annexation should leave Taiwan, and directly linking Australia's sovereign national debate about regional security and Taiwan to good relations with China.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Superb analysis from @nathanattrill.bsky.social. "Put simply, the scale and persistence of Chinese military activity around Taiwan look less like signalling and more like systematic preparation for the use of force, conducted on Beijing’s own timetable." www.aspistrategist.org.au/that-isnt-si...
aspistrategist.org.au
That isn't signaling. China’s military is seriously rehearsing around Taiwan | The Strategist
Analysing China’s military activity around Taiwan often invites a simple question: what triggered it? Analysts tend to assume that spikes in aircraft sorties, naval deployments or coast guard operatio...
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
An escalation of political warfare by the PRC ambassador Xiao Qian in the national Australian media. Disinformation, misrepresentation, and a new explicit demand to accept in silence Taiwan's annexation and its catastrophic consequences.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
"...do we back the US or China in a battle over Taiwan." As always, Laura Tingle unable to conceptualise backing the Taiwanese, so ends up grotesquely suggesting that Australia could actually support a PRC invasion of Taiwan (with troops? materiel? a UN statement?) www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...
abc.net.au
As Rudd leaves his post, questions for Australia's foreign policy swirl
One month after Kevin Rudd leaves his post as Australia's ambassador to Washington, Donald Trump will make his first presidential visit to China in almost 10 years.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Shanghai Oceans University with a leadership conference on the 4th Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee, with comments by the dean of the UTAS JV Ai'en College with far-reaching implications for the Australian university sector. www.shou.edu.cn/2025/1025/c1...
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
From Geoffrey Robertson, no less. You can really see where a certain block of Australian elite opinion will go in rationalising a PRC invasion of Taiwan, at least until the global economy crashes, the AUD is at USD25c and emergency interest rates are 30%. www.smh.com.au/national/thi...
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
University of Tasmania and its Shanghai Oceans University JV Aien College visit the Shanghai office of US-sanctioned PRC AI company SenseTime to sign a partnership. ien.shou.edu.cn/2025/1211/c2...
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
"In Taiwan you can win the lottery just by shopping" www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...
abc.net.au
In Taiwan you can win lottery just by shopping
Most shopping receipts in Taiwan are also tickets for a lottery run every second month by the government to increase tax compliance, and there are some big prizes up for grabs.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Japanese ambassador to Australia responds to PRC ambassador's attack.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
As Beijing continues military threats and political warfare against Taiwan, PRC Ambassador Xiao Qian warns Australia about "appeasement" of Japan, following PM Takaichi's comments that a PRC war against the Taiwanese would threaten Japan's security.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
For some reason, @abcnews reissues one of its worst reports on Taiwan, from 2005. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTtb...
youtube.com
How one man changed the China, Taiwan conflict forever | Foreign Correspondent Archives
YouTube video by ABC News In-depth
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
"To assure peace and prosperity, secessionists would be crushed, state media declared brightly. It’s obvious – Beijing just doesn’t get it. Yes, it is. And Beijing is holding the whole world hostage with its Taiwan delusion. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
China is bearing down on Taiwan – enabled by Trump’s weakness and vacillation | Simon Tisdall
The US hasn’t just left Ukraine vulnerable; it is also provoking Xi’s intensifying attitude towards what he considers a renegade province, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
Generous account of our new @aspi-org.bsky.social @defenceaustralia.bsky.social report "Australian Public and Institutional Responses to Taiwan Strait Crises" from Paul Monk in The Australian, with important insights into facing realities of Beijing's threats against the Taiwanese.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Dreadful and irresponsible from @mattbevan.bsky.social's ABC "If You're Listening" series, on China and Taiwan, blithely and glibly imagining that Taiwan has no history before 1949, so believing that China and Taiwan corresponds to the CCP and the KMT and so getting it all wrong.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
"But Taiwan is a legacy from the Chinese civil war, a final bastion of the Nationalists that lost the mainland to the communists." Please, @jamesoaten.bsky.social, Taiwan was a Japanese colonial territory from 1895, the end of the Qing, to 1945. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...
abc.net.au
Japan's PM said the quiet part out loud and unleashed Beijing's fury
China was already wary about Japan's new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, a renowned Beijing hawk, before she weighed in on one of its most sensitive issues: Taiwan. Now it's unleashing economic pain.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Good explainer on a "crisis" in China-Japan relations that has had bizarrely little coverage in Australia. "Crisis" in quotes because obviously Beijing is using the Japanese PM's remarks as a pretext to test her government early in its term. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
theguardian.com
China and Japan are in a war of words over Taiwan – what happens next?
Japan’s hawkish new PM has angered Beijing after suggesting her country could become involved in a military conflict between China and Taiwan
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Nothing here that surprises anyone who has followed transnational education with the PRC, but highlights that whatever of the overheated hopes or claims by foreign universities, these partnerships are always just relationships with the state. www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...
thetimes.com
Inside Scotland’s China campuses: military drills and propaganda
Joint ventures between Scottish and Chinese universities have proved lucrative — but controversial, prompting concerns about the involvement of the authoritarian state
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Interview with the incomparable Leona Chen, eloquent on the work of living, representing and making Taiwanese identity and politics across generations and geographies. www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15T...
youtube.com
How TaiwaneseAmerican.org Chronicles Evolving Taiwan Identity|Zoom In Zoom Out
YouTube video by TaiwanPlus News
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Honda's reusable rocket prototype.
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Important piece from @heldavidson.bsky.social tracking a shift from Beijing's military warfare to political warfare against Taiwan, as military activity in the Taiwan Strait hit their current threat salience limit just short of a kinetic event. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
theguardian.com
China sharpens its language on Taiwan as part of ‘longer-term’ strategy
A series of statements, articles, photos and even a new national holiday indicate a shift in Beijing’s stance over the island, analysts say
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Mark Harrison @mhar4.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Australia’s Understanding and Preparedness for a Taiwan Strait Contingency. From me, for Australian Outlook. www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianou...
internationalaffairs.org.au
Australia’s Understanding and Preparedness for a Taiwan Strait Contingency - Australian Institute of International Affairs
While Taiwan features frequently in Australian strategic and policy discussion and media discourse, overall understanding in Australia’s national life of the implications of a crisis in the Taiwan Str...
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