anyone else remember when people were unironically calling themselves 'cuomosexuals'?

Henri Cartier-Bresson. Last Days of the Kuomintang. Shanghai. December 1948 – January 1949

Can there ever really be “one China?”, May 28, 2026

Sometimes Chinese pressure on Taiwan has been military, involving the issuing of threats or the launching of missiles. But in recent years, China has combined those threats and missiles with other forms of pressure, escalating what the Taiwanese call “cognitive warfare”: not just propaganda but an attempt to create a mindset of surrender. This combined military, economic, political, and information attack should by now be familiar, because we have just watched it play out in Eastern Europe. Before 2014, Russia had hoped to conquer Ukraine without firing a shot, simply by convincing Ukrainians that their state was too corrupt and incompetent to survive. Now it is Beijing that seeks conquest without a full-scale military operation, in this case by convincing the Taiwanese that their democracy is fatally flawed, that their allies will desert them, that there is no such thing as a “Taiwanese” identity.

Taiwanese government officials and civic leaders are well aware that Ukraine is a precedent in a variety of ways. During a recent trip to Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, I was told again and again that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a harbinger, a warning. Although Taiwan and Ukraine have no geographic, cultural, or historical links, the two countries are now connected by the power of analogy. Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told me that the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes people in Taiwan and around the world think, “Wow, an authoritarian is initiating a war against a peace-loving country; could there be another one? And when they look around, they see Taiwan.”

But there is another similarity. So powerful were the Russian narratives about Ukraine that many in Europe and America believed them. Russia’s depiction of Ukraine as a divided nation of uncertain loyalties convinced many, prior to February, that Ukrainians would not fight back. Chinese propaganda narratives about Taiwan are also powerful, and Chinese influence on the island is both very real and very divisive. Most people on the island speak Mandarin, the dominant language in the People’s Republic, and many still have ties of family, business, and cultural nostalgia to the mainland, however much they reject the Communist Party. But just as Western observers failed to understand how seriously the Ukrainians were preparing—psychologically as well as militarily—to defend themselves, we haven’t been watching as Taiwan has begun to change too.

Although the Taiwanese are regularly said to be too complacent, too closely connected to the People’s Republic, not all Taiwanese even have any personal links to the mainland. Many descend from families that arrived on the island long before 1949, and speak languages other than Mandarin. More to the point, large numbers of Taiwanese, whatever their background, feel no more nostalgia for mainland China than Ukrainians feel for the Soviet Union. The KMT’s main political opponent, the Democratic Progressive Party, is now the usual political home for those who don’t identify as anything except Taiwanese. But whether they are KMT or DPP supporters (the Taiwanese say “blue” or “green”), whether they participate in angry online debates or energetic rallies, the overwhelming majority now oppose the old “one country, two systems” proposal for reunification. Especially since the repression of the Hong Kong democracy demonstrations, millions of the island’s inhabitants understand that the Chinese war on their society is not something that might happen in the future but is something that is already well under way.

Like the Ukrainians, the Taiwanese now find themselves on the front line of the conflict between democracy and autocracy. They, too, are being forced to invent strategies of resistance. What happens there will eventually happen elsewhere: China’s leaders are already seeking to expand their influence around the world, including inside democracies. The tactics that the Taiwanese are developing to fight Chinese cognitive warfare, economic pressure, and political manipulation will eventually be needed in other countries too.

Starting today, I am hiring writers for the fanfiction I'm writing. I really need help.

Currently, there will be 107 episodes for this fanfiction project. As of now, I'm almost finished with the 5th episode. So I need at least a few people to help out. And if you want to, you can do multiple episodes.

Gmail me at: [email protected] if you have any questions on some characteristics or anything in general. Also so I can hire you.

You can find the Wattpad and the Google Doc I'm using on the pinned post.

I didn't know writing 107 episodes would be difficult.

For each episode, there will be one KMT' solder with a different technique each episode. That's what they will be fighting for the episode.

Sorry for the lack of information, I really recommend you to read the fanfiction inorder to fully understand.

ALSO PLEASE DONT HESITATE TO TELL ME IF THE FIRST FEW EPISODES ARE BAD. POINT OUT ANY MISTAKES FOR ME TO FIX.

This will be in a style of a "Tokusatsu". Look it up.

I'll be waiting/working on the fifth episode. (If this is crossed out, I'm finished.)

Also sent me the finished episode on a Google Doc. I will copy and paste it to Wattpad. And let me know what episode number it is.

Thank you.

-MikeIRL

***New discord. Please help.***

Propaganda posters in Wuhan, mid-1938. Found in an album that had belonged to Leslie Reginald Frederick Shrimpton RN (1910-1964), who served on the gunboat HMS Falcon in China waters from 1937 to 1939. All photographs and descriptions with translations from University of Bristol - Historical Photographs of China. 

1) The banner depicts Nationalist forces attacking the Japanese. The Chinese text on the banner urges viewers to join the military, fight the Japanese, and thereby defend China. Bi-s168

2) Anti-Japanese public hygiene banner. The slogans on the lower banner (depicting a fly with a Japanese Rising Sun Nisshōki emblem) read: 'We need to knock down our enemies with the world's sympathy on us'. 'We need to prevent cholera and kill flies; and if you want to survive, kill the Japanese soldiers'. 'If you don't kill it, it's going to kill you'. The higher banner depicts Japanese bombers attacking a train. A wall poster on the left reads: 'Build a new Great Wall with our heads'.

3) Banner by L'Association des Etudiants Chinois de Retour de FBS (France, Belgium and Switzerland Returned Students Association), Hankow (Hankou). The banner text provides explicit details that accompany the image of 'cruel massacre and rape never before heard of'. Bi-s163.

4) Propaganda banner featuring Chiang Kai-shek. The slogans on the banner read: 'War of Resistance to the end!' and 'Support the leader'. Chiang Kai-shek is depicted beside Hankou (Wuhan) on the map of war-torn China. This photograph was taken in Wuhan. 

5) The banner slogan reads: 'We demand that the Japanese repay their blood debt!' Photograph taken in Wuhan. Bi-s164. Photograph 3 shows the same building in a different location.. The actual term used here for 'Japanese' is 倭寇 'Dwarf pirates'. Bi-s167.

6) The main banner, showing charging soldiers and workers, bears the slogan: 'Defend Wuhan!' The Hankou (Hankow) bund is depicted in the banner - the clock tower is part of the Custom House. The banner was made by the 'Korean Youth Wartime Service Corps' (朝鲜青年战时服务团), founded in Wuhan in December 1937 by leftist Korean nationalists. Bi-s166.

7) Banner outside the headquarters of "L’Association des Etudiants Chinois de Retour de FBS", Wuhan. The banner was made by L'Association des Etudiants Chinois de Retour de FBS (France, Belgium and Switzerland Returned Students Association). The banner slogan reads 'Mobilize the power of the masses to defend Wuhan'. Sign on the window of the L'Association des Etudiants Chinois de Retour de FBS headquarters building at 69 Jianghan Road (江漢路六十九號) in Hankow (Hankou), in French: BUFFET & BILLIARD. Sign on the window in Chinese: Cold drinks / Coffee. Bi-s162