Foreign correspondents in Taiwan's diplomatic ecosystem: role awareness, identity, and contested statehood
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
- Venue
- SOAS Main Building
- Room
- R201
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
The Centre of Taiwan Studies is delighted to welcome our alumnus Tommy Hall for a talk exploring the growing role of foreign correspondents in Taiwan and how international journalism intersects with diplomacy, cross-Strait politics and Taiwan’s changing global media profile.
In the past decade, Taiwan's international news media landscape has transformed from being very insular to exceeding insider expectations about its potential as a burgeoning East Asian news media hub. From 2016 to 2024, the number of foreign correspondents setting roots in Taiwan has practically doubled, from 86 to 176.
This talk aims to approach Taiwanese diplomacy from a non-traditional angle – centering the lived perspectives and agency of foreign correspondents as they write about Taiwanese society and perform the functions of the fourth estate via daily interactions with Taiwan's government and foreign diplomats hosted at the various organisations that perform traditional embassy functions.
It takes into account the increasing global demand for China, Taiwan, and cross-Strait news, by acknowledging the historical development of an undivided, long line of 'China Watchers' who previously performed similar functions in Hong Kong after the end of the Civil War and Nationalist retreat to Taiwan in 1949. In short, it will explore the following fundamental question: how do foreign correspondents uniquely contribute to diplomacy in a so-called 'contested' state like Taiwan?
Image credit: Jeffery Chai via Unsplash
About the speaker
Tommy Hall is co-founder and director of the Oxford Semiconductor Conference (OSC), an annual forum connecting senior leaders across government, industry, finance, and academia to strengthen cooperation on advanced technology. His academic research examines the nexus of news media and international politics in Taiwan, focusing on Taiwanese journalists’ construction of Chinese-language international news narratives on the Russo-Ukrainian War and foreign correspondents’ roles in Taiwan’s diplomatic ecosystem. Tommy also serves as a logistics officer in the U.S. Army, with experience in the Republic of Korea and U.S. Mission to the United Nations. A Marshall Scholar (2022), he holds degrees from Oxford, SOAS, and West Point.
