Memory and resistance: The martial law period and Taiwan’s future in the era of Xi Jinping

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Memory and resistance: The martial law period and Taiwan's future in the era of Xi Jinping, by Dr Mark Harrison

This keynote address explores the way the Xi era is reactivating the salience of the martial law period in Taiwan. From being an open-ended exploration of democratic potential and socio-political justice, the threat from the PRC is remaking the memory and history of martial law as an unmediated potentiality. The address suggests that the memory of martial law in Taiwan is being mobilised as political force oriented outward to Taiwan's international and transnational relationships in culture, social life and politics, and ultimately as a source for national resistance to Taiwan's erasure as a place unto itself by the PRC party-state.

Mark Harrison is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Tasmania. He is a Founding Fellow of the Australian Centre on China in the World at The Australian National University. His academic work examines contemporary culture and politics in the Chinese-speaking world, using a distinctive theoretically-informed style and with a particular interest in Taiwan. He works widely across cultural studies, politics and policy, and international relations.