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This article uses the 2017 Meizhou Mazu's visit to Taiwan as a case study to demonstrate how Religious United Front operated in the civil religious exchange between Taiwan and China, and how various actors—including event organisers, local politicians, local temple managers and devotees—acted differently. Considering the disproportionality in the amount of resources that the Taiwanese and Chinese governments inject in the cultural battle, this article offers the Taiwanese government several tactics to overcome the challenge.

Abstract
This paper deals with two theoretical dilemmas concerning Chinese and Taiwanese identities in Taiwan: their vague classification and the unclear dynamics of change. By using grounded theory to analyse 110 in-depth interviews, the research identifies three crucial themes behind individuals' conceptualisations and interactions with the two identities: (1) ethical narrative, (2) cultural hierarchy, and (3) political ideology. Further theoretical comparisons generate a new epistemic framework which understands identity as a discourse of value: identity in its essence is merely a generic idea; only when associated with other discourses of value can an identity acquire full functions such as arousing people's sentiments and mobilising them to take actions. The theory suggests that Chinese and Taiwanese identities should be regarded as unique generic concepts attached with distinctive values. People seek identity change upon becoming aware that the original identity can no longer represent the values they have dearly cherished and followed.

There exists a conventional stereotype about native Taiwanese elders that were born in and lived through the Japanese rule before 1945. On the one hand, some politicians and political commentators derogatorily call them the "Kominka generation," reinforcing the image of this group of having strong affection for and even intense loyalty to the previous Japanese regime. On the other hand, although many researchers have pointed out this cohorts' strong cultural ties to Han ethnicity — some even possessed nostalgic feelings toward China — in the colonial period, the researchers also emphasized the emergence of their strong sense of being Taiwanese when they suffered various political and cultural discrimination from the new Chinese dominant class after 1945. Therefore, both perspectives falsely imagine this cohort to be definitely identifying themselves as Taiwanese, rejecting Chinese identity, opposing the Kuomintang (KMT), and supporting the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). This paper aims to challenge these stereotypes. By adopting the techniques of grounded theory, the paper shows rich diversity not only in this cohort's perceptions toward the political parties but also in their identity patterns. Furthermore three themes are identified in these participants' explanation for their political orientations: economic development, social stability and security, and the cultural hierarchy that gives the KMT elites higher symbolic values than native political elites.

"Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)" published on by Oxford University Press.

AbstractDuring her stay in Beijing (1933–1946), Hedda Hammer (later known as Hedda Morrison) made a visual record of shop signs with her camera. In this paper I rely on this visual record to examine what shop signs represented in Chinese material culture and their function in the urban setting. I argue that Morrison's photographic record reveals a fascinating element of street culture in the capital city that the textual records cannot document. I also contend that shop signs worked as genuine urban markers of the various trades and crafts in the city. As such, these artefacts constituted an expression of Chinese material culture, but were also a form of visual language to guide the gaze and pace of Beijing urbanites. This paper supports the idea that photographs have a particular relevance and value for the exploration of the Chinese urban setting in the Republican period. The use of photography goes beyond the record of disincarnated artefacts. It allows us to perceive and understand a fascinating dimension of visual culture in Republican Beijing, one of the numerous layers of signs that were displayed quite extensively through the city.