Taiwan 22: Travels in Paradox

Taiwan is a free and prosperous country, yet a paradox exists in its sovereignty. If the world recognizes Taiwan as an independent nation, this could trigger an invasion from China. Conversely, if the world ignores Taiwan, it emboldens Beijing’s ambitions of conquest. Will Taiwan maintain its freedom, or will there be a third world war to decide its fate? Japan-based Canadian Tyrel Eskelson spends several months traveling to every corner of Taiwan to make sense of these tensions. He learns about the legacies of the Japanese Empire, the Chinese Civil War, the Cold War, and Taiwan’s emergence as a flourishing democracy.

Taiwan 22 is about ambiguity, paradox, and dilemma, but beneath that, it is a portrait of a people working to maintain peace and freedom. Eskelson transports the reader to the streets, markets, and temples of Taipei, where this journey begins. He joins an all-night Indigenous festival in a mountain village, travels by ship to Taiwan’s outlying islands, and visits a former prison camp where Allied soldiers labored and died. Eskelson explores the remote mountains and towns of the east coast, and journeys from the past to the future, as he moves from the historic city of Tainan to Hsinchu, semiconductor capital of the world. Through richly drawn scenes and memorable encounters – with shopkeepers, the homeless, celebrities, veterans, and long-term foreign residents – he reveals the human face of modern Taiwan and unravels its complexities.