Taiwan Review magazine closes in Taiwan after 75 years — Taipei Times
After 75 years of operation, the English-language magazine Taiwan Review has ceased publication in Taiwan. For decades, it covered changes in the country and served as a state publication for foreign audiences. The magazine’s final issue was published in March 2026, Taipei Times reports.
The publication was launched in 1951 under the name Free China Review by the Central Propaganda Department of the Central Committee for Reform of the Kuomintang party. In 2000, the magazine was renamed Taipei Review, and in 2003 it became Taiwan Review.
Foreign Ministry publication cuts
The closure of Taiwan Review came amid cuts by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to spending on the publications it oversees. The ministry reduced their combined annual budget by NT$57 million and laid off at least 25 full-time employees.
The cuts also affected Taiwan Today, a daily news platform in nine languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese and Vietnamese. Some language sections had operated since the early 1970s. In addition, the print edition of the bilingual cultural magazine Taiwan Panorama was discontinued: since July, it has been available only online.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
The Foreign Ministry explained the changes by the declining audience for print media and the transformation of the media environment. Ministry representatives also cited the spread of artificial intelligence-assisted translation and an overlap of functions with other state media platforms.
Concerns over digital archives
Former and current editorial staff are concerned about the fate of multilingual digital archives that began disappearing from the internet in July. In particular, the page of the German-language edition Freies China, which contained materials available from at least 1990, was removed from the internet.
The Foreign Ministry said the digital materials had been fully copied and preserved and were not deleted. Print archives are held by at least one national library, while further decisions on access to the materials will depend on the budget, needs and priorities.
Laurence Marcou, a former editor and translator at the French-language information department who worked there from 1992 to 2016, expressed concern about years of content that existed only online. The publication’s sources propose either restoring online access to the archives or creating an offline archive as part of Taiwan’s National Archives.
