Three grand political dreams have upended the existing geopolitical order in the twenty-first century, posing new global challenges: Trump’s inward-looking dream to ‘Make America Great Again’; Putin’s outward-looking dream of Russian imperialist expansion; and Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’ with its global ambitions. Three key factors have turned these dreams into Taiwan’s nightmare: first, the ‘no-limits friendship’ pledge between Russia and China at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics; second, Russia’s subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine; and third, America’s ensuing global realignment. Western media frequently portray Taiwan as a potential flashpoint ‒ a ‘new Ukraine scenario’. While recent scholarship has examined these issues through the lenses of politics, economics and international relations, little attention has been paid to cultural and unofficial perceptions in both China and Taiwan. This study seeks to redress this shortfall by analysing visual artworks and online poetry on Sinophone social media to reveal vernacular voices from China, Hong Kong and both Han and Indigenous cultures in Taiwan. Drawing on the concept of ‘China’s vernacular cultures’ (Dudbridge 1996) ‒ in contrast to state-sanctioned narratives ‒ this research aims to provide rare unofficial insights into Chinese and Taiwanese perceptions of Russia’s war against Ukraine. It responds to the urgent need for a deeper understanding of competing cultural discourses across China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. By exploring the themes of utopia and anti-utopia in these narratives, this study sheds new light on the dreams, fears and nightmares of citizens and netizens across the Taiwan Strait ‒and on their contested visions of the future.

Daria Berg, DPhil (Oxon), is the Inaugural Chair Professor of Chinese Culture and Society at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, and an Affiliated Professor at the Centre for Intercultural Competence, St.Gallen Institute for Management in Asia, Singapore. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. She studied Sinology, English Literature and Japanese Studies in Munich, Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo and Kyoto, and received her doctorate in Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford in 1995. She was the Cannon Graduate Scholar at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, and the Randall-MacIver Junior Research Fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Before moving to Switzerland in 2011, she taught at the Universities of Oxford, Durham and Nottingham, UK.