After returning to Taiwan, she began writing an op-ed column in the "China Times" on various conditions in Taiwan. Her essays were published together in 1985 in a book of sociopolitical criticism, "Ye Huo Ji" ("野火集", "The Wild Fire"), when Taiwan was still under the Kuomintang's one-party rule, and this book "was seen as influential in the democratization of the island." She moved to Germany in 1987, partly due to the response to her work that included death threats. Her translated essays had appeared in European newspapers such as the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". Her work has appeared in mainland Chinese newspapers since the early 1990s. Her books include "Haizi Ni Manman Lai" (孩子你慢慢來, 1994, Children, Take Your Time), "Yinse Xianrenzhang" (銀色仙人掌：龍應台小說集, 2003, Silver Cactus: Stories), "Bainian Sisuo" (百年思索, 1999, A Century of Thought) and in 2006, "Qing Yong Wenming Lai Shuifu Wo" (請用文明來說服我, 2006, Please Use Civilization to Convince Me), an open letter to Hu Jintao following the temporary closure of "Freezing Point". She criticised Singaporean minister Lee Kuan Yew and the government's restrictions on personal freedom in 1994 in an article titled, "Thank God I Am Not Singaporean" (幸好我不是新加坡人).