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• A theoretical account of governmentality is developed for a non-western city. • Such account combines with the post-colonial context of policy mobility. • CCB agenda seeks to develop a win-win solution for Taipei's long-standing crises. • A 'regime of truth' is alienated as a 'regime of representation'. • CCB has reproduced a closure of cultural politics and social exclusion. Creative City Building (CCB) agendas have become a global policy trend for re-governing urban decline. Taipei represents a postcolonial and global South city, in which the universal CCB agenda is regarded as a win-win solution for its long-standing crises. This paper shows that the exercise of the CCB agenda in Taipei: a not-so-global/non-western city represents the pursuance of a new governmentality, relative vision and toolkit produced from and embedded in logics of cities in the global North. We point out that research on CCB to-date tends to underplay engagement with debates on governmentality. We provide both theoretical and empirical reflections of the political rationality, specific technologies of governance and related social exclusion in Taipei's practice of CCB agenda. While highlighting the usefulness of the framework of governmentality, we suggest that such a framework has greater explanatory power when complemented by critiques of universal rationality, (post-) colonial governmentality and modernisation. Empirically, we develop a critical illustration of the process and characteristics of transferring universal rationality and agenda of CCB in Taipei's context. Consequently, this paper argues that behind the rhetoric of being inclusive, diverse or tolerant, the practice of CCB in Taipei instead reproduces the closure of cultural production and social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]