 Good afternoon from Taipei. I am Ben Blanchard. I'm the Reuters Taiwan bureau chief We are very happy today to have minister Audrey Tung Taiwan's digital minister joining us for Reuters next Minister Tung is a self-described civic hacker. She joined the government in 2016 at the age of 35 And I believe please correct me if I'm wrong. You are the second youngest ever Appointee to the cabinet in Taiwan You're one of the most of the prominent supporters and proponents of Taiwan on the international stage So we thank you for joining us today if I could go straight into the the the interview Next week you will be representing Taiwan at President Biden's democracy summit along with ambassador Shelby Kim Could you give us a flavor perhaps of what you're going to say? At that summit and sort of explain to us why you think it's so important that Taiwan has been invited to participate Definitely as the State Department and our Ministry of Foreign Affairs have already shared with the journalistic community This will be a focus on the human rights and the advance that we make on democracy Especially during the two years of the pandemic and infodemic I believe the fact that we have countered the pandemic with no lockdown and Infodemic with no takedown shows that it's not just about Defending democracy in a struggle against authoritarianism, but also about advancing democracy so that the citizens and the governments Can enjoy more mutual trust beginning with the governments trusting our citizens Obviously, there's a lot of international attention on Taiwan at the moment because of the increased pressure That China is putting on Taiwan whether it's military or diplomatic or or Political and as you know, the Chinese government is very angry that That Taiwan has been invited to participate What's your sort of reaction to that? I mean sort of where you know, there is constant pressure from China and especially the fact that they are so Angry that you are going to be participating and that the Taiwan government has been invited to the democracy side Well, I think this is the the first Round right of the summit for democracy, but it's not going to be the last There will be in the future more summit gatherings for democracy. So for all the Governments and peoples around the world who feel Maybe slighted that they have not been invited as a participant My suggestion is to double down on realizing democracy so that maybe by the next round we will be sharing the same stage So you're basically saying that China really should democratize if it wants to if it wants to be invited to summits like this This is a summit for democracy. So obviously The participants are all the entities and governments in Taiwan working to advance democracy as as I call it A social technology which gets better if more people advance it together And minister, are you actually going to washington for the summit or will you be participating virtually? Or as a digital minister, of course, it's natural for me to appear digitally as we are having this conversation now But I also understand that pretty much all of the participants will be digital Okay Now minister, one of the you are most well known for in taiwan is about participatory democracy about radical transparency openness We obviously exist in a time of extreme disinformation on the internet The taiwanese government complains frequently about disinformation That that spreads in taiwan and a lot of it they say comes from china How do you tackle this? I mean, what is the sort of overriding your overriding strategy for tackling this? And do you believe that you're winning the war? Against china, I suppose for our foot when it comes to disinformation Um, the height of the disinformation campaigns was during 2018-2019 But leading up to our presidential election in january 2020, we have adopted two strategies One is called notice and public notice, which means instead of taking anything down when we notice that they were, for example A trending rumor that's going viral about painting the protesters from hong kong as and I quote rioters that have been paid 20 million to murder the police and I quote All these of course are not taken down But we work with independent fact checkers like the taiwan fact checking center and so on members of the international fact checking network to trace the origin of that alternate caption So we soon discovered by the independent journalists that a photo was real and it was a Reuters photo But the original Reuters caption says nothing about being paid or murdering police It just said there were young protesters in hong kong So the alternate caption came from the Zhongyang Zheng Fa Wei Chang An Jian the Chang An sword or the central political and law unit From the communist party on the weibo account. So instead of taking this message down We just made sure that on the social networks and so on where this message is being spread There is this label and when you share it that says, you know, this is sponsored by the Chang An Jian as discovered by the taiwan fact checking center So it's not to inhibit The virus of the mind so to speak but rather to make inoculation immunization so that we develop kind of antibodies It's like a mrna strength to stretch the metaphor a little bit So that we can actually repackage this this information into something that enhance the resilience and Immunity of the entire citizenry and we also use of course humor over rumor Like the very cute spokes dog zong chai ashi by yinu So pretty much all the central epidemic command centers counter this information posters are based on this very cute dog And internet meme basically that spreads even faster than outrage so A lot of this taiwan obviously is where it's a very free society here We're a democracy freedom of speech and stuff You know people are very passionate users of facebook of instagram uh of twitter But china uses as increasingly good at using these these platforms which are of course ironically banned in china themselves to sort of Spread its message around the world. We saw last week for example hushijin Who's the editor of the global times was busy attacking president tai for on twitter For meeting the Baltic lawmakers Do you think that there should be more regulation of social media to especially sort of in the case of china really to prevent them from abusing these tools Well, I believe twitter also adopt the same public notice policy when it comes for example to label the state affiliated or sponsored accounts But more than that, I believe to advance democracy. We need to build our own pro-social social media in conjunction with the democracies around the world for example in taiwan the join platform which enjoys more than 30 million visits In a country of 23 million so a lot That was basically based upon betel the kavik from island and kanso and desidema From spain from basalona and so on and so all these international contributions on how to make a pro-social social media Made sure that we have the digital equivalent of town halls and public libraries or university campuses in the case of ptt Taiwan's reddit equivalent, but with no shareholders or advertisers So people understand that to talk about public issues There are those digital town squares to talk to so we're not forcing our citizens to only have such conversations Under digital equivalent of i don't know nightclubs or the entertainment sector, which would be like facebook Thank you minister that's a very interesting point one of the um One of the sort of comments that you're very famous for you have a very dry wet You you like you're talking about using humor to counter some of um real america. Yes Count using humor to counter rumor. I remember in 2019 you gave a very witty response to a german reporter When you were asked about uh, when did you know about taiwan the neolithic age? Yes Exactly, but it was in the neolithic period that taiwan broke away from china Do you do you think that in the the sort of the international discourse? Around taiwan, there's too much focus about trying to connect taiwan to china And that sort of means that taiwan's own achievements own story Is more difficult for the outside world to hear Well when it comes to digital democracy And as i mentioned countering the pandemic countering the infodemic and so on I don't think there's so much Resistance right in the entire world to hear such messages What we call the taiwan model or taiwan can help and in these contexts I mean how to counter this information using humor or using notice and public notice is so drastically different than Social media that is sponsored by the state in more authoritarian regimes. So in these conversational contexts I don't think there's a risk for taiwan to be confused with some nearby authoritarian regimes Does it frustrate to you personally that if you look at international media coverage of china It's it's it's often especially at the moment with the pressure that taiwan is facing That so many of the stories from taiwan and about taiwan are ultimately stories about china Well, as I mentioned in my domain, which is digital democracy social innovation of a government youth engagement and so on I have not run personally Into such conversations and since you mentioned, I think it was the deutscher velle, right the dw Interview, um, I think I only spent maybe two seconds answering that particular Question about the neolithic age, but the remainder of the conversation. Oh, sorry for that. Let's let's redo this part Okay All right It does a great question In my line of work, which is open government social innovation and youth engagement When working with international journalists and correspondents I don't think there's a lot of confusions here and the story was almost never About the taiwan slash baiting Relationships, but rather as I mentioned about island or about Spain about japan about the us and so on how those democracies are learning from each other And so I believe that when the deutscher velle dw journalists asked me the question about I think was a hong kong and digital democracy I only spent a couple seconds Kind of brushing off right the question About the so-called breakaway province saying that you know It's broken away since the neolithic age And then the remainder of that interview was all about the topics that I just talked about and had no bearings about the beijing relationships All right, so and when you're attending the The the democracy summit next week when when you're when you're talking about china's, sorry taiwan's Sorry and and but about also disinformation that comes from china I mean, what do you really want the what do you want the world to know about the situation that you're facing here? And what lessons do you want the world to take away from your experience and what you've been doing in taiwan? Now, I mean, uh, it's a summit for democracy, right? So while we also talk about how to struggle against Authoritarianism or disinformation or the pandemic for that matter Ultimately, it is about treating democracy as a kind of social technology that all can contribute to So it's not just about every person Contributing three bits of information every four years called voting But rather in a continuous way through Petitions through the sandbox applications presidential hackathons participatory budget referendum I can go on All these ways are to increase the bandwidth of democracy so that the government can respond to people's needs in the here and now But also more importantly new innovations can thrive instead of having to wait for four years So to shorten the iteration to make democracy more rapid more here and now I believe is my main message And what are the areas that still sort of concern you about? democracy In in taiwan and and sort of what areas do you think you personally in your role still need to improve a project? Definitely, um, I think broadly speaking, uh, there are two main challenges that we're tackling One is how to get what we call good enough consensus people's broad agreement on the common values in a more predictable and a more quick fashion I mean when it comes to fighting the virus or fighting the kind of foreign meddling on our election Of course, there is common value in the entire citizenry So it's rather quick to go to the innovation stage rather than just talk about the consensus But if you look at our recent referenda discussions, it's quite obvious That's because previously all the referenda were tied to election cycles So it naturally takes a more kind of partisan more polarized tone of conversation And this is actually the first time that we can treat referenda as the subject matters by themselves instead of tied to particular election cycles about politicians or political parties So a culture around a more deliberative tone of the markets to get a good enough consensus going I think that is the the main challenge and we're starting now With this current referendum to start to build such a more conversational and deliberative culture And the second challenge is people who don't even have a vote in the referendum or elections, right? People younger than 18 Are responsible for more than one quarter of citizens initiatives in our join the GOV that TW platform And many of the most impactful suggestions like banning the plastic straws in our signature during the bubble T came from people younger than 18 So how to make sure that people younger than 18 think about democracy as something in the here and now that they can Set agenda together and even lead the country's directions before getting the right to vote. I believe is also very important Minister, I think we're almost at our time minute. I have just That's okay. I don't have anything afterwards You can keep doing this and we can edit it down I have just a question which is a slightly lighter question I know that sometimes in your interviews you like to use the vulcan expression live long and prosper um From your Personal point of view, you know, it's star trek. You know, it's seen as this sort of utopian society Something it was very ahead of its time when it came out in the 1960s certainly in terms of things like interracial relationships and stuff Do you think there's a lesson from star trek for taiwan? Mm-hmm Definitely, uh, I used the vulcan salute, uh, because I believe it's a catchier way I can also talk about To sustain and to develop right sustainable developments But to sustain to me means well live long right intergenerationally And uh to have a development of course is to prosper together. So to me, this is uh, I used to wear a pin here Right the sdg's pin with all the 17 colors that talks about the sustainability and development not as too diametrically opposing things but as two things that can be joined together and in a shared vision So we can advance sustainability and development together advancing the future generations without sacrificing the current generation and vice versa But uh, it's very long to say as a mouthful to say so I've shortened it to simply well live long and prosper Which to me symbolizes sustainability and development and in taiwan Previously, um, it's quite easy to portray a public conversation Around a for example public construction as kind of a trade-off Between sustainability on one side and the development on the other right the environmental and economic Interest are seen as in kind of this tug of war But now using new ideas Including impact investment circular economy and things like that We are now seeing new innovation that can advance those two values together So it's not only a lesson for taiwan to learn but also in the spirit of building back better and taking care of our Planet net zero emissions and so on. This is a lesson that I think all should learn And minister, is there a particular Star Trek character? For example, spock that you have found Personally inspirational In your own personal journey Well, um, I found the entire world building to be inspirational I can't say that I identify with any particular character, but of course live long and prosper. I first saw it from spock Uh, minister, uh, thank you very much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you live long and prosper