 I'm Karina Lyons, Vice President and Director of Research at the East West Centre and host of East West Centre Insights. The Centre is a cutting-edge research and capacity building institution and we're based here in Hawaii and our mission is to forge a deeper understanding and connection between the East and the West. So every two weeks on this show, which is Tuesday at 2 p.m. Hawaii time, I have a conversation with an East West Centre expert or a guest from our global network about critical Asia-Pacific issues. So check us out at eastwestcento.org slash insights. So today's guest is Michael Zing, who is the Director-General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, otherwise known as TECO, right here in Honolulu. And that office serves as the Representative Office of the Republic of China Taiwan in Hawaii. Director-General Zing joined Taiwan's Foreign Service in 1986. Gosh, he looks so young as a career diplomat and previously served as Ambassador to the Republic of Palau in 2016 and 2018. And he's been the Director-General of TECO in Honolulu since April 2018 and as you can tell we go way back. So hello Director-General, thank you for joining us today. Thank you Karina. We're happy to be here, thank you. Really good to see you and I should probably explain my informality. We both served as ambassadors for our country, so Palau at the same time. So it feels like the last time we actually got to meet in person, it was in that beautiful country, but here we are in this beautiful country. So I'm going to kick us right off by staying in the reality of the coronavirus. And we've talked about this before, but Taiwan has been one of the world's leaders encountering COVID-19. So can you give us an update on the current status in Taiwan? Yes, I think we had done a pretty good job in continuing the COVID-19. Until today, we have only 499 cases and seven deaths. Considering it's 23.6 million people and very close to many in China, when some of the research institutes say that we're going to be one of the worst hit country in the world, we turn out to be one of the best. So we are happy. What we had only two weeks delay of the school opening in February, only that and we had no lockdowns at all. So our economy is pretty good. The second quarters of our economy, according to an Oxford university scholar using the OECD data, we're number one in the world, we only had minus 0.6%. So it decreased, that increase of course. And comparing to South Korea minus three, Japan minus 10, Singapore minus 13 and UK minus 21%. So we're doing pretty good. Yeah. And given that we're currently in lockdown right here, I really seized on the fact that you said that businesses were operating and schools are actually in session. So what are some of the factors that have led to that success? And are there any lessons for other countries or for us here in Hawaii? Yes. I think there are a few reasons that we've been successful. First of all, of course, we Taiwan have one of the best public health system. Anybody who went there would know how good our system is. And also the second factor is that 2003, we had the SARS hit. SARS hit us really hard. We got 73 people passed away of the pandemic. And so people knew very well what kind of a respiratory contagious disease would be like. And government also immediately set up a very strong mechanism to deal with the future. That kind of outbreak or just contingency. And I think politically, I would say because we know China too well. They in the very early stage, they try to hide the information outbreak, but we knew we got information from on the mainland. And we did not trust what their official statements was. And we just took action very quickly. So that is one of the major reasons that we took early action. And also I think that during the whole process of the pandemic, it's important that the government, kids are very good, constant, transparent communication with the people. And our Health Minister hold the press conference live every single day for more than four months. Wow. Just to make sure that people understand what the situation they're in. So any questions that the people will ask or any media might ask, they just you know, can get all the answers that they, that are from the Minister. So this kind of transparent communication really cultivated the trust between the government and the public. So it really saves a lot of opportunity cost and also reduce the public panic over the of this kind of disease. So yes, the government is trying to teach to tell the people the enemy is not patient. The enemy is the virus. So everybody should have that kind of clear mindset to targeting the virus. And so as to spare a lot of efforts, right? Very important fingers to each other. I think it's really important. I wouldn't say this last, but I think it's one of the most important factor is the face masks. The face masks. If you see the Asian countries, the Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, even China, Hong Kong, we wear masks a lot. We don't think wearing a mask is some kind of authentic behavior to other people because we think especially during this pandemic, especially when those asymptomatic patient carriers, they don't know they are, they are the carriers. If you wear masks, it is actually a sort of respect to other people. So we really pump up our production from daily production of 1.8 million pieces to 20 million pieces a day within two months. That is a joint effort between our industry and the government. And the purpose is I want to make sure that people, the people, everybody has a mask to wear. And so as to really, you know, cut down the possibility of that kind of transmission. It's interesting. You stressed the transparency and communication as being a key to the success. And the last show we had Dr. Tim Brown, who's an epidemiologist at the East West Centre, and he also stressed clear communication as being one of the key factors in the successful jurisdiction such as Taiwan and New Zealand. But it's such a welcome relief to hear good news. And so I like to, when there are success stories, I do like to hear about that. But the main reason I invited you on today was to talk about the view from Taiwan and the Pacific context. And I was hoping that you could explain what Taiwan's new southbound policy is and how it overlaps with the US and the Pacific strategy. All right. So I use, you know, just quickly go over some of the points I think I In plain English, please, for people who aren't experts. I think the Taiwan is a new southbound policy and the US so they're open, they're free and open into Pacific strategy. They are all focused on the stress, strengthening the ties with the countries within the region. And I think that those two strategies has at least three converges, three areas of convergence. The first one I would, I can't really, you know, ever say that enough is the good governance. Good governance to share democratic values of principles. And that is really the core of these two strategies. I think between US and Taiwan, we have a very strong vital common denominator of the good governance that is a democracy. And because at the end of the day, what's the most important to work to an individual? You had to be your own boss of your life. And you want to be free to choose your own faith, right? You want to be free of expression. I mean, freedom of speech. And you also want to be free from any coercion. So that is the core essence of our values in these two strategies. The second part, of course, is security. You have no security. You can't really make sure that the regional development has a basis. So as we all understand that these two strategies as a sort of a common denominator is also we are facing the threats from the men in China. So what we Taiwan has to want to do is that we want to make sure the region is safe. So we made some purchase arms sales from the United States to make sure that we can defend ourselves. But at the same time, we also offering that kind of cooperation to make sure the maritime security in the region is good. For example, last year when President Tsai visited Palau and Nauru, we signed a maritime patrol corporation to have that kind of a frequent cooperation in the region for the safety of the sea. And Taiwan has donated patrol boats to those two nations. And the third one, of course, is economy. Because of the end of the day, it's trying to help the people of the countries in the region. So I think that Taiwan and U.S., we can cooperate on that because we allocated 3.1 billion U.S. dollars for the ODA, for our new Southbound policy. And we know that in the United States, OPIC, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation has also had some kind of a mission to cooperate with the local regional private sector to improve the area. So probably the most immediate best way to ramp up this cooperation is U.S. and Taiwan's free trade agreement. We have that kind of free trade agreement. We can integrate two economies so seamlessly and make it more powerful. We can join together to offer the Pacific Islands a lot more economic development efforts. And now please excuse my ignorance. I probably should know this, but I don't. But do you have a free trade agreement with the U.S.? Is that currently, is that on the cards? Yeah, we are trying to have that. And I think the both sides have the intention to do that. Okay. I know you have one with New Zealand, but I was like, oh, what's the deal with the U.S.? One of the things you mentioned there and that really helpful readout, thank you. It saves me during the reading. You mentioned the president's visit to Palau, and one of the key outcomes from that was the new maritime agreement. So I'd be interested to hear more generally about Taiwan's interests in the North Pacific and Palau because that's where you were the ambassador most recently, but also just sort of generally, for example, is the maritime arrangement also with Nauru? Yes. And I think as you probably have known that we are trying to all reopen our, we are opening our office in Guam. And that's really an action to show our emphasis in the region. And the regional cooperation in the Pacific Islands, the Taiwanese approach, we think it's important, also coincide with the free and open Indo-Pacific strategy. And our new Southbound policy is to emphasize that there is also a very good political, good governance elements in it because it's important when we are helping the people, we want to make sure that the money, that the benefits go to the people. Let me bring you some, usually what we do to our diplomatic allies in the region. In three areas, I would say, agriculture, Taiwanese culture in the, you know, tropical and tropical technology is one of the best in the world. So we offer them to, you know, teach them how to fish, right, and keeping the fish to do it. And medical service, because we have a very strong medical institution over there. So we are helping them to establish their own good institution. And so we, what we like to mention is that we always have kind of referral program, medical referral program for those most serious patients that they can go to Taiwan to enjoy our medical system, sort of under the national treatment, national status treatment, which means that they pay the same as our citizen pay for our medical curricula. And that's very important. And third one is education. I think education is so terribly important for, for, it's the basis of the national development. In Taiwan, if you probably, you don't know, it's a 45% of the people aged between 25 to 63 years old are holding the bachelor degrees or higher. So, so this is the basis of Taiwanese economic development. So we are helping them to do that. We came in a lot of, not only scholarship, but also a lot of work seminar or programs embodying them to go to Taiwan to learn. So these are the areas that we show our sincerity to other people, rather than versus vis-a-vis the Beijing's efforts of the, you know, trying to eye out the, the, their friendship, their diplomatic relations in the, in the region. I think it's, it's, it's a short term benefits for the country, but it's long term is not going to last long. Thanks for that. And sticking with this theme over the last year, Taiwan and the Pacific generally have made headlines in the US and around the world, particularly because of the two diplomatic defections, if you will, to PRC in the region. And I was hoping you might speak to some aspect of that, and in particular, sort of the, the flipping of the Solomon Islands and Kitabas. Well, it's a sad thing that that kind of thing should happen. As I mentioned to you is is, the Chinese are used that kind of big check, checkbook policy, diplomacy is, that's not the area of Taiwan will and willing to compete. We are, we are doing our best to help the local people, rather than, you know, we're looking at helping their national development under the United Nationals, sustainable goal, development goal. So it's different scenario, different way of approach, but we think how it's the best. Let me give you one example. The Solomon Islands now, even though they, they, they, they changed to, towards Beijing, but their biggest province, Maraita, I think is trying to, you know, pursue their own independence, because they are not agree with their federal government's policy. That shows that our assistant in the past decades really helped the grassroots people. They know what's best for them. So, we are, we really, you know, sad to, sad to see those, those two allies went, left us last year. But we are hoping that the more people understand the two different ways of our diplomatic assistance, which is from Beijing or from Taiwan, if they can tell more. And I think we are on the sort of upper hand in the long run. When I, when it come to this topic, I would also like to emphasize one thing is that the, that kind of education, education is such terribly important to, to let the one countries to have a civil society. And that civil society really helped build a long-term democracy. And, you know, today happens to be the international day of democracy, you know, in any nation's day. And the other week, I read a newspaper, I read an article on, actually, it's a, it's a junct senior fellow from the EWC. He's a Professor Richard Honing. He wrote an article supposed to be published today, I think. The name is No Democracy Without a Civil Society and help building a civil society in any country, actually, not only in, in, on those islands, the Pacific Island nations in any country, the same. We need to have that kind of more efforts, more transparent to help the NGOs, the media to help them to, to, to, to see what's the ultimate benefits of their own people. I think that's one of the most important ways to help them to have that kind of national development set up a good foundation on that. I'm sure Richard is watching. He'll be really pleased that you just gave him some pre-publicity about his paper to come out. So we'll have to make sure, I'll have to look at it. I haven't seen and he has spent a lot of time living in Asia, working some pretty big companies, I believe, the economists, I think, comes to mind. I hope that's right, Rick, if you're watching. And he works with us at the center, which brings us back to the center. When you focused on education being key, and I think a lot of people wouldn't necessarily know that Taiwan and the East West center have a very long history focused on improving opportunities and deepening the education efforts. And one of the flagship programs is the Pacific Islands leadership leadership program. I should say that probably the Pacific Islands leadership program, which is run by the professional development program at the East West center. And that's fully funded by Taiwan. I got to participate for the first time last year. I had a fantastic time. I ate so much I could barely carry my body weight, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about PILP, about Pacific Island leadership program, which has been running, I think, for eight years. Yes. We started the program 2013. It's a five years term, and we can do it on the second term now. I think it's important to help the Pacific Island nations to help them to, if for those young leaders, potential leaders, to set up their network for the purpose of the development of the region. So we are very happy that we have the funding and had the cooperation from the EWC, which is one of the most important thing that the institution in connection with the Pacific Islands. So we started that and it turned out a very good result. And we think not only learning from the books, from the classroom, you can really see what the development is really about. So we set up the two servers, two stages of the program. Every year, they will come to EWC for four to six weeks, and then the second half will be going to Taiwan to see what we have been doing in the past. Frankly, at Taiwan in the 1950s and 60s, we were one of the most poor countries in the world. We were actually depending on the American foreign assistance from America for more than a decade. So now we are capable to feed back to the international. So this is one of the programs that we are doing, sharing our experiences with them for the purpose of the development of the Pacific Islands. So we've got about four minutes to go. And so I'm going to ask you one, I know it's time flies when we're just having a chat and having fun. But so I thought I would leave you with this question, which is a bit of a doozy. Given what we just talked about with Rick's upcoming piece and sort of one of the underlying tenets of the civilian leadership program, which is again to reinforce democracy and good governance. I was interested in your reviews on China's expanding role in the Pacific. And you know, is Taiwan worried? Well, I think yes, Taiwan, we are worried, but I think all the country, all the free and democratic countries should be worried about that. Because I would think what's important thing is that the whole world now we are facing the threats from Chinese sort of their model of governance, which is a really anti-freedom and anti-democratic institution. So we are worried about that. Because if we look at what they are doing in Hong Kong, you know, everybody see from the TV in Xinjiang, Mongolia and Shizong, they are trying to synthesize them, try to make destroy their own cultural language, try to make it have only one of the Han, Han dynasty is that kind of mindset. And I think it's wrong. So they are trying to sell that, and really to the really contradiction to our free and democratic way of living. So we have to put out, if we want to put out a way of living, our institution, we need to work together to look at what they have done to try to stop them from expanding. Yeah, I thank you for your candor. I really appreciate you coming on today and being willing to have this discussion with me. I think one important distinction to make there is between the Chinese government and the party and of course the people of China. And you and I have had this discussion before, and so that's an assumed part of this conversation, but I thought it was worth noting here that we are discussing international relations. And so at that level, it's important to remember the distinction, particularly when we're talking to people who don't live and breathe that. So thank you again, Michael. I really appreciate your time and looking forward to working together in the future. Aloha. Thank you so much. Thank you.