 Hello Minister Tai! Long time no see. Long time no see. How's it going in Canada? Good! One second, let me turn my camera on. One second. Hey, here we go. Here we go. You can see my laundry in the back. That's right, that's right. Well, not very high resolution. I wouldn't think it's laundry hadn't you told me, but okay, now I know. Now I cannot unsee them. Yeah, so I sent a couple questions about 15 minutes ago and most of them I think are pretty straightforward. And then a lot of the questions I have are just kind of following up on some of the things that happened with the OGP in Taiwan since 2013. That does appear to be the first time that Taiwan had some interest in joining the OGP. Is that sound of a rape too? Yeah, as far as I knew, there was a one official bid. I think it was back when Sam and Jong was deputy premier. I think it's around that time. And I never saw anything in the news, in the English news at least. I didn't see anything in the Chinese news about what was the final resolution of that first bid. What happened to that first bid? At the time, the steering committee considered the case and also considered the fact that Taiwan is not a UN member or a UN defined universally recognized state government. And so I think the initial negotiation was predicated on this fact and it was not... I don't think it's formally said that it's because of this reason that Taiwan is not admitted, but rather considering this fact, the steering committee at the time did not wish to accept Taiwan's proposal and associated national action plan at that time. So at that time, then Taiwan also concurrently proposed a national action plan for the OGP at the same time? A outline, an outline. Of course, per the due process, the NAP would have to be jointly discussed with civil society organizations. But a proposing government is responsible to at least set some high level outline to begin the discussion. For a consultation, you have to have this outline. So yes, Taiwan did prepare outline at the time. And so from what I understand also about the OGP, they require that a specific department or unit is in charge from the government side. And which side at that time did Taiwan choose... I should say which government department or unit did Taiwan choose to be in charge of the OGP bid? I think it's just the administration, the executive UN, the de facto unit who drafted the initial plan. I think all the ministries related to the open government issues at the time contributed, but I think the one who assembled or aggregated the departmental or ministry or contributions is the National Divinal Council, also freshly minted at that time. And so has Taiwan continued to apply to the OGP since that previous application? Not as such, not as like national action plan or like not formally like the first bid, no. And what was the reason why that it hasn't done a subsequent official bid? Well, the preconditions mentioned during the initial bid has not changed. I find it quite curious from the OGP standpoint, because I'm sure you've noticed a lot of their terminology uses things like member governments as opposed to member state or member country. That kind of language seems to not preclude Taiwan from joining. Was that your thought also when you went to Paris in 2016? When I went to Paris, I was there to explore several possibilities. One is for a city level government to join a subnational program, also freshly minted at the time. And I think I told the Gulf Zero News reporter who happens to be the first same person talking to me now about that debt. But it's not a formal proposal, it's just an exploratory conversation really. And far as I know, the conversation started around that time. But during my kind of keynote-ish speech, I said, you know, we're open to any arrangement. We're not specific about one particular venue or formality of Taiwan's definition. So basically, I remained open to any possible conversations. And was there any possibility that, say, Taipei or any other city in Taiwan could join at the subnational level? Is that a possibility still? Well, we checked the subnational charter. And one of the preconditions at the time was that it has to be under an existing national action plan country. So if the upper level is not a national action plan, then the subnational action plan has nothing to hook to. And that still remains one of the outstanding issues. So basically, Taiwan would have to join first as a member government before Taipei or Kaohsiung or Taichung could join as a subnational government? That's our impression at the time, yes. I see. That was what, two years ago? And that probably hasn't changed also then, from your understanding. We haven't received any indication that it has changed. Okay. What is the level of communication between Taiwan and the OGP? Do you have any contact person, or is there anyone that you are relatively familiar with that you keep in contact with at the OGP on a regular basis? I wouldn't say on a regular basis, but there's several efforts like the crowd law efforts that both the co-chair, Mokilani and our designer, Shuyang Lin, both participated and is a signatory, actually, of the crowd law manifesto. And so there's various open government related end-of-us that involves those OGP and OGP active members and also active members in Taiwan's open government plan. And also the Personal Democracy Forum and the New York Training Workshop afterwards. There's also plenty of people who wear multiple hats and so on. So I would say there is an ongoing discussion, but it's not specific about OGP or Taiwan's membership of OGP, but rather using open government ideals or open government values to collaborate on specific projects and specific networks. But it's not specifically about the Taiwan government and OGP per se, but rather on the end-of-us of common interest. It seems like Taiwan would be such an ideal partner for the OGP just in so many ways. Taiwan is a leader in open data. It's a leader in participatory platforms. The VTaiwan platform, the joint platform, are great platforms and good examples for other countries in East Asia. It has one of the strongest civic tech organizations in East Asia, possibly all of Asia. I mean, it seems like Taiwan would have a lot to give to the OGP. Do they see that also? Or is that not something that they have noticed as of yet? Certainly, we have already contributed a lot. I mean, just by participating in previous The Paris Summit, for example, there's plenty of Taiwan participation. And even this year, without any pre-planning, there's also like 20 people from Taiwan and the civil society certainly made a very strong statement that Taiwan has an active civic participation community. And of course, the government, because of this year's venue, we cannot plan well in advance, but we did support in terms of logistics and in terms of the planning and scheduling of the flights and accommodation and things like that. So I think it is by itself a show of neutral trust between the civil society organization and the government in Taiwan in the highest level. Like in my office, we send two people to the OGP. So I would say OGP is generally aware that Taiwan is not only unqualified, but an outstanding contributor to the open government values. If Taiwan can't contribute to the OGP, what are some ways that you think Taiwan could contribute to open government or open data or the civic tech movement regionally, perhaps the Asia-Pacific region, or globally? Well, the GavZero Summit is a very good start. But seriously, because it really is growing in not only the amount of attention that it receives from the global networks, but actually after each summit we see a lot of like spawned international collaborations that invites people in Taiwan with similar experiences that they see in GavZero Summit to visit or to be fellows or to, we get a lot of interest from also academics to study the Taiwan experience in doing civic tech and so on. So I think just the civil society organizations here clearly plays a leading role in not only setting the agenda regionally on the topics you just mentioned, but also globally by positioning Taiwan as a partner. I love the term you use a partner as in partnership for the goals, not just sustainable development goals, but also all the other regionally important agenda. And I think this position of partnership is one of Taiwan's strongest when it comes to international awareness that what Taiwan can offer. So I mean from an international relations perspective, Taiwan is often blocked from joining very important international fora because of China's position on Taiwan. Is that the case with the OGP or is it something that could be potential or is it not just because it's something that China is not interested in? They're not interested in open governments so they don't care about this particular issue. I have not received any message or indication that the PRC has or has not an interest on the open government partnership. I don't have any communication around this. I mean generally it doesn't seem like China is interested. I've never in my experience seen anything that says that China is interested in this concept of open government even. I mean we've certainly seen open data portals before, but this term of open government has not been bandied about by say for example by the PRC or by Beijing from what I've seen. Does that also match with your experience? Well there is like a qualifying standard in the OGP that any participating governments need to qualify before even submitting the outline of the NAP. So it is a self-assessment but I'm not in contact with anyone linked to or from the PRC in relation to this self-assessment. I really don't know. If Taiwan can't join OGP as a member government, what other ways do you hope Taiwan can participate in the OGP? There's various topics or thematic areas that OGP are currently actively looking into. There's the open parliament network or OPEN. There's various networks around the topics you just mentioned, around open data, around collaboration on civic participation or spaces for civil service organizations and things like that. So I think one of the very good steps is just to continue to make these themes vocal and apparent in venues such as the Kavzero Summit or the various other end-of-us like for example the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy recently signed the Crowd Law Manifesto. And so maybe the Crowd Law activities is one of the ways where the Taiwan, maybe members of parliament, maybe members of administration can also showcase our commitment to those open values. And so it will intersect naturally with the OGP endeavors. So maybe formally as members who both participate in the same network or the same endeavor, or maybe informally like people just running into each other in the Kavzero Summit. So I think that level, the operation level is where we found the least resistance and that is where we're focusing our energy at this point. I mean, in one way of course, I mean, Taiwan can participate in the OGP by sending members of civil society to the OGP summit. But at the same time, I feel that it's a bit of a shame that Taiwan can only send members of civil society to it. And I'm sure you've seen it in the numbers of people that Taiwan sends compared to other countries in the Asia Pacific. Taiwan sends a huge amount of members of civil society to the OGP. In 2016, they sent 13 members, which was the largest amount of members in East Asia, if we're talking about say, for example, Korea, Japan, China. And then this year, I haven't looked at the other countries, but I'm almost certain with 20 members from Taiwan that's probably also the largest amount of members from East Asia that attended it. Isn't it just a shame that it's only civil society that can participate in the OGP? Well, I mean, I personally participated in Paris and also people in my office also participated this year. Speaking personally, not as a minister but as a conservative anarchist, I have no problem of having given a keynote and being introduced as the digital minister of Taiwan. But labeling Taiwan as a nonprofit, personally, I have no problem with that for the record. But I do understand that our ministry of foreign affairs and other diplomatic relationship people would prefer something that's more official and something that's more formal. And I do respect their wish in that way. I'm just speaking personally because I do wish that anything the government currently can do, at least the civil society can have a picture of, have a context of the government's proceedings and eventually will maybe evolve into a multi-stakeholder governance system, maybe not in my lifetime. But at least in this lifetime, what I'm trying to do is to make sure that all the government proceedings or the government projects or the government regulations and so on, there's sufficient space for the civil society to participate in the agenda setting. So I have no problem. I don't think it is a shame when I participate in Paris that I'm labeled as a digital minister of a nonprofit called Taiwan. Do you think, I mean, would most people in Taiwan actually don't know about the OGP? I mean, let's be honest. The public has, I think globally we can say that open government, open data, civic tech is still very much a niche thing. Do you think if there was wider attention about what the OGP was or what open government was, do you think that there'd be more demand from the Taiwanese public for it to participate in the OGP as Taiwan? Well, part of my narrative at the moment saying that we're focusing on SD217, partnership for the goals is to position civic tech and position open government as an instrument for cross-sectoral international collaboration for the sustainable development goals. And this is a role that is more outward looking, and that is not something that we do open government for open government partnership's sake, but we do SD217 to further the trust between the various sectors and various interests in humanity. But I would also admit that SD217 is also not a household thing in Taiwan either. It's not in Canada either. It's not like it's gaining as much. At the same point, I think in Taiwan because the general population values innovation, I think that's part of Taiwan's identity is where innovation happens. And also in addition to industrial innovation, Taiwan people also pride ourselves on social innovation, meaning that innovation that works with the society that solves social issues. And almost by definition, civic tech is a subset of social innovation, like civic, social, tech innovation. So it is, I think, a larger umbrella that the Taiwan people can feel more comfortable identifying with because civic to social is like the democratic process, the participation and so on. So if we position this as an instrument for more social participation, I think it's easier for people to accept. And again, tech sounds like one fraction of engineers, right? But innovation, that's something that everybody can get behind. So the National Social Innovation Plan is consciously embedding the civic tech values by using open government or SDG 17 as the rallying value, but to enable the society to deliver on the common sustainable goals together. And so I think the larger social innovation umbrella term, at least is this one that Peter's, that my office is using at the time to describe something that certainly includes civic tech and open government, but not limited to civic tech. I think that's about it. My last question would be, if the OGP offered Taiwan membership, how would you reply to that? How would you feel about that also? I would feel great. I would feel awesome. So I think the open government partnership at the end is a partnership. So as I want to have stressed in our interview, Taiwan is a partner, regardless of whether we're an official member of any sort. Taiwan has been a stable partner to the open government values. And so any way to mutually influence recognition of this partnership for me is a step forward. And so that's it. So I think we're a partner regardless of whether we're an official partner and any mutual recognition is a good thing. Okay, fine. Well, that's what other questions I have than Mr. Tang. Thank you so much. So I get to publish this on YouTube. You totally can. Absolutely. Feel free. Let's do that and I'll send you the link. Thank you. Okay, great. Bye. All right. Have a great day.