 Welcome everyone to the first session of the 2021 SOAS Centre Taiwan Studies summer school. Our first session looks at a really important issue from the lens of Taiwan's environmental movement, and that's the issue of Taiwan's fourth nuclear power station. I think it's particularly important that we look at this topic because there is a proposed referendum in the summer of this year. And of course it's a topic that we're coming back to as I mentioned earlier. It's something that we discussed in our 2013 Taiwan Studies summer school when there was also a proposed referendum, but in that case it eventually got cancelled. I'm delighted to welcome two really important speakers and I should say that I'm welcoming them back. Our first speaker is Wei Young who was here in 2018 in our summer school when he presented on a round table on student movements. At that point in time Wei Young was a MSc student in sociology at the University of Oxford. And since he graduated in 2018 he's been back in Taiwan and he's been involved in the campaign against nuclear power in both the referendum campaigns of 2018 and 2021. And he's been doing this through his role as a research fellow in the Green Citizens Action Alliance, which is an environmental NGO that we've heard a lot about, for example in the work of Simona Grano. And we also hear about it in the brand new book that Paul Joban has edited with Xiao Jinghuang and Heo Minxiu, which we'll be talking about later this week. Our second speaker is Simona Grano who's one of the key figures in the study of environmental issues in Taiwan. She teaches at the University of Zurich and has also been very active in the development of Taiwan Studies in Europe. Through her role as the director of the Taiwan Studies program at the University of Zurich. And she's also been involved in the European Association of Taiwan Studies, hosting the conference in Zurich. And we're delighted that she's actually joining us this year as one of our research associates. The other thing I should mention is that Simona is the author of a very influential book Environmental Governance in Taiwan that was published in 2015. And as part of this week's project, she'll be revisiting that book six years after its publication. Now, the format of today's session, we're going to first have a brief overview presentation. We'll tell us a little bit about the history of the environment, the anti-nuclear movement, and the nuclear power industry as well as where we are now before we move to discussion with Wei Young and Simona. So now I'm going to hand over to Yang for your presentation and welcome back. It's great to see you again. Thank you, Deffy, and hi everyone. Can you hear me clearly? Yeah, okay. It's my great honor to be able to talk to you on this issue. And it has been three years since I was in SOAS and talk about student movement. And back then I was still a student, but now I'm a research fellow in the environmental organization called GCAA. Okay, I'm sharing my screen now. Can you all see it? If you can, just let me know. Okay, so I'm just going to briefly introduce the anti-nuclear movement in Taiwan and why we oppose to the construction and operation of the fourth nuclear power plant in Taiwan. So first I just want everyone to know that this is our current electricity mix in Taiwan. So as you can see, nuclear takes up about 11% in our mix and coal is about 45%. And guess, 35%. And renewable together with the pump storage hydro is around 6.5%, which may not look a lot down, but in our long-term energy transition policy, we want to increase the renewable percentage to 20%. And while the nuclear will gradually phase out to zero by 2025, and the reason why I will just briefly explain later. And but compared to the phase out of nuclear power, I think the most significant is the reduction of coal power. We will drop it from 45% to 27%. So this significant reduce. Meanwhile, we will increase the gas percentage to 50% as a intermediate electricity option. So we currently have three nuclear power plants in operation in Taiwan. So the one in Jinshan, one in Koshen, and one in Hengchun. Another one we are talking about this August, the referendum wants to restart the construction of this one, the Lohmen nuclear power plant, which we usually refer to as the fourth nuclear power plant in Taiwan. And so why we will, why, so a lot of people don't know why in 2025 the nuclear power in Taiwan will go to zero. They wonder whether that's the government just set an arbitrary date and say, OK, from this day on, we no longer want to use nuclear. But actually the date of 2025 a nuclear phase out is because the three existing nuclear and the reactor will be commissioned by 2025. As you can see, the first nuclear power plant, the two reactors were all decommissioned in 2018 and 2019. And this year, the second nuclear power plant, the first reactor of the second nuclear power plant will be shutting down this year because the fuel pool is already full. There cannot be any more new fields. So you will shut down earlier than expected. Then the last one to shut down, the last one to be decommissioned will be the third nuclear power plant reactor two. So the decommission date is 2025 May. As you can see that after 40 years of operation, 40 years of operation, all three existing nuclear power plant will be decommissioned by 2025. And the number four, the fourth nuclear power plant, the Longman nuclear power plant has not been completed. So it's still under construction. So even if the referendum passed this August, the construction will not be finished by 2025. So in any way, by 2025, there will be no nuclear power generation naturally. So next I want to briefly introduce our anti-nuclear movement campaign in Taiwan. Because some of you might know that Taiwan has been through a period of martial time where the government strictly prohibited social movement and protests and any sort. So until the late 1980s, there hadn't been much protest against environmental issues. But in the late 1980s, as the martial law period has ended, we have this environmental movement beginning to protest against nuclear power, especially the fourth nuclear power plant, the Longman nuclear power plant. And so by the year of 2000, we have our first political, the Kuomintang, the KMT Party has stepped down. And so we have the first power switch in which the DPP is coming to power. And so for a brief period, the fourth nuclear power plant ceased to construct, but just for 10 months. After 10 months, the construction continued. So during this all this time, there had been anti-nuclear movement, but not very much. And I think it's after 2011 Fukushima nuclear incident, after the incident had occurred, the anti-nuclear campaign in Taiwan has become more and more popular. And a lot of environmental NGOs formed the No Nuclear Homeland Alliance. And then since then we have this annual abolished nuclear parade or say no nuclear parade every year since 2011. So as you can see from the photos, a lot of people will join the parade. And this is the Aboriginal people in the island of Lan Yu, where they stored our low-level nuclear waste in an unjust way. So after the year of 2013 was probably the high point of the anti-nuclear movement in Taiwan. At that year, there are more than 220,000 people participated in the anti-nuclear parade. And then it's just including Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung, which is from the northern part, the central part, and the southern part of Taiwan. A lot of people all participated in the parade. And so after that, hundreds of NGOs from the National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform, my organization, the Green Citizens Action Alliance, also participated in this platform. So since then, we were held the annual anti-nuclear parade every year. And also the anti-nuclear referendum is also organized by the platform. So in 2014, there was an eminent, very popular anti-nuclear activist, Lin Yixiong. He went into hunger strike to protest the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant. And so he hunger strike for almost, I think, is like two weeks or so. And so a lot of people, they were concerned about this thing. About more than in April 27, more than 15,000 protesters occupied Zhongxiao Xilu, Zhongxiao Waste Road, which is the main road in front of the Taipei main station. It's a very large and important road in Taipei. So you can see that a lot of people occupied this road and they were evicted by the government with water cannons. So this is a very, very important and a major event in 2014. And after 2014, the government has announced the construction of the fourth NPP to be put into hold. And so into seal. So the president announced the Longmen Nuclear Power Station to be sealed until now. So the construction stopped in 2014 and has not continued until now. So there is a referendum in 2018. It's called Go Green with Nuclear. This referendum was proposed by some pro-nuclear activists. The referendum asked, do you agree to repeal Article 95 paragraph one of the electricity act, which says the nuclear energy-based power generating facilities shall wholly stop running by 2025? Okay, so the reason there is this act is just like what I said. Because by 2025, all the license of existing three nuclear power stations will expire. So it will stop generating power after 2025. So the people want to take this law away. They want to keep using nuclear power after 2025. And so they launched this referendum. And so the pro-nuclear camp claim that nuclear is a reliable based law of electricity, and which Taiwan clearly needed as they say. And also they say nuclear is a low carbon electricity option, which can help us reduce our carbon emission. And they also think that the Taiwan's renewable energy policy is too regressive and it's impossible to achieve 20% by 2025. And they say, before our renewable energy is mature enough, we should keep using or even expand our nuclear power. And finally, they want the referendum by that they have almost 60% of agree vote. And the against vote is only 40%. So this act, okay, this electricity act Article 95, Parable 1 was removed, was repealed after the referendum. But this does not change the fact that the license will expire or the license will expire after 2025. So the 2025 nuclear phase out is remains a defective situation. So they want to launch another referendum this year is to the construction resumption of the fourth nuclear power plant. Because as I just said, the fourth nuclear power station was put into a hold by the president Ma in 2014. And people think, why shouldn't we just continue the construction of Lohman nuclear power station? And after it's finished, we can put into a commercial operation so we can solve the power outage or the air pollution or carbon emission issues in Taiwan. Okay, so this year we have this referendum. And next I will just very quickly talk about, at least I analyzed why the tide turned. And I think maybe we have time to talk, discuss about this later. So I will just very quickly introduce the reasons why we, the environmental organizations think that we should not use the fourth nuclear power plant. First is because the Lohman nuclear power plant station has been built for 15 years and the construction has not complete. And the construction is very flooded. As you can see that during its construction, there had been over 500 of violations of regulation. And some of them, 15, 7 of them is related with 62 of them related to reactor meltdown concern. And 7 of them related to radiation leak concern. And there are this much total fines. So in short, the construction quality of the fourth nuclear power plant is very bad. And even the pro-nuclear expert, those experts who support nuclear, they all strongly argue against the use of the fourth nuclear power plant. Another reason is that we think that nuclear power plant is a financial disaster. The fourth nuclear power plant originally, the budget, the expansion, the expense was originally planned as 4 billion pounds. I translate into pounds. But it ends up with more than 7 billion pounds spent. So it's even double the expense, almost double the expense. And it is estimated that if we want to complete the construction, we will have to spend another 2 billion pounds. So that will make the total construction cost up to nearly 10 billion pounds, which is very much. And without the fourth nuclear power plant, the commission waste management and disposal cost of the three existing nuclear power plants is estimated to be around 12 billion pounds. So, and this is seriously underestimated. So if we add the fourth nuclear power plant to it, it will be a huge financial burden to Taiwan. So the geological condition is very unstable. The central geological survey under Ministry of Economy confirmed that there are vote under and near the fourth NPP. As you can see, this red line is a vote. It goes across, just right beneath the fourth NPP. And the offshore, there are five active votes with total length of 90 kilometer offshore of the NPP. So before the, should I say, while the fourth NPP was planned and then constructed, they didn't consider the significant risk. So they didn't anticipate that they will discover an active vote under and near the power plant. So if we want to continue the construction of this power plant, we have to reevaluate or reinforce its seismic coefficient. That will take time. And so it will take at least 10 more years for the fourth NPP to be finished. So the end means we don't know how long it will take. You have to renegotiate with the general electric company. And you have to sign a new contract. And some of the equipment, you have to be upgraded and you have to acquire them. And you also have to go through some legislative process, including the budget planning and approval. So there are another five years needed to enhance some of your constructions to meet the post Fukushima safety enhancement requirement. And so together they will take at least 10 more years for the fourth NPP to be finished. So we think that by the time it is finished, we can already develop mature enough renewable energies. And this nuclear power station cannot help us to solve the power problem or the carbon issues that we are facing now. And finally, we also have this nuclear waste problems. And I think not only Taiwan, a lot of countries that use nuclear power still has not find a way to solve the nuclear waste problems. We have find a way to do the final nuclear waste disposal. And so together we think that we should object to the continuum of construction of the fourth nuclear power plant in Taiwan. And that's the reasons that we are against this referendum. And these are my very brief introduction of why we opposed to the referendum and the history of the anti-nuclear campaign in Taiwan. Thank you. Okay, great. Well, I think as Wei Young also addressed his presentation, you have to look at it from the perspective of when I was working on the movement and what it is now. So I think that you always have to see, I was there in 2011 and 12, right? So the emotionality of the Fukushima disaster, this was something that was present very much. Even though I remember that even when I carried out interviews before at the time, also there was a national election coming up in 2012. And I remember already talking to the people a bit about nuclear energy. And right before the Fukushima disaster happened in March, I was already there for had been there for a couple of months. And I remember that the people were quite pragmatic, at least those that surrounded me at the time in also pointing out, of course, the problem of energy shortages, right, in Taiwan. Of course, after that, Fukushima took place. And I think this is a phenomenon that you observe in many other countries, not just in Taiwan, that alongside the emotionality of the event and the terrible things that happen, the sometimes even dormant anti-nuclear movements. I'm not just talking about Taiwan. I'm thinking about South Korea, for instance, enjoyed a revival, right? And as Wei Young was saying, then they were able to even make it into a yearly appointment. So I would say, of course, that it really depends right now as he has addressed, you have, first of all, almost 10 years have gone by, right? And people unfortunately forget, even though they shouldn't because the effects are still there. But the fact that we know that the media effect is not there anymore, the catalyzing effect. And furthermore, I would say that a few things that happened in the past few years in Taiwan, including in 2017, the big power blackouts that you have had, right? Prompted concerns in the public opinion and among the general population that Taiwan might really need, of course, nuclear energy. And I think this sort of like problem such as air pollution and power shortages or supplies that are not enough. This really sort of like set a very good stage for pro-nuclear groups, right? And to go back to your initial question to me, I think at the time you didn't really have, when I was looking into, of course, the anti-nuclear movements, you didn't really have a pro-nuclear movement. Of course, you had the government, you had Thai power and you had the lobbies, which were always pro-nuclear. But you didn't have a civil society movement that actually constituted itself because I think that we need to look at it, what they are trying to do with this referendum. They're also trying to prey on topics that are presenting themselves as sort of like substitute and also part of civil society, but pro-nuclear. So I think at the time you didn't have it. Now you do. And this ties in nicely with the fact that the situation has evolved, has changed. Taiwan is a country that has very high intensive energy production industry, right? Semiconductor, they all need this kind of energetic output. So I would go back to your question and say, I think the situation has radically mutated also because of what has happened recently with the power shortages. And if I think about the last year and the COVID-19, Taiwan, of course, has also seen now in the past months and a half that maybe people have to stay home. That, of course, then they need even more electricity. And I think all of these concerns, they feature in their minds. Fantastic. Thanks for that, Simone, because I think that's really interesting. You raised the issue about the pro-nuclear movement, which looks so different now to, let's say, if we go back to that kind of those kind of key turning points in 2011 and 2014. And the other issue, of course, is the referendum and the way that you kind of view that today. In other words, do you actually see this referendum as being something that is actually pro-democratic? In other words, for so long, this was a goal of the anti-nuclear movement to have a national referendum on the fourth nuclear power station. And we were talking about this back in 2013. So I was curious about how you understand this current, the idea of it being put to a referendum. You're asking me, right? Yeah. Where are you asking me to disappear there for a bit? I have a power outage of my notebook. Okay. That's fitting to our discussion. All right. Shall I address first? Yes. Go ahead. I'm not sure whether he heard, but you go ahead, Simone. Okay. So, well, the question was whether I think this is also a question that is pro-democratic because it's being put to a vote in a national referendum for Wei Young and also the fact that, of course, the champions of the referendum tool were always the Green Party, right? So, and this could now backfire. Well, first of all, coming from half Swiss, half Italian, but I live in Switzerland since 10 years. And of course, you know, Switzerland is one of those countries where you have referendum or referenda on almost anything. So popular vote is always required and public opinion is always required. And so, of course, if you ask me whether I think it's a democratic thing, I think it is, right? Because people can actually give their opinion on a certain matter. In this case, what we see is what you mentioned, we have a reverse of positioning. So I think you can clearly see, first of all, that the Guamindang maybe was even surprised to a certain extent in 2018 that it could take advantage of the referendum issue. Because in that case, of course, very, for a very low margin, but the pro-nuclear lobby actually surpassed and was able to be successful. And I think that probably the Guamindang also sees this upcoming for referenda, not just the pro-nuclear one, but all of them as a competition with the DPP. So whether it is democratic, I think, of course, people have the right to go. I think that is the problem that also ties in nicely with the fourth referendum question, right? Should you couple these kind of questions with national elections or not, right? And of course, both parties have different opinions on this. The DPP somewhat also backtracked. First, of course, they thought it was a good idea. Now, rather, they would keep it separate because it can be manipulated. Of course, the explanation is more that they see that polls station have to be open for longer if you held everything on the same day. Definitely, I think it is a democratic tool that you have at your disposal. Of course, people have to be mobilized and in a way you can say those who go to vote, they really care about the issue, right? They should be aware of that if you don't couple it with the national elections. Whether it will, you mentioned one question to me in the email, what I think maybe we will also discuss that later. Maybe Wei Young can also say something more concrete to that since he's been living in Taiwan and I've been observing from afar. But I think whether also public opinion is in this matter, I gather some people vote according to party line. So they towed a party line no matter what, but there's still quite a big portion of people that are undecided and pragmatic. And we'll be watching, for example, the kind of TV debates you mentioned to me in an email. And those people who are not decided, of course, for them, it will make a very big impact how the two speakers are presenting the issues. And that's why, of course, it's important also that anti-nuclear concerns and green citizens action alliances are doing the kind of job that they are doing. I mean, of course, it wouldn't be my role to say whether I'm pro or against, this is an issue to decide for Taiwanese. But the only thing I want to say is I remember very clearly the kind of interviews I carried out at the time. And the concern really was not just opposing nuclear power per se, but really the safety concerns surrounding the constructions of this flawed fourth nuclear power facilities for all the things he mentioned before. Fantastic. Thanks, Simone. Yang, at this stage, was there anything you wanted to respond directly to in terms of what Simone had said? Yeah, so I just want to make sure because I have missed a bit. So the question is about whether the referendum is a democratic tool or is that okay? I think this is also a very heated debate in Taiwan since 2018 because there were not only the poor nuclear referendum. There was also the referendum against same-sex marriage, as you might know. So there had been some discussion about what are the topics that can be put into a vote and what are those that cannot be. So should we decide whether people can or cannot get marriage with the referendum or is nuclear issue an issue that we can put into a referendum? And does that mean some people will have to bear the risk of nuclear extant or nuclear waste? Can these things be put into a vote? So I think there have been some debate on that. But I think in general, people still think that referendum is a democratic tool. Just how can we make it better in terms of the topic selection and also the process? Because I think in Taiwan, the time it takes from the referendum being proposed and approved and the vote date is very short. So there isn't much time for the civil society to rationally discuss about the issue. So within such short of time, the political parties, they have a bigger influence. So I think under such constraints, this tool, the referendum, indeed caused some damages to our civil society. But I think we are not against the tool itself. But I think we are discussing that how can we make it better. So one of the things is we should not hold the referendum in the same year as major election. In that way, we can try to reduce the influence from the political parties. But I think I'm a bit pessimistic. I think the influence from the political parties still exists. Because I think the structural problem is that Taiwan is highly polarized right now. And I think if we cannot solve the polarized problem, then it would just go to extremes. Like the pan-green camp, the green voters, they will significantly vote against the nuclear. But the blue supporter will significantly vote in favor of the nuclear power. So I think they kind of become the pattern. And if we cannot break the political structure, the polarized political structure, these things will just go on forever. And not forever, but it will repeat itself. So this is my brief response to this question. And I just wanted to come back to an issue, a kind of comparative question. Because you came back to Taiwan in time for the 2018 referendums. I was curious about how you compare the overall state of the debate on nuclear energy in 2021 compared to 2018. Do you feel, for example, that the anti-nuclear movement has learned any lessons from 2018? Could you comment a little bit on that? Me? Yes. Okay. First of all, I think the situation kind of gets a bit more worse. I mean, it's more difficult, I should say, because of the, there were two electricity blackouts in the mid of May. Of course, that is not because there isn't enough power plant. It's not because we don't have enough power plant. It's because of the power system lacks good management. But the public and the media, they won't interpret that way. They will say, see, that's because we need more nuclear power. So I think the incident of energy shortage kind of have a very bad impact on the referendum. And also, given that we are confronting with some COVID-19 pandemic outbreak now. Of course, the outbreak is relatively serious than before, but still not very serious compared to some of the countries in the world. But still, people now, they generally don't have enough faith on the ruling party. So I think that together created a bad momentum for the referendum. I think the lessons we learned is that we have to go, we have to try harder in the amount of young people. Because I think surprisingly, in recent years, especially among the young people or the students, they are more and more pro-nuclear. I think one of the reasons is like what Simone has said, because people don't remember the Fukushima incident. For the college students now, when Fukushima occurred, they were probably in elementary school or something like that. The nuclear disaster is very far for them. And they are more concerned about the power shortage now. So I think we have to focus more on how to communicate with young people. I think one of my experiences is that when I go to campus and give a speech, before I give them a speech, I will ask them, do you support or do you against the referendum in August? I think only 14 or 15% of the students say they will vote against the referendum. More than 20% will say they will vote yes, and about 40 or 50% say and decide it. But after I give them some information about the nuclear power plant, I just present to you. 40% say they will vote against. So I think there is a very significant change that some people just don't have that kind of information. And if they do, I think their attitude, their thought toward this issue will change. I think so that's what we are trying to do. We are trying to provide some very basic information to the public. I wanted to come back to something that because Simona mentioned the situation in Switzerland, the fact that Switzerland is known as the country in the world that has the most referendums. I was kind of curious about whether having multiple referendums at the same time is an issue in Switzerland because that's clearly an issue in the Taiwan case. We saw how that often voters would lose sight of certain referendum topics because, for example, in 2018 there were something like 10 referendums on the same day. Is that an issue in Switzerland that holding too many referendums on the same day allows certain issues to lose focus? Well, first of all, I hope I'm not an expert on Swiss politics, you know, so I can only say what I observe and I have been socialized rather in Italy with that system. But it is my understanding that actually that's not an issue here. Of course, it depends very much on which kind of issues you vote for, but there's never, mostly I would say there's never just one issue being put to vote. Recently, I think it was on the 13th of June. We had quite few, actually one was about CO2, so the phasing out and of course fossil fuels and how to reduce it. And these was not together, but it was coupled with three more referenda issue. So I wouldn't say that this gets diluted if this is what we are talking about because of the fact that you have more referenda question or topics being put to vote. I think it really depends also on who is the promoter, who is the proponent of the referendum question and how much they are able to convince the people about the validity or of course the opposing arguments. And often for referenda topics here, you have of course parties that are pro and con, just like it is now the case for the Taiwan pro or consular nuclear topic that will send you leaflets at home. We'll try to convince you that we shouldn't do one thing because it would be bad for businesses. I'm talking about exactly this more pro energetic lobby and the vote we had on the end of June or the other opposing side that we'll say that we can go by even if we accept the law. Just Switzerland will have to impose higher for example taxes on airplane tickets so that you can reduce carbon footprints and so on and so forth. So to go back to your question and be precise about that. I don't think that the issue of holding more than one referenda is a problem. The thing is we vote also per mail, mostly actually people vote per mail. So you don't have the issue that was put to the forefront in Taiwan of people going to the polling station and this taking too long because all of us receive a letter at home. And then you can decide, you get informed, you get a booklet from the government which will explain to you who called the referendum, what it is about, what the government would advise you to vote for or against and what the opposing or pro committee will actually advise you for. So you can get informed about the issue even if you don't watch for example the news. You can try to make up your own ideas. They will send this in the four national languages. So I get mine in Italian and then you vote per mail. And I think that's actually a very effective way of doing it. Okay, that's really interesting. I wanted to kind of come back to Yang on a question about the party's role in these debates because we've touched upon the way that the KMT is allied with the pro nuclear movement. But I'm also curious about the role of the the DPP. In other words, the DPP is the ruling party is traditionally anti nuclear. To what extent is the DPP actually involved in these debates and traditionally anti nuclear movements are opposed to government but now you have a in theory a pro nuclear government. And and furthermore, do you see that their role is any different from it in 2018? Because my impression was that in 2018 the DPP looked quite passive. But do you see that as any different in 2021? Okay, so I agree with your observation that in 2018 the NGOs, we think that the DPP should be more active on the referendum issue. Back then they were very passive. And so we kind of feel like we are fighting a battle that that the defender should be the ruling party. But why are we the environmental NGOs stand up to to, you know, like speak for the government that they give us a that's kind of a weird thing. But I think. I think one, the DPP has pointed out one dilemma that we are confronting that. Sorry. Not the coffee thing. I'm just. We are defending a energy policy that is long been proposed by us by the civil society. But now they are also part of the the ruling parties policy. So people will be like you are the you are the fighter for the government. And they will they don't take your credit that they think well what you say is this because you are a green voter or the blue that the blue can will say that. So I think that post some that post some difficulty for the NGOs. And I think on this year in 2021 the DPP initially they they were more active more aggressive than before. Currently, in the face of the the COVID pandemic outbreak, they kind of, you know, cool down a bit. They want to the they want to play cold. They don't want to the referendum to reach the threshold, you know what I'm saying. So if the referendum. Don't reach the threshold, then it doesn't it will be see as a rejection to the to the to the referendum proposal. So I think that their strategy now is a bit caught in between. Some of them in DPP wants to fight hard. They want to they want to pass the threshold and also win the referendum. But some of them in the DPP are kind of they say OK, let's just just play low key. You know, we don't we just let it slide. You know, we don't want them to go past the threshold. I think currently the ruling party has divided into the true side and we as the environmental NGO we surely want we want a clear win. You know, we want the referendum to be defeated because the threshold is reached and and the and the against vote is is is more than the yes vote. But I think the political situation in Taiwan now is a bit complicated because we there is also a discussion to postpone the referendum just just to let you know because of the pandemic thing. We think we think some of the government official thing is safer to postpone the referendum. I think they will pose some more uncertainty to the to the strategy of the ruling party. OK, fantastic. I'm just looking now at some of the questions that are coming in and there's one that is kind of building on this issue about the role of political parties. Li Hefei has raised the question about the KMT's role and it looks like that question is particularly linked to Simona and that the question seems to be why does the KMT seem to have picked up on the pro nuclear issue. And it reminds me of something that Khomein show touched upon I think in a recent. I think the Taiwan Insight article he I think he pointed out that it looked like in 2016 that the KMT had accepted that the fourth nuclear power station wouldn't be built in. I think Julian had had taken that position in 2016, but when we look at 2020 then the KMT had come back much more strongly in support of nuclear power. So I mean that question could be to either of you, but I wonder whether Simona you had any thoughts on the the KMT seeming shifting position. Well, first of all, I don't know if I would call it shifting. Yes, of course, if you look back at this proposition in 2016, but actually above the four referenda which will be held on August 28. I think the only one where we see the DPP and the KMT not having shifted side is actually the nuclear one, right? Because if you look at the first proposition for the algae reef and the construction of this receiving terminal for liquefied gas. Here we had the DPP in the 90s saying no to it and now saying yes to it because of course it wants to phase out nuclear energy, right? So I'd say that the pro nuclear camp is not that surprising to me. The fact that the warming down of course is together standing together with pro nuclear activists. After all, I mean it was always the case that anti nationalist opposition could actually gravitate around the issue of anti nuclear opposition already very back early in the 80s. And 90s, right? And even before the lifting on martial law, well, you couldn't really attack the government openly, but you could attack its environmental policies. So I wouldn't say that they shifted really, but I do agree that this sort of like seems to show a very opportunistic stance of the nationalist party. I believe that they have a lot of problems in attracting voters, attracting younger voters. And of course this ties together with the situation that they are observing in Hong Kong, which we see of course the catastrophic sort of public outreach that the warming down displayed prior to the national elections, which led it also to lose. And I think that every time that they see that there's an opportunity for them to attract newer voters, they jump onto that bandwagon. And this in my opinion is a very good opportunity, of course, the pro nuclear camp because they think they can attract also a bigger variety of people. But I would say maybe the last thing I want to say is the tying into what Wei Young was saying before. It is actually a pity that Taiwan and it reminds me a lot of Italy as such a political polarized situation, because sometimes people don't go beyond the political polarization. And as he was saying, when when you explain to people, for example, what the issue really are, it's not just about pro or contra nuclear energy. It's about also being knowledgeable about the kind of dangers that come with a project that was built for over 1520 years with different manufacturers and so on and so forth. And people often ignore that. And when you tell them they are surprised, right. And the fact that of course, nuclear act of anti nuclear activists or green environmental activists can be accused of being, for example, pro china if they dare to maybe stand in opposition to the DPP. I'm talking about the first referendum on the algae reef. This really shows how much issue go beyond the topic per se and tie into really towing party line and really political polarization, which is a pity. Yeah, go ahead, young. I think someone has a very good observation. I just want to add something that in terms of the role of KMT in this nuclear referendum. I think something very interesting is that actually the KMT as their party has not has not officially expressed their their attitude. Actually, there are just some very hawk hawkish, you know, the hawkish came here. They say we should support the nuclear referendum, like a former president Ma or the former former cultural mayor Han. And just some of them they were they had they have expressed public express support for the referendum. But if you look at the mainstream in KMT, the dovish, the dovish, they're not so hard. But, you know, those those came here, they, they refuse to take a clear stance on this, this topic. Some of the local mayor, like the new, the new Taipei, new Taipei city mayor where the fourth nuclear power plant situated the mayor. May your home. He still refused to take a stance. You say, well, if we cannot handle nuclear waste, then we shouldn't talk about more nuclear power stations. So actually, I think something interesting is that there there there is a line inside the KMT party and some of the people they want to site with the pro nuclear supporter. The supporter is called the there's a group that's called the nuclear mist buster, nuclear mist buster. They propose this referendum. So they site with the hawkish KMT politician. But the other KMT politician, they don't really dare to take a strong stance on this, this, this regard. I think I think that's a very interesting, interesting thing. And I can see we've got a couple of questions that are raising the geopolitics of the nuclear power issue. So for example, Raymond raises the question about whether from the perspective of energy security, there would be any benefit of having nuclear power. And a further question that Jacob raises is since the nuclear power plants are run on computer programs, is is there a danger of them falling victim to Chinese hacking? So we have two potential angles there. And I know that, for example, Yang, you talked about the need to renegotiate with General Electric if they restart this power station. So I was just curious about how important you see kind of international relations or geopolitical issues in the current debates. Okay, so I think the geopolitics and the nationalism issue have always been not central but important part in this debate. Like some of the pro-nuclear campers say nuclear can help Taiwan defend China invade if that happens. The nuclear power can last longer than, say, natural gas. So if there's a war going on in the Taiwan Strait, then we can self-sustain for maybe a certain period of time. But I think there's also a question that if there is a war, if there's a conflict, then our nuclear power plant can easily become the target for the Chinese government. I mean, there is also a risk, right? And also, if we want to increase our energy self-containing, currently about 95% of our energy rely on import, rely on our eternal sources. So we want to increase renewable. That is because we want to reduce the reliance on outer energy sources. I think there's also a good reason to face our nuclear because in nuclear you still have to rely on trade or fuel import from other countries. So I think long term, what is good for Taiwan is still facing our coal, facing our nuclear and increase our renewable energy. I think that is good for our national interest. I think I will just briefly answer this question because I think it's a very complicated one. And Simone, did you want to add anything on the international relations side of this issue? Is that something that featured in your research? Well, so far, not that much, but I think that the situation has now changed, right? I mean, the geopolitical situation between China and Taiwan is increasingly more being scrutinized. And with the kind of aggressive, of course, entering into the median line by the Chinese fighters, you have more and more the situation of whether Taiwan is really a threat. And of course, and could be really having to pry out the Chinese in the coming future. And then I would say that if I had, maybe this is also a discussion we can have on Wednesday to revisit my book in a certain way, I would probably add a geopolitical dimension into it. But the only thing I want to add to that, to what already Wei Young said, which is very comprehensive is that I read that one of the reasons why the DPP is pushing so far and so hard for the first referendum, that the one to have this liquefied natural gas receiving terminal is precisely because they think that it could also of course increase a certain having more energy resources in Taiwan, right? Especially if we phase out nuclear energy. So I think the security dimension is really on everybody's minds, especially nowadays. And let me just kind of come in there because that's to a certain extent, most of the referendums that we have in 2021 are kind of pan KMT referendums. But the the one on the algal reef. One is a little bit of a different one. I was wondering whether as an environment NGO that presents any particular challenges. I was wondering whether young you could comment on that. Yeah, the first referendum regarding the the algal reef, the natural gas reception station. I think that is a very tough question for the environmental NGOs because I think when we when we are talking about environmental NGO people tend to think we as a as a whole, you know, like we are all environmental NGO, but actually we have different concerns and the different areas. So some of the some of the more focus about conservation, you know, the conservation of the algal reef, but some focus on energy transition, some focus on other environmental issues. And I think before before 2021 in 2018 we were all like standing together against this this natural gas reception station on that specific site because we are not. We are we all agree that in just for now and for the in for the for the entering term for the near future we have you we have to use natural gas as the intermediate energy sources to phase out coal and phase out nuclear. But we think that the site selection the site selection of that reception station is problematic. So I think in in in 2018 and before 2018 we were all team up against this this this plan. But I think as in this year as the DPP government come up with some revised plan, you know, they have kind of a they come up with some way they kind of make it the plan. So we we propose the plan so that impact the impact the environmental impact of the reception station could be smaller. And some of the NGOs have to say they think okay maybe that will they will do because the environmental impact and the concerns are limited to a certain certain level and a total destroyer of the overall risk. But some of the environmental NGOs think well now this is still unacceptable. You know we want a total total preservation total conservation. And I think that at that point we have we as environmental NGOs have some internal disagreement. And but it is not a total we are not like breaking up, which we should say that we have different thoughts on a strategy in terms of our energy transition strategy. And I think currently we still think that the process of the process of this reception station is not justice is is problematic. But we think some okay so like GCAA included we think that after the revised after the government revised the plan is acceptable maybe like 60 or 60 out of 100 score, you know. But some of them think he's still like 45 or even 30 out of 100 score. So I think that's that's the problem here and I think but we are still on the net on a nuclear issue we are still on the same team. Yeah. I can see we have another question that is an interesting one that raises about whether indigenous issues are being a part of the current debate because we are aware of the nuclear waste site in online you has been a kind of a core kind of anti nuclear issue but I was. I think Züringer's question is is asking whether that is still part of the debate in 2021 or is that getting forgotten. Sadly, I think the issue of Indian indigenous people has never been the center of the debate. I mean I think because the pro nuclear camp always say that well, we have ways to deal with nuclear waste. You know if the nuclear waste is probably properly handled. It does not pose. Serious threat. So I think the public and the media kind of accept that that point because especially the nuclear waste online is low level waste so in the like in the most of the time. There isn't a nuclear there isn't a radiation leak. threat there so the problem is mostly about the injustice process and justice of situation you for people to put the nuclear waste on an island that never used even one degree of nuclear power right but I think in Taiwan that kind of a justice issue. Is not the center of the debate because when you took when you talk about justice. The pro nuclear camp will say see this is emotional it is irrational we are talking about science hot science here and if you bring justice in this debate. Then that is misleading the point that's what I say so I think currently in the public discussion or public debate of nuclear issue in Taiwan is very difficult to bring the. The aspect of justice to the center of the stage you know people are still debating whether the nuclear is cheap enough or how long it takes to build a nuclear power plan you know it's all about the cost and the price. But of course we think that justice is a very important issue but sadly the media or public opinion really don't pay much attention to that but with of course we think that is very important. But according to the pool according to the pool people people really don't think nuclear waste is really that big a problem you know if if we if they have to concern about nuclear. Threat it's about the risk of earthquake it is a risk about nuclear incident but not nuclear waste because it's too far away it's the question about 100 year or 1000 year or 10,000 year it's just out of their their conception no framework. So I think that's the problem that we are facing now. I see that we have a question from Paul is your ban, who's one of our authors who speaking later this this week. Paul, did you want to raise a question. Oh yeah so thanks David and actually I would like to ask so many questions maybe have to arrange the meeting with way on and thanks very much. First of all thanks very much for this wonderful talk and and Simona. Also, but very important point and then so thank you very much for this discussion. Yeah. Maybe just two points way on you mentioned several times in your talk and in discussion the importance of the rational discussion about all these and you reminded us about the unfortunate results of the 2018 the referendum in 2018. I guess well it's something I wanted to bring in my talk on Thursday but never mind I think it's better to talk about it now. I think I will make a brief analysis but to sum up what I found out is that and and this included interviews with your friends from GCAA. They should they highlighted the difficulty for you to have a rational disc discourse because the elections was the referendum were mixed with the elections and it was obviously from my understanding it was obviously a goal from the KMT. Unpurposed to mix the the referendum not only about the nuclear issue but also about the LGBT and with multi multi with it was a referendum that it was a multi questions referendum so this makes so complicated that I remember someone from GCAA mentioning that when we were trying to you you and and and other people's from environmental angels were trained to talk about the nuclear issue people we say oh no I'm against LGBT. Meaning that people were totally confused about the whole questions and and I think in the end eventually this was very helpful for the not for the referendum there are also but also for the local elections. So hopefully this year I mean hopefully from your point of view and maybe mine also but hopefully this year the local election is disconnected from the referendum. I'm glad you mentioned that there is a possibility that the referendum could be postponed. I guess the KMT will will protest against this very because yeah obviously now it's a good timing for them. Given what Simona underlines that the poor shortage and the situation of the COVID-19. So yeah my question is about how can you you say that when you have an opportunity to talk with students you can reverse feelings and that's very important but from what I see you have very you don't have so much opportunities. Thanks to that we have this not a much not opportunity today but I can see we have only like less than 100 people here. Recently you organized wonderful talks with Michael Schneider and Kevin comes and I attended all those and they were so professional. I mean and the more I listen to every event you organize it's so professional it's so rational. Every time you convince myself you know I'm well OK I can say I was I was already on your side but I don't need to be convinced but every time you know the more I hear what you guys say and the more I think it's so it's so convincing it's so it's so solid and so from a rational point of view. Everyone should be convinced that for sure we don't need another nuclear plant and we need to stop them as soon as possible. The problem is that as we see now with the situation in of the pandemic series in Taiwan. I mean compared to Europe I mean the situation is is well of course we have to be careful but it's you know it's just uncomfortable. And but here you see how the two mayors from Taipei and and and Simbae Shu are taking profit of this to you know to propagate all kind of fake news very strange you know either fake news or exaggeration and blatant exaggeration of the problem or and and just people just forget that they these guys are not doing their jobs to prevent. So in this context I'm just wondering how you guys from a rental NGOs can control this kind of irrational discourse. Either through cooperation with you know people like on first day we would have Audrey turn is that first day or Wednesday. Yeah I just did you have planned to collaborate with you know. Anti hacking platform or golf people from golf do you have any you know how to cook. It's difficult to control fake news but at least how to react or you know a counter plan or to react to these irrational discourse and narrative which can you know just makes things so blurry. Sorry for this long question. No thanks Paul that was a really good topic because this issue about the limitations of more kind of rational debate and the issues of fake information so we've been seeing on the vaccination debate in Taiwan as well so I'm young did you want to respond to Paul. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I think this is very large and a very complicated question. I think as a student in sociology I'm also really curious about like. How can we deal with the suggestion where in civil society it is so difficult to discuss a public issue in a rational way and in most of the time those irrational voices will package themselves as rational. So people were like so if you look at some of the nuclear supporter that will be they will say something very irrational like you only take three years to build a nuclear power plant or things like that and say well this is hard science and you will find that the you will find that the discussion very difficult to continue and especially with the like you said the fake news and and all the things I think for a as an as an NGO worker I think I think you can be described as a bit desperate. I mean we have we have like we sometimes we don't find a way out and like especially we really rely on social media to to for our for our initiative for our work but you see that Facebook is really not a good good platform for public issue discussion is it's full of fake news and hate speeches and sometimes people don't really like I think Simone has mentioned that sometimes environmental NGO will be labeled as communist you know like they are socialist and you are you are not you are not pragmatic and so it's really difficult for us to to communicate or to to talk about this issue with with the public with public so our strategy now our strategy now is that we we will find some online key opinion leaders and we will team up with them to talk about the nuclear issue because to be honest those some of the KOL they enjoys higher social reputation than us than us environmental NGOs do so our strategy now is that of course we are still trying very hard to do energy education online and offline but I think given that we really have not much we really don't really have that much time until the referendum we can only side up with the online KOL which I personally really don't like this strategy because I don't think that is a very healthy way to do public discussion that you have to rely on some celebrities to make you heard I think that's some irony that but still I think that's the dilemma that we are facing now and I as a social sociology student and I say NGO NGO worker I really don't see a clear way out of the dilemma so I wanted to kind of return to an issue that we plan to talk about and that was about I mean even though it may not be particularly important and that was the televised debates about these referendums because part of the referendum law is that there should be a televised debate on each topic and multiple debates and I remember back in 2018 that your organization the Green Citizens Alliance Action Action Alliance did join the televised debates against the nuclear misbusters figures so I was kind of curious about whether these debates will be handled differently and also whether or not they actually matter Okay so as for the debate I think this year will be held differently than 2018 as I know in 2018 the debate was like a back and forth like he said something and then I reply 10 minutes then he reply 10 minutes but I think this year it will the format will be like each speaker will have like 20 minutes and there will be no back and forth questioning and answering answering as I know and I think there will be so it's kind of like a two side give speeches individually and there's no no conversation and so if you ask me about the effect or the quality of the debate I really highly doubt it because in the experience of in 2018 in like three or in like within a week I think within a week there were more than 10 or 20 a lot of debates like stuff in one week and people really don't have the time and energy to watch it all and to consume all the information and because of the time limit of the debate I think some people some some speaker they were treated more as a performance than a debate so it's more so the debate is focused more on exaggeration and like like how you can attract ice rather than given rather than giving solid evidence and and and like enter questioning I think the design of the debate is really really bad and which will which will limit the possibility of public discussion and understanding on the issue on the issue of nuclear energy so I so to sum up I really don't think that is a good a good a good tool a good tool to I mean debate is not a really good tool to to enhance the understanding on this issue and Simone did you want to come in at all on this kind of communication or media side of these of the current anti nuclear campaign well I guess I make sense because that they would now hold it in a different way at least give more time to a person to present their own side rather than the bickering that we saw last time because I think last time was also a lot of personal attacks especially from the pro nuclear camp against your representative of see GCAA and I think that was even though you might have thought that is something that people didn't like to watch but nevertheless the pro nuclear camp came through right which also depends on of course that I think 45% of the people did not go to vote after all so that they would change the format absolutely make sense but I also would agree with with young I also don't think it's a very good tool it can really in my opinion and I think you see this even in American presidency debates it can polarize already high emotional issues even more rather than empower people with information we can actually really make it into a sort of like a very ugly spectacle so according to who are the speakers of course. And just a kind of a follow up issue that was kind of linking into some of the earlier chat questions was does do you see a role in terms of from the China side so from the China side we often hear talk for example at election time that China is is trying to influence Taiwan's elections through misinformation. Do you see that is that something that you have any sense of that that there's any kind of PRC involvement in these current debates because I can see that from a PRC perspective. This kind of polarization is actually a positive thing. Or is this just something that's in the background. I think the PRC information war that's why we in Taiwan we say the information war is not just it's not just on nuclear I think it's it's more general so I think especially now during the pandemic time I think a lot of fake news and the polarizing polarizing thing. I believe some of them are backed by the PRC but there are some people a lot of people in Taiwan they are doing research on this issue and they they will they actually they find some evidence on some of the major social media platform like we have what we call the. The. PTT is a bulletin board the bulletin board discussion is a very large bulletin board discussion platform and also the D car so some of the they found they find evidence that on in this in this social media platform there are some people who are clearly like hire or they have some background can that can be linked to PRC. Like finance or something like that but I think generally the I think. PRC influences can only. Explain just a partial of our current situation I think the more profound or the deeper question the deeper problem is that our political structure it has long been divided along the line. I think it's a lot of green and blue and I think that exactly because of that so if that gives PRC opportunity to manipulate your public opinion through this information war. So so to show to answer it shortly of course I think there are some the PRC plays some roles in this information war but I think. If we have healthier politics then and then then we can help then we will have a healthier civil society that can resist that kind of manipulation. Okay, I can see we have one question that we've managed to miss from Sue Jollo and she's raised she let me kind of read her question I'm surprised there aren't many KMT supporters who are concerned about sourcing sustainable energy and by the real dangers associated with nuclear energy. So I think Sue is really trying to get at the idea of whether the KMT is. Not also pro kind of renewable energy and I guess at one point for example young you have touched upon the fact that the current new Taipei mayor has a kind of a. A slight blurred position on the nuclear power station. I don't know whether this is one that Simona or young want to respond to in other words is the KMT position quite kind of clear cut is it or is it also open to alternative energy sources. Just to answer it very quickly I think we don't think that the KMT has a clear energy policy framework. I think we have been criticizing that the KMT's energy policy is nothing but nuclear so so now they they don't they don't even want to take a stance on nuclear then it has nothing so it's really interesting that. KMT and their and their supporters have long been a like they really doubt the development of renewable energy they really doubt the potential of Taiwan in developing renewable energy so I think the. So so you can see that the majority of KMT supporters they really don't think that we can achieve like 20% renewable energy into 2025 and not believe in it is one thing but also some of the mayor local mayor of the KMT local mayor they are. As we see to they are not they are kind of stopping this from from achieving so like they are not supporting a renewable energy in local level that they don't really have a solid or. Making sense energy policy in local level so so I think so so we have been criticizing that their energy policy is really hollow but but so in Taiwan you see a lot of people really. They are really questioning renewable energy but I think that's really not the like the IPCC has stated like if we want to reduce the carbon emission we have to achieve at least 77% of renewable energy in 2050 and so that is that is something that we have Taiwan have to do is not it's not a partisan debate. It's the it's the task that we have to have to have to encounter but I think sadly in Taiwan it has become a really partisan debate and the and the KMT and its supporters are really. Pulling pulling Taiwan back from this. And Simone I can see we're almost running out of time but did you have any responses on on this question. Well I would maybe just end by saying that I think there are a few issues on which the Guamindang traditionally has a lot of issues in reinventing itself and detaching itself from them because of the tradition. And this is not just for example unification but this is also for example the support for nuclear energy we know of course that well the Guamindang is the the party that actually stuff jump started it in the 70s 80s right. So I think there are some issues and we have seen this difficulty that the party has in trying to give itself a new image that it really has problems in detaching itself from its past and of course certainly this is one of those. And maybe finally to tie nicely with the previous question that was asked to to to young the political polarization issue and the influence by China. I think this is something that even though there is no direct influence on this specific referendum questions but as young was saying there is nevertheless a very conscious attempt from China into influencing of course public opinion in Taiwan and we can see that if the referendum question would of course pass with a yes this would be very problematic for the current administration and in turn this of course would be very beneficial for China because the one hated enemy the DPP would be in trouble right whether you want it or not. Even though we know that referendum should not be taken as a sign of weakness or not for the party because there are a lot of other topics and constraints. Nevertheless we have seen it in 2018 as well. Of course this is never a positive thing so willing or milling I think China's influence is there that be my answer. And I just had one final question that I wanted to raise to young because one of the things I remember from my previous research was that when for example when the DPP was in power 2000 to 2008 and environmental groups tried to talk to the KMT. Basically they didn't want to talk because they would say okay you are a DPP organization and I mean in many ways your organization always seems to me very kind of keen to kind of show its autonomy from political parties. Is that still the case? Will the KMT still not talk to organizations such as yours? I think we still talk to KMT on many issues. For example currently we are doing the we want to amend the act of the greenhouse emission regulation act. So we want to put the 2050 net zero emission into that act. So we have talked to a lot of political parties of course including the KMT and so they also come up with their version of the act. So I think this is just one of the example I think we can still have conversation with the KMT. It's not like we don't talk to each other but I think the problem is if you talk to KMT on some issue some of the media or some of the people will say see you lined up with KMT. So that proof you are a, how to say, you betray Taiwan's interest because for some of the green supporters KMT is the opposite of Taiwan's interest. And so if any group dare to like discuss issue with KMT is kind of a betray. So I think that is one of the difficulties we face in Taiwan. And the KMT they are not really concerned about your issue. Most of the time they are just doing that because it suits their interest. So I think the environmental NGO are really caught in a very weird and a difficult situation that we want to push some issue. We want to make something better. But if you talk to KMT you will be attacked by the other side. If you talk to the DPP then you will be labeled as the DPP sidekick. So I think that is a really profound difficulties that we have long been confronting with. Fantastic. So I'd like to thank Wei Young and Simone for sharing their analysis and experiences on this really important topic. And thanks to all of you for some really great questions. Let's give them a big round of applause.