Talking Taiwan

While in Taipei, we were able to meet up with Keelung City Councilor Jiho Chang 張之豪 who's been a guest in episodes 149, 156 & 174.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/jiho-chang-his-thoughts-about-new-speaker-legislative-yuan-and-taians-vice-president-elect-ep-275

We spoke about the recent announcement that Daniel Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomintang had become the speaker of the Legislative Yuan and Bi-khim Hsiao's role as vice president of Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/jiho-chang-his-thoughts-about-new-speaker-legislative-yuan-and-taians-vice-president-elect-ep-275/

As part of Talking Taiwan's Election Tour, we spoke with Courtney Donovan Smith a week after Taiwan's presidential and legislative elections. Lai Ching-te of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected president with 40.05% of the vote. Hou Yu-ih the Kuomintang's (KMT) presidential candidate got 33.49% of the vote and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) got 26.46%. It was the first time in Taiwan's history that any political party has been elected for three consecutive four-year terms in office.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/our-post-presidential-election-analysis-2024-with-courtney-donovan-smith-ep-274/

The DPP won an unprecedented third presidential term but lost its majority in the legislature. We talked about how ballot counting in Taiwan is highly transparent and also about how the Taiwan People's Party could have a crucial role in the legislature, and if the TPP will suffer the same fate as Taiwan's other third parties

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Reflections on the 2024 election compared to past elections

· How the election of Lai Ching-te has earned the DPP an unprecedented third term in office

· How Terry Guo had expressed interest in running for president

· The opposition unity ticket deal that fell through

· Taiwan's first direct presidential election in 1996

· How ballots are counted in Taiwan

· How voting is done in Taiwan

· Donovan's thoughts on if the Taiwan People's Party will survive as a third party

· Taiwan's third political parties and what has happened to them

· The 2000 election in which Lien Chan was the KMT presidential candidate and James Soong ran as an independent presidential candidate

· The origin of the terms "Pan Green" and "Pan Blue

· The possibility that Hou You-yi could be recalled as mayor of New Taipei City

· Comparing the recall of Hou You-yi with the recall of Han Kuo-yu

· What the election results tell us about how people feel about the Democratic Progressive Party

· How Ko Wen-je has managed to attract many young voters

· How voting results may have differed if the presidential election were not a three-way race

· What could happen with the Legislative Yuan speaker and deputy speaker positions

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/our-post-presidential-election-analysis-2024-with-courtney-donovan-smith-ep-274/

During the Talking Taiwan Election Tour we planned to host two in-person events for our guests, supporters and friends. The first event was held on January 19th at 4SC CrossFit's Xindian branch in New Taipei, thanks to T.H. Schee who's been a guest on Talking Taiwan several times.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/live-conversations-with-our-past-guests-at-4sc-crossfit-in-new-taipei-city-taiwan-ep-273/

In fact episode 234 with T.H. is one of the Top 5 episodes of 2023. On January 19th we had a chance to meet some of our past guests in-person for the first time in person. We started off talking to JD Chang from episode 80 about Crushing the Myth.

Next up was John Eastwood who talked about legal reforms needed in Taiwan in episode 203. We talked about the election results in Taiwan's legislature that had the KMT with 52 seats, the DPP with 51 seats and the TPP with 8 seats and 2 seats going to Independents

We next spoke with Jerome Keating who talked about understanding the history of Taiwan in episode 97. Jerome explained why he wrote in his recent Taipei Times article that he doesn't expect the TPP, the Taiwan People's Party to survive to the next presidential election in 2028.

And finally at the end of the night Kaju and I talked to TH Schee who's been on Talking Taiwan several times, and who's one of the investors of 4SC Crossfit where we held our January 19th event.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/live-conversations-with-our-past-guests-at-4sc-crossfit-in-new-taipei-city-taiwan-ep-273/

Talking Taiwan is on an Election Tour and we traveled down to Kaohsiung where I cast my vote in Taiwan's 2024 presidential election. Voting booths opened at 8am on January 13th and we spoke with Sean Su, midday on election day. He was also in Kaohsiung to cast his vote. Sean shared some of his observations and we talked about the alarming text message alert many in Taiwan received on January 9th. I remember reading the text about a missile flyover on my phone just as Kaju and I arrived in Kaohsiung on the high-speed rail. Sean is Co-Producer of Taiwan Report. Known for jump starting Keep Taiwan Free. He is also a frequent guest on ICRT.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/sean-su-observations-on-election-day-2024-from-kaohsiung-taiwan-ep-272/

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Sean's observations on election day in Kaohsiung

· How if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Lai Ching-te wins it would be the first time in history that an incumbent party after eight years in office is re-elected

· Courtney Donovan Smith's recent article about Taiwan's 2024 presidential election, which mentions that Ko Wen-je's YouTube subscribers have surpassed one million

· The DPP's rally that was held at Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei on January 11

· Ma Ying-jeou's comments that Taiwan has no choice but to trust Chinese leader Xi Jinping

· The text message alert from Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense on January 9th that stated in English that there was a missile flyover Taiwan airspace

· Bilingual 2030

· The case of the two Michaels from Canada that were kidnapped by China

· How China conducted a series of missile tests in the waters surrounding Taiwan, including the Taiwan Strait in 1995 in response to President Lee Teng-hui's visit to Cornell University and in 1996 before Taiwan's first direct presidential election

· What China would need to do in order to successfully invade Taiwan

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/sean-su-observations-on-election-day-2024-from-kaohsiung-taiwan-ep-272/

Talking Taiwan is taking the show on the road back to Taiwan on the Talking Taiwan Election Tour and we traveled down to Taichung on January 7th to meet up in person with political commentator Courtney Donovan Smith, to do some pre-election coverage. We talked about the backgrounds of the three presidential candidates Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) nominee, Lai Ching-te (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the Kuomintang (KMT) nomineeand their running mates, the opposition unity ticket between the Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party that fell apart.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/background-of-taiwan-presidential-candidates-2024-political-analyst-courtney-donovan-smiths-rundown-for-upcoming-election-ep-271/

At one time it looked like Taiwan's 2024 presidential election could have been a four-way race but Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn who withdrew from the presidential race. To learn more about the candidates and their policies be sure to check out episode 270 with Courtney about the presidential debate. After the election results are in, we will bring Courtney back to share his post-election results analysis with us.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· The background of TPP presidential candidate Ko Wen-je

· How Taiwan has a lot of politicians with medical backgrounds

· The background of DPP presidential candidate Lai-Ching-te

· The DPP campaign video" On the way" featuring Tsai Ing-wen, Lai Ching-te and Bi-khim Hsiao

· The background of KMT presidential candidate Hou You-yi

· Hou You-yi's background as a police officer

· The background of Jaw Shau-kong the KMT vice presidential candidate

· The background of Bi-Khim Hsiao the DPP vice presidential candidate

· The background of Cynthia Wu the TPP vice presidential candidate

· Some of the controversies and allegations involving the presidential candidates

· What happened to Terry Gou founder of Foxconn who withdrew from Taiwan's 2024 presidential election

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/background-of-taiwan-presidential-candidates-2024-political-analyst-courtney-donovan-smiths-rundown-for-upcoming-election-ep-271/

On December 30th there was a debate held between Taiwan's three presidential candidates Lai Ching-te (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominee Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the Kuomintang (KMT) nominee and Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) nominee. The three candidates started with eight minutes each to present their candidacy, that was followed by a media question answer session, and then in the second half each candidate had a chance to question each other. I sat down and spoke with political commentator Courtney Donovan Smith who shared his thoughts and observations about the debate.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-presidential-debate-2024-political-analyst-courtney-donovan-smiths-insights-on-the-upcoming-election-ep-270/

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How candidates were doing at the polls at the time of this interview was recorded (December 30, 2023)

· How undecided voters could influence the outcome of the presidential election

· How Courtney calculates the Taiwan News Poll of Polls

· How the presidential candidates performed in the first policy forum in comparison to the presidential debate

· The 60-70% of what was covered during the debate was related to China

· The second issue covered during the debate was properties owned by the three candidates

· Little time was spent on domestic issues like Taiwan's low birth rate, and energy

· Each candidate's position on China and how they would handle relations with China

· Hou You-yi, Ko Wen-je and Lai Ching-te's take on the 1992 Consensus

· How from China's point of view, the 1992 Consenus includes acceptance of the One China principle

· How Hou You-yi wants to bring back the cross strait services pact

· Courtney's opinion of the cross strait services pact

· How Ko Wen-je wants to pass the cross strait oversight bill

· During the debate Ko Wen-je claimed that the Sunflower Movement was a protest against black box political dealings and not a protest of the services trade pact, when it in fact was a protest about both black box political dealings and the services trade pact

· Each of the presidential candidate's position on national defense spending

· Each of the presidential candidate's position on extending or shortening military service

· The candidate's policies on housing, death penalty and energy and nuclear power plants in Taiwan

· How Taiwan's energy reserves are a matter of national security

· If younger voters care more about domestic issues or the China issue

· Courtney's thoughts on watching Taiwan Plus' broadcast of the debate with simultaneous English translation

· How Hou You-yi spoke some Taiwanese during the policy forum, debate

· The Kuomintang's strategy behind picking Jaw--- as the vice presidential candidate

· How the KMT put Han Kuo-yu in the number one slot on their party list, which indicated that he is probably their candidate for the legislative speaker

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-presidential-debate-2024-political-analyst-courtney-donovan-smiths-insights-on-the-upcoming-election-ep-270/

Here we are again… at the end of another year and we're getting ready to reveal the top 5 Talking Taiwan episodes of 2023!

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwan-top-5-episodes-of-2023-end-of-year-review/

We want to take a moment to especially thank all those who have supported and donated to the Talking Taiwan Election Tour. So far we have raised 40% of our overall fundraising goal of $25,000. Because of your support we will be heading to Taiwan in January to cover the presidential election and also producing additional episodes in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung.

We're also grateful to all of our amazing guests and want to thank each and every one for being a part of the Talking Taiwan podcast.

Stay tuned for the first new episode of the New Year featuring political commentator Courtney Donovan Smith sharing his analysis of Taiwan's presidential debate.

Soon Talking Taiwan will be taking the show on the road to Taiwan for the Talking Taiwan Election Tour. We'll be covering Taiwan's 2024 presidential election with pre-election coverage and a post-election discussion. Plus, we'll be traveling to Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung and producing additional episodes related to these 3 major cities.

Wishing you a wonderful rest of 2023 and a Happy New Year!

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwan-top-5-episodes-of-2023-end-of-year-review/

With the presidential election in Taiwan fast approaching (on January 13, 2024). We thought it would be a good time to discuss disinformation related to Taiwan's 2024 presidential election with Summer Chen, the Editor-in-Chief of Taiwan FactCheck Center and Wei-Ping Li, a research fellow at Taiwan FactCheck Center.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-factcheck-center-discussing-the-disinformation-related-to-taiwans-2024-presidential-election-ep-268

We also talked about disinformation that circulated in 2020 around the time of Taiwan's presidential election and the United States' presidential election, TFC's work to combat the spread of disinformation and how the general public can prevent themselves from falling prey to fake news by creating something called a trust circle.

Taiwan FactCheck Foundation (TFC) is a non-profit/non- government organization jointly established by the Association for Quality Journalism and Taiwan Media Watch Foundation in April 2018. In December 2020, TFC legally registered as an independent foundation, Taiwan FactCheck Foundation.

As COVID-19 first broke out in China, TFC was the first fact-checking organization to alert the potential disinformation threat to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in January 2020, which led to the launch of the biggest ever fact-checking project, CoronaVirusFacts Alliance. The alliance unites more than 100 fact-checkers across the globe and has published more than 10,000 fact-checks surrounding the pandemic.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· The difference between the terms disinformation and misinformation

· Disinformation that was spread about Taiwan's government donating US $200 million to Israel

· How Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has joined Facebook's third party fact checking program and what that means

· The difference between a journalist and fact checking organization (or between the media and a fact checking organization)

· How TFC collaborates with tech Facebook, Google and messaging apps like LINE (which is popular in Taiwan)

· TFC is certified by the IFCN (International Fact Checking Network)

· What TFC when disinformation or posts go viral

· How people can file a claim or report to debunk or fact check something they see on social media or a messaging app

· How people in Taiwan have become aware of suspicious information after having experienced disinformation that happened during the elections in 2018, 2020 and 2023

· The Cofacts chatbot that people can use to report disinformation in Taiwan

· Fact checking sites that people in Taiwan can use such at MyGoPen

· Disinformation related to 2020 elections in Taiwan that TFC debunked

· TFC was published a disinformation playbook

· How disinformation that could impact Taiwan's presidential election in January has been spread several months in advance

· The misinformation and disinformation observed during Taiwan's 2020 presidential election

· How disinformation related to Taiwan's 2020 presidential election on Facebook and LINE disappeared around December 25th when Wuhan went under lockdown

· Disinformation about the 2020 U.S. presidential election that floated into Taiwan's LINE and Facebook groups

· How there will be several elections in several different countries around the world in 2024, and the challenge this poses for fact checkers

· How it is difficult to confirm the origin of disinformation

· How misleading information makes it into Taiwan's social media networks, message boards and get picked up by journalists and reported as news

· How Taiwan FactCheck Center has hosted workshops for journalists to educate them about how to do fact checking

· Concerns about AI for fact checkers

· The responsibility of media owners and companies to maintain the quality of journalism

· The role of AI in creating disinformation

· How to debunk AI generated disinformation

· How people can evaluate the trustworthiness of information by having several different sources of information and a circle trusted sources and individuals that they can check in with

· Reliable fact checking sites

· The accuracy and reliability of Wikipedia

Help us Get the Show on the Road by Supporting the Talking Taiwan Election Tour!

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Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-factcheck-center-discussing-the-disinformation-related-to-taiwans-2024-presidential-election-ep-268/

These days Taiwan is known to be the most free and democratic country in Asia, but it wasn't always that way. It's hard to imagine that Taiwan has had a very dark period of history during which there was massive censorship. At one time Taiwan had the longest period of martial law in the world at 38 years. During the martial law period from 1949 to 1987, and the White Terror era that extended beyond the lifting of Taiwan's martial law, there was no freedom of speech, expression or thought, and advocating for the independence of Taiwan was a crime punishable by death. This episode examines how Taiwan's transformation from an authoritarian state to a democracy, has impacted Taiwan's media environment.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-wei-ping-li-how-taiwans-media-environment-changed-from-martial-law-era-to-present/

I spoke with Wei-Ping Li about the laws and mechanisms of the censorship from Taiwan's martial law era and the impact it had on Taiwan's media environment, and how Taiwan's media environment had changed since then.

Wei-Ping is speaking in a personal capacity (as a media scholar who studied Taiwanese media) and the views expressed in this interview were all her own personal opinions.

About Wei-Ping Li

Wei-Ping Li is a research fellow at Taiwan FactCheck Center. She collaborates with fact-checkers to monitor disinformation trends in Taiwan and produces analysis reports for both English and Chinese audiences. Her English analyses are published in Taiwan FactCheck Center's biweekly newsletter "TFC Disinfo Detector."

Li received her Ph.D. degree at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. Her research interests include propaganda, social media content moderation, free speech challenges faced by democratic countries, and privacy issues in the digital era. She has published scholarly articles in academic journals, books, and law reviews.

Before pursuing an academic career, she offered consulting services on digital human rights in Asia. She also worked as a journalist for media outlets in Taiwan for several years. She earned her LL.M. (Master of Laws) degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and has been admitted to the practice of law in New York State.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Wei-Ping's previous career in journalism that started in 2001

· How Wei-Ping was one of the speakers in a discussion about America Skepticism Theory organized by GTI (Global Taiwan Institute)

· How Taiwan is currently the most free and democratic country in Asia

· Taiwan has had the second longest period of martial law in world history, and a dark period of extreme censorship and authoritarianism during and after martial law was lifted in 1987

· The restrictions, and laws of Taiwan's martial law era included two tracks one was martial law and the other was called The Period of Mobilization for the Suppression of Communist Rebellion

· The mechanisms that enforced the restrictions, and laws of Taiwan's martial law era, such as publishing laws, Article 100 of the Criminal Code and the Betrayers Punishment Act

· Bans on the media, newspapers, songs, films, books

· Why Mark Twain's book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the wuxia novels of Jin Yong were previously banned in Taiwan

· Some of the bureaus and departments that enforced censorship laws include: Taiwan Garrison Command, Information Bureau, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Interior, Council for Overseas Communities

· How the Kuomintang extended their censorship to newspapers issued overseas

· How private correspondence was monitored and surveilled

· How the Kuomintang was trying to build a comprehensive mechanism of censorship in the 1950s

· After martial law was lifted in Taiwan the government imposed a National Security Law

· How it took the efforts of many advocates and advocates to break up the barriers and restrictions to gain more freedom

· The Period of Mobilization Law was lifted in 1991by President Lee Teng-hui and the bans on newspapers were lifted in 1988

· How in 1989 (a year after bans on newspapers were lifted) Cheng Nan-jung, the publisher of the Freedom Era Weekly or New Era Weekly barricaded himself in his office and set himself on fire in protest against the restriction of media freedom

· The nature of the bans on newspapers that were lifted

· How Criminal Code Article 100 did not allow people to advocate for Taiwan independence, or criticize high ranking officials or presidents

· The article written by Cheng Nan-jung in 1987 that criticized the authorities' methods of restricting freedom of speech

· Topics that the Freedom Era Weekly addressed included the health of President Chiang Ching-kuo, power struggles inside the intelligence bureaus

· The police that tried to arrest Chen Nan-jung on April 7, 1989 was headed by Hou You-yi, who is the KMT's presidential candidate for Taiwan's 2024 presidential election

· How the Taiwan Independence Association led the repeal of the Betrayers Punishment Act, and amendment of Criminal Code Article 100

· In 1998 Taiwan's constitutional court made a decision that advocating for Taiwan independence is no longer a crime

· How Taiwan's history has affected its media environment

· The trauma of censorship on the Taiwanese

· Taiwan's current media environment

· Taiwan's ranking on the World Press Freedom Index

· Challenges in Taiwan's current media environment

· The self-censorship of businesses with close ties to China

· How disinformation could flow into Taiwan through PTT (Taiwan's bulletin board system)

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-wei-ping-li-how-taiwans-media-environment-changed-from-martial-law-era-to-present/

Our deepest apologies.

Listen to find out why.

And looking ahead to 2024, we are making some changes.