Hello and welcome to “Taiwan Talks,” I’m Yin Khvat. Today we speak to Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs, about the fight against authoritarianism. Taiwan is partnering with fellow e-powerhouse, Lithuania.

In the second half of our show, we take a look at how disinformation deliberately and covertly spread is obscuring the truth and harming democracy. My special guest today is Audrey Tang, moda (Ministry of Digital Affairs) minister, former minister without portfolio, and former hacker. Minister Tang, a warm welcome to the show.

Still a hacktivist.

First, every year on January 13th, Lithuanians light candles at home and gather around bonfires near the Vilnius TV Tower and on Independence Square near the parliament building. On this day, 32 years ago, 14 civilians died trying to defend Lithuania’s independence from the Soviet Union known as Defenders of Freedom.

Thousands formed human barricades around Lithuanian state institutions while they were attacked by Soviet tanks. That was footage from 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev sent Soviet troops to take over Lithuanian state broadcaster.

A Vilnius TV Tower was only 10 months following the country’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union, the first ex-Soviet state to do so. Minister Tang, so this was your first overseas trip as minister of your new ministry.

You attended the country’s Day of Defenders of Freedom, which of course, has incredible significance for Lithuanians. Can you tell me how it resonated for you as a Taiwanese?

Yeah, definitely. Just like us, they were facing overwhelming odds at the time, but the ideas of societal resilience, that is to say, nonviolent resistance coupled with communication technology — they were defending the TV tower. There was real-time satellite coverage that took the image, the video we just saw, into the living rooms of the world.

Because of that, the world over supported them in their resistance. I would say that it resonated with our own experience in setting up communication resilience for Taiwan.

That record of history is enabled by technology. You spoke whilst you’re in Lithuania at “Free Digital Democracy Dialogue Event” about how democracy itself was in the past a radical experiment. This is fascinating. In this concept, you acknowledge that democracy doesn’t fall from the sky, but you have to work hard for it.

Freedom is never free. We have to keep innovating to make sure that democracy resonates with not just our people, but also with the democracy network — that is to say, people who believe in democracy and now connected through digital means, so that we’re in a sense neighbors, even not on a geopolitical sense, but on the cyberspace. We’re joined by shared values.

Yet there is propaganda, of course, from the people who oppose democracy from authoritarianism, that democracy is failing.

A couple of years ago, we heard many ideas such as “only authoritarianism top-down social control is able to overcome the pandemic.” Nowadays, we know it’s not a fact, [laughs] but it’s been the rhetoric we’ve been hearing for quite some time now.

From Taiwan, our work along with Lithuania and many others in the democracy network, is to show that democracy can deliver even better than authoritarian models.

The experience of the West in terms of turning the corner on the pandemic has showed that in terms of the innovation of the vaccines themselves. You are the first-ever Taiwan Digital Minister. Could you tell us a little bit about moda and also how the National Institute of Cybersecurity also fits into that?

Sure. The moda’s call is to enhance the digital resilience for all. By resilience, we mean, for example, communication resilience that enables us to still communicate over satellites even when our submarine cables are cut by large earthquakes, natural, or the societal resilience.

Making sure that the journalists get a fair coverage as well as reasonable pay from the global multinational social media companies to ensure that they could prosper instead of just the global multinational companies dominating social media, taking away their journalists.

That dialogue platform is also our purview. Also on the National Institute of Cybersecurity or NICE, our role is to ensure that all the governmental agencies, critical infrastructure, and so on, upgrade to the latest versions of the cybersecurity strategic system, including the zero trust architecture and also the T road for data exchange.

Can you tell us a little bit about the kind of attacks, maybe the cyberattacks that Taiwan is experiencing even on a daily basis?

Before we even formed as a new ministry last August, early August, there was a military drill if you remember, following the US speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit. It’s not just a military drill, it’s also a cyber drill. We have seen, for example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the President’s office, National Defense Ministry’s websites being disrupted.

The height of which, in a single day, 23 more times than the previous peak of the denial of service. Now, to keep a website busy, like keep dialing to keep a telephone line busy, doesn’t do by itself much. When coupled with disinformation, with harmful information that says, “Oh, we’ve taken over this ministry and that ministry,” it has an amplifying effect.

Both cyberattacks in terms of denial of service and also information manipulation combined in a hybrid way, and that is what we face on a daily basis. It’s basically a multi-pronged approach to destabilize our trust in democratic institutions.

Specifically, in the Taiwanese government loss of confidence and trust as well as then also maybe disinformation.

Exactly. They feed into one another.

You attended the day of the Defenders of Freedom with Žygimantas Pavilionis. He visited Taiwan last year and I thought that one of the things that he said in his speech in Taipei was very interesting. He said that the biggest provocation to tyrants and to autocrats is weakness.

This was in response to his own country’s history, Lithuania, which Russia had continually told, don’t provoke us by arming yourself. Don’t provoke us by getting close to the US. China also has this narrative, continually warns Taiwan not to provoke China. Can you explain some of the narratives that China uses against Taiwan?

As I’ve told BBC HARDtalk: Strategic clarity is not escalation. We’re certainly not the escalating party. The main propaganda if you will, was basically that only authoritarian models are effective in terms of responding to the societal challenges such as pandemic or the infodemic.

The best counter move for us is not escalation, but to simply prove that democracy can deliver, and sometimes better when it comes to large societal challenges.

Thank you, minister. Taiwan wants to help Ukraine rebuild its teaching environment and build back from war. Grono High School in the western city of Lviv received laptops, tablets, and power generators. It was a collaboration between Taiwan’s government, PC maker, Acer, and Ukrainian Catholic University.

More Ukrainian schools and kindergartens will receive donations in the next phase. The project aims to help the country build resilience through digital learning and make schools centers for national revitalization. There were images there of Ukraine schools in places like Irpin and Borodyanka.

Minister, this Taiwan can help free the future partnership between Taiwan and Ukraine. Tell us more about this project.

Certainly. I talked to the Minister of Economy and Innovation, Armonaitė, in Lithuania. She believes that Taiwan can help to provide jointly with Lithuania a digital layer when it comes to digital education. Certainly in Taiwan starting last year, all our schoolchildren have tablets when they learn anything in school.

This provides not just resilience on connectivity but also makes what was used to be literacy, that is consuming standardized material into competence that the students can co-create with each other with the tablets or the notebook when they get older as a co-creation device.

Now, because we have plenty of experience building that kind of education systems on a digital layer, we want to help Ukraine, and Lithuania is a great partner in this because they are closer to Ukraine and also understands their actual needs on the ground.

Can you tell us more about how this can also be a national revitalization, the children, the next generation?

When the children are competent in terms of co-creation, they naturally get access to a wider global digital economy. That is to say, their work even when their homeland is still under reconstruction, is not limited to the physical neighborhood, but rather has the potential to extend to a global neighborhood that shares the same democratic values.

Whether they’re interested in design or coding or anything that can be delivered over the Internet, it means that they can still earn a living when they finish education with the global economy.

Thank you, minister. Back to Lithuania. The Baltic country and Taiwan are expected to sign an agreement to develop chip technology and bolster Lithuania’s semiconductor industry.

The project between Lithuania’s Teltonika IoT Group and Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute could see the cofounding of a new chip fab is part of a deal announced in November 2022 and a Taiwanese investment in Lithuanians chip industry with $10 million.

Taiwanese government says its aims are to strengthen the resilience of the democratic supply chain in the face of coercion by autocracies. Earlier this year, Taiwan launched a $200 million equity investment fund and a one billion dollar loan facility for Lithuania, and other Central and Eastern European countries.

Minister, now whilst we are not going to focus on the chips, that wanting to build the democratic supply chain, that is something that you also…

That’s sharing know-how. The E3 was and still is the incubator of much of Taiwan semiconductor supply chain. Sharing this know-how is very important as we are sharing our cyber resilience, no housing with Lithuania.

Let’s talk about the satellite technology.

Sure. For example, Lithuania, as Estonia and many other jurisdictions in that region is constantly planning what could happen and what would happen if there’s a disaster affecting their data storage.

To that end, they are also working to modernize their data storage systems and communication systems to focus on a secure use of the public cloud for backup purposes, and also the non-geostationary satellites in order to maintain connectivity even when the fiber optics and audio landlines are cut.

These two concerns the public cloud backup, as well as the cyber resilience via satellites are also our priority areas and is within moda’s purview. I sincerely believe that we do not need to reinvent the wheel — so to speak — and can share our no house and our planning together to enhance resilience for all.

This is something that Ukraine obviously has managed to harness.

To demonstrate to the world, through Starlink…

…through war.

Amazing. There’s also been reports that Taiwan’s National Institute of Cyber Security obviously that you manage, will invest in Lithuania’s cyber security. Can you tell us about this investment?

As a chair of NICS, we have recently in our board meeting discuss our ways to invest with countries that have signed the DFI — the Declaration for the Future of the Internet — along with Taiwan, along with the US, Ukraine, Lithuania, they’re all DFI-signing countries.

These countries share the same values when it comes to democratic resilience, and some of them are also in the frontline so to speak and have to plan their cyber defense for the worst. To these democracies, we say that first, the NICS when they’re doing the research, awareness on cyber resilience, on counter disinformation.

It’s not that we’re going to tell them how to use those technology, but we can share some of the research and development with them. They also have their own research and development capabilities, so once they learn something in terms of resilience, they can also feedback.

This is our goal in joining our investment together in making sure that the latest and the greatest ideas can propagate throughout the DFI network.

Because this is all underway at the moment, at what point do you think that this will become a fully-functioning network?

It’s expected that later this year, the Startups and the Unicorns, Fintech, and also cyber security-related companies from Lithuania would visit us here in Taipei to suss out the details.

Also, we’re looking forward to more MOUs signed — may be on paper, maybe electronically — between our ministry or NICS or the democracy network with our Lithuanian counterparts. More news in a couple of months.

I also understand that you are the first Lithuanian E-resident?

No. I’m the first minister to become a Lithuanian E-resident. There’s several Taiwanese that was already curious enough to be a Lithuanian E-resident. They’re like our citizen’s digital certificates which we also issue to residents from abroad.

The E-residency idea transcends borders and it allows us to in addition of signing MOUs electronically, also potentially opening bank accounts, starting companies, drastically lowering the transaction costs when it comes to doing business between Taiwan and Lithuania.

Which services do you think you will make use of? [laughs]

Maybe not starting a company because I’m still a public servant, but simply signing documents, because previously, we have in Taiwan pretty good electronics signing capabilities. All my official documents could be electronically signed. In Lithuania too, they’re tax filing for personal tax like Taiwan also take a couple of minutes.

Their official documents are all electronically signed and verified. Across these two jurisdictions, most of the actual documents as exchanged are still based on paper, because we don’t yet cross-recognize each other’s electronic signatures in many critical commercial transactions.

That’s what the moda staff is currently working to ensure that those two very digitally powerful systems can interoperate with one another.

I’m interested because you chose Lithuania, so very first overseas trip. It seems that from what you’ve said, there’s many reasons for that because of the E-government capabilities, the values, and everything like that. For you, does that sums up?

Yes. Also, I would like to thank our Taiwanese representative office in Lithuania for facilitating this travel, and also in a joint project to help Ukraine, our representative office in Poland also did a lot.

Do you consider the trip was a success?

Yes, it’s a resounding success, and I look forward to more collaboration with Lithuania, but also with other DFI countries that are on the front line.

Ukraine?

Yes, they’re literally in the front line.

In terms of school, reconstruction, in terms of additional layers, truly the sky is the limit. Now that we have our delegate, my colleague physically in Ukraine, we can open more doors. As I said, we stand together in our common struggle against autocracy.

Minister Tang, thank you so much for joining Taiwan Talks today.

Thank you.