Very nice to meet you. I appreciate you making a few moments this morning. Good luck with the cold.

OK. Thank you, so much.

Is that the best way to follow-up?

Cool, thank you. If I have any questions on anything, I’ll send you an email…

This is a new one? When was this written? [laughs]

The one on your twitter?

One last question because you’ve got to go. Obviously, one of the challenges for democracy is populism. I suppose I have to ask from a very broad level. How, in your mind, do you address that? You’re building tools for public participation. How do you prevent that from being used ...

Taiwan?

g0v.it?

The CONSUL Foundation?

Do you have a bigger goal in mind for you, personally? Do you feel like perhaps you can help to build things that are useful elsewhere?

Do you see yourself as building models that could be…I mean, do you see yourself as working? Obviously, yourself is working for Taiwan. But when you’re building some of this stuff, do you…?

Oh, so this is an ongoing thing?

I’ll look her up.

That’s super interesting. I might reach out to them on that, because that’s super interesting.

Interesting. Before I move to China, I was based in Calgary, which is where the headquarters of the National Energy Board. In effect, I did a lot of writing about pipelines. I wrote the entire route of two proposed pipelines. That issue of consultation is a central one, so that’s ...

That’s right. We used to be the National Energy Board.

Canada contributed funding or contributed expertise. Sorry, can you help me understand that?

That was a very, by the way, Chinese use of the word “harmonize.”

Not yet.

Really?

Is it just the bureaucratic, institutional resistance? What do you feel are some of the obstacles standing in the way of others using some of the tools that Taiwan has built?

I know you travel, and I know people want to hear what you have to say. I wonder. What is your observation in terms of what are some of the elements that are preventing other countries from going down some of these paths?

Your remit is obviously Taiwan. Your job description is not to fix other people’s problems, but I know you travel. How many times have you been to Canada?

Exactly, but they have a solution. That solution is actually an effective solution. Do you see it as a given that that Chinese solution is the best solution when it comes to some of these issues?

…facial recognition, censorship, automated tools to delete the spread of content, as well as human content tools to delete the spread of content.

Exactly. In China, the solution on the spread of disinformation, what their state classifies as disinformation, is things like real-name registration. It’s things like…

Than on defense.

China has developed solutions to many of these things.

This is kind of a personal question I had. It seems to me one of the interesting elements of China’s interactions with the world – and we talked about, for example, Chinese expansionism and the Chinese model – is that, in many ways, the problems that confront China’s leadership are ...

Have you studied public health? When you look at fighting disinformation, do you use public health models in some ways?

You made an interesting analogy to your cold.

Social credit, right?

Fine.

That’s interesting. To go back to what we were talking about at the outset, to what degree do you see disinformation – here, I mean state-sponsored disinformation – as a threat to some of that?

Not in Taiwan?

Is that not…

It feels like there are broader forces marshaling against the desire or the ability to do that reverse game theory.

Do you feel optimistic about…And I’m talking about the state of democracy, effectively.

There is a fear that authoritarianism, both in non-democratic systems like China and in democratic systems, like the US, like India, like the Philippines elsewhere, is leading to a perversion of democracy and that democracy is on the ropes in the current context. I wonder. Do you share that fear? ...

You would have an interesting perspective on this. This is a very big-picture question. As you know, we are at a moment of perhaps global fear about the prospects for democracy. There’s a fear in places like the US that the democratic system is not working as it should.

Using some of the tools you’ve built or just purely for that scheduling reason?

I wonder. You’ve worked on that for a number of years. Assuming that this government wins reelection, do you have plans for the next four years? Do you have plans for the next four years? What do you see as next? I know that there are other democracies who are ...

Interesting. I wonder. You’ve also done a lot of the work and you’ve received, I think rightfully, a lot of international acclaim for some of the work you’ve done on using digital tools for policy and to use very sophisticated ways of marshaling public contributions and that sort of thing ...

Again, from the high-level perspective, yesterday you had a big rally in town. You had people up there talking about President Tsai’s London School of Economics credentials and that sort of thing. It feels like, from that very high-level debate, it has not been the cleanest of electoral debates.

Mr. Han.

Exactly.

I’ve heard about it.

How about at the very top levels of conversation?

In general?