You have a good day. Thank you. Cheers.

Thank you very much. I hope to write my story. I’m talking to a few other people in other countries, too. I hope to have it all done by next week.

Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it, and I will come back to your assistant, Frances, if I have any follow-up questions.

What is the landscape in Taiwan? I’m assuming there’s a lot less inequality in terms of broadband connectivity there than the United…?

We have, at this point, the United States – you must’ve seen a lot – there’s a huge inequality in terms of access to broadband Internet. Is that a constraint in terms of people participating, because of the inequality?

I have one quick clarification.

I don’t have any further questions. Is there anything else I should’ve asked you?

In your case, though, it seems as if that because of the way the whole system evolved during the Sunflower Movement, you didn’t have to start small at a local, provincial level and scale it up to the national level, right?

How do we go about even copying some of these very unique ways of conducting democracy?

Every country’s complex, but we, in America, tend to think that we’re somehow more complex because we’ve been around as a democracy for 250 years, whatever. What is your advice to democracies like the United States which have established ways of doing things for many years and are resistant to ...

It’s a real trial with people. Your metaphor was very apt. In one of the interviews with “Wired” magazine last year, towards the end of that piece you were asked, “How does one go about doing this or implementing these ideas?” You said, “Start small.”

In this case again, while they are operating in the sandbox is when the citizens and officials all can look and see how it’s operating, and take away lessons from that.

Now, when in that period where you talk about they may be an effective monopoly, are they still inside the sandbox or are they operating in the public?

Could you talk a little bit about how that works, and what do you mean by a sandbox where these new ideas can be tested?

Speaking of the sandbox, I think one of the examples on your website, the vTaiwan process, was the FinTech. I believe there was a sandbox created for that.

I see. That’s interesting. What about the other side of it, which is the whole process is secure and it’s not being interfered with by foreign actors?

Speaking of security, couple of quick questions. How do you ensure the people who participate in the digital process are real Taiwanese people and not some fake actors pretending to be Taiwanese citizens?

Those new rules have to be adopted. I was wondering if, in the case of Taiwan, you had to also adopt new ways of doing business.

What I meant by law is, for example, in the context of the American Congress when the pandemic broke out in last year, Congress had to adopt a new set of rules where members were allowed to hold hearings through digital platforms. Members were allowed, in the case of the ...

Was there a law required to be passed, or was it just simply a set of regulations that self-adopted? What was necessary?

Speaking of the process again, so I think you have talked about some of these, but what are some of the other changes that were required to be made at the level of ministries and government departments to incorporate this kind of a consulting process?

Is there also a process where if they show up or if they don’t show up, whether they have access to parliamentarians and the official bureaucratic machinery that serve the public service in the country that your ordinary citizens may not have?

Speaking of stakeholders, what about, apart from the public and the citizens, the big entities, commercial entities who long-term could be affected, do they also have to participate in this process or do they have a special channel where they can have their views be heard?

In the current process of legislating in Taiwan, you have a combination of both these modern tools to consult and develop legislation plus the old-fashioned way of doing legislation, or is it completely gone and everything is done this fashion?

What about the process itself? You’ve outlined on your website the proposal, opinion, reflection, legislation, the process. Who starts the proposal? Is it something that emerges from the people themselves? Is it something that emerges from bureaucrats and officials?

Right.

I want to quickly step back a little bit and ask you what led you and the government in Taiwan to have or bring about this kind of a consultation process with citizens?

Right, absolutely. I was wanting to ask you in your case, in the case of Taiwan, is the vTaiwan process only applicable to the digital economy areas or is it across the board, all types of legislation?

I wanted to start by talking about the process. I now have read some of the key studies on your website and on Beth Noveck’s website. You talk about the 26 different pieces of legislation relating to digital economy.

When I was speaking with Beth Noveck on the topic, she showed me all the key studies of other countries. I was fascinated by Taiwan which is why I wanted to speak with you.

I’m a reporter with Congressional Quarterly. We cover Congress. I cover mostly technology topics for the publication. I recently wrote an article about the uses of technology by the United States Congress. I have to tell you that we are far, far behind where you are because we’re just starting ...

[laughs] That’s interesting. Well, thank you.

Absolutely you’re on time. Thank you. I apologize. First, I was addressing you by your first name. I had no idea. I should have done some homework first. When Beth Noveck gave me your email, I just sent it off without even realizing…

Hello. Greetings. Good morning, Minister Tang.