Thank you so much.

Please join me in thanking Audrey Tang.

We very much admire and appreciate both your personal courage, something that we all respect, but also the professional work that you’re doing, which is clearly on the cutting edge of where societies need to go in order to build faith in public institutions, and to refit them for the ...

I want to let you know that you have an open welcome at the Asia Society.

I can speak for everyone in saying thank you, and particularly telling you that I think we all found what you have shared with us today not only interesting, and not only informative, but also inspirational.

Great. Well, Audrey Tang, I can’t speak for everybody. I will say I feel like my IQ has gone up by several points just listening to you today.

Can you comment a bit on the dangers from the use of social media and other digital technologies for political disruption, for political efforts that undermine democracy, as we have seen in the case of the 2016 here in the United States?

We’ve got a question from online. You’re a champion and a trailblazer in harnessing digital technology and innovation for the benefit of society.

Thank you, Audrey. We’re coming perilously close to the end of our allotted time, and so I think I’m going to let the Internet have the last word.

Great. Thank you very much. Yes, there’s a lady with a scarf right there.

Yes.

Great. Thank you very much. The lady right in front of the former questioner had a question.

Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Yes, the lady with the black dress. You, yes.

Where do you stand on that debate, and what is your experience telling is likely to be the future?

That premise has been called into question, and is debated now, with a lot of evidence suggesting that even while the political system is becoming more controlled, innovation, development, research is flourishing within that political stricture.

That led to a widespread assumption that, for example, in mainland China, that only with political openness and reform could innovation, science, development, and even business genuinely flourish.

Let me follow up on that good question about Google and China with a slightly philosophical question, which is that for a generation, there’s been a conviction in the West that freedom is an essential condition for real innovation, that the scientific method is founded on the sanctity of facts, ...

More questions. Yes, the lady right here.

I got out just in time.

Career bureaucrats could be made obsolete, but you’re not going to fight with them?

Can established, entrenched power truly concede to emergent changes? Won’t established budgets, careers, fiefdoms reinforce, resist, and deny self-organized solutions?

Let me take a question from Twitter. This is from...

Ambassador Elliot, there’s a microphone coming.

Fantastic. The gentleman in the very back, please.

Do you have a cat avatar that you can use at home?

I’m sorry, just to repeat the question to get it on the record. This is Jonathan from the CRIA Society asking you about whether you can gamify some of these initiatives.

Please keep it brief. The gentleman in the back, please.

The floor is open. If you’d like to ask a question, I’ll ask you, please briefly identify yourself. Please make sure that it’s actually a question.

That’s terrific. Thank you very much.

How do companies in Taiwan or abroad play in this open government, innovative strategy?

Speaking of time. we’re about at the point when we should open up the floor to questions and take some from Twitter. Before I do, I’ll abuse my moderator privilege by touching on one subject that I haven’t heard from you about, which is the participation, the role, and the ...

That’s not where it went.

I see. Thanks. I was guessing that maybe the debate was going to land on GMT plus-eight and a half.

Are some of the policies that have been produced through open government, or some of the issues that have surfaced through vTaiwan and other platforms, have they created problems that perhaps you hadn’t foreseen?

...state secrets and the confidential information. Where have you had problems? What have been some of the issues? Does your own role as a transgender woman generate pushback and controversy?

We talked about cyber security. We understand that you’re setting aside the...

Or if they do, they only get to use that once.

Can you envisage the kinds of innovative platforms and programs that you’re developing and applying being adopted or integrated, even at the local level, in the PRC?

Do you follow what is occurring in mainland China in terms of the harnessing and the application of AI, of technology and connection with the Communist Party’s own goals for social control and social stability?

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about whether, in any way, there’s in your view a digital component to the cross-strait relationship. How, if at all, does your work, these platforms, relate to the dealings and the prospects of the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland?

The Sunflower movement was not merely a protest about the fact that the members of the LY weren’t at their desk and doing what you wanted them to do. It was very much about the cross-strait trade services agreement itself.

The developments and the progress or lack of progress in the cross-strait relationship, was then and will always be of real importance and real interest to policymakers in the United States, particularly, but elsewhere as well.

Let me switch gears, if I can a little bit. You talked a bit in your remarks about your own experience in the Sunflower movement. I lived through that movement from the vantage point of Washington, DC, since I was working at the National Security Council at the time.

You’ve talked about cyber security. You’ve talked about safeguarding the code and the system. What about safeguarding privacy? What are some of the other concerns? Transparency, yes, but on the other hand, how do you calculate the things that could be put at risk by this radical transparency?

I get that you’re cordoning off the national security sensitive information and so on. There are other forms of cyber crime, of challenges to the security of systems, the integrity of an administrative process. Have you had problems? Have you had the experience of being...?

Setting aside national security information, how do you maintain the willingness of the team to take a risk with an idea that may instantly be shown to be a bad idea, or try something that runs against the grain of what’s currently popular? How do you protect that space for ...

That was key to not only protecting certain national security sets of information, but also, creating an environment where there was the willingness to innovate, to experiment, to contradict, to challenge the conventional wisdom.

In my own career in government, I found on many issues -- certainly, issues dealing with national security and international relations -- that it was important that the internal deliberative process remained confidential.

Fascinating. You’re sitting next to a lapsed career public servant. I appreciate your forbearance here.

Interesting. What are some of the points of resistance that you are encountering to elements of this set of programs, whether it’s Join, vTaiwan, or open government? Who’s pushing back?