Thank you very much.

It’d be a great honor if I could meet you in person, but otherwise I really appreciate the time you’ve given to me today and I’m very thankful, and to your office too.

Great, well thank you. It’s been a great honor to talk to you and I really appreciate the time. I will be in Taiwan probably from the 5th of January for a couple of weeks, so we may bump into each other.

I mean, how ironic is that? Enlightenment Europe is learning from Enlightenment Asia.

I think this is one of the great ironies of the current time, that it seems that the values that Europeans and Americans espouse, you’re doing your best to live by. I’m not sure that we are. So we are learning Enlightenment Europe.

Well, thank you very much. It’s really great to talk to you. Your final comment about how you see little polarization and contention in society that you see in others.

I mean, is there something you, if you were asked to write a book about Taiwan for the outside world to give some sense of where it is today and what it means, what do you think that this key message of this book should be?

Great. Thank you. Just very finally, obviously, this book, I hope, will have a decent audience.

Obviously I’m not saying offensive, you know, how does Taiwan operate? So I can understand how Taiwan operates defensively. What is the alternative to that, where Taiwan is more, not offensive, but more promoting of a sort of positive, outward-looking vision?

Great, thank you. Just a couple of final things. One is, you’ve used the word resilience a lot, you’ve used the term zero trust. That seems to indicate a very defensive mindset.

Great, thank you very much. Then the final question is a very simple one, but probably not an easy one. Do you believe in the concept of internet sovereignty?

Because of the way in which China uses this idea of Chinese culture and it’s meant to be so strong. What does that mean for Taiwanese today? I mean, it must mean something, but what does it mean for them?

Great. And I think in terms of the Chinese government’s appeal all the time to this idea of a common Chinese culture, obviously as part of a transcultural kind of context, there would be recognition of some Chinese elements, I suppose. Like as a person living in Britain, I recognize ...

How would you characterize Taiwanese culture and in what way is it linked to Taiwanese identity? And in what ways is it distinctive?

Great, thank you very much. So this is really about the issue of culture. China is often talked to the power of common cultural links between China and Taiwan and given the impression that these override all political and economic differences, when cultures, as we’ve been saying, is clearly an ...

I mean, that people were clear about what they’re protecting, because it seems that people are, they’re interested in protecting a geopolitical idea and Taiwan is part of that. But are they interested in protecting Taiwan as Taiwan?

I mean, I guess what I mean is that, from my observation, many people are very interested and engaged with the externals of Taiwan. I mean, the external issues, and they look at it as part of a big geopolitical issue because of China. And they probably don’t really attend ...

Do you, I mean, as you’re sitting in Taiwan and you work in the Taiwanese government and obviously some of that must be welcomed, do you sometimes sort of wish that the outside world had a different kind of care for Taiwan?

Thank you. And I mean, in terms of some of the interest in Taiwan in the outside world, obviously at the moment it’s extremely high profile issue and people are drawing parallels with Russia, Ukraine.

I mean, when you look at where you are, do you feel that there are many other countries that are in the same place or do you feel that you’re really kind of an out leader here?

I mean, when you look at other places, do you feel that that issue is forgotten sometimes, that social consent and the information technology, I mean, it’s extremely difficult to carry some communities along with that.

You usually use this sort of phrase about this sort of need to involve society. I mean, so social consent is important for what you’re trying to do, what you’re trying to achieve. I mean, obviously, you’re very advanced and can offer some kind of ideas and model for doing ...

Do you think that there are misconceptions about what Taiwan’s chief threat is? Or is there something that you would like the world to know better in order to help with the resilience and the issues you’ve just been talking about?

Okay, thank you. So what is the, in view of the sort of pressures put on Taiwan, and I mean a lot of people now are very interested in the situation of Taiwan and they have lots of different reasons for being so, people in America obviously and elsewhere. What ...

One of the surprises of Russia’s attack on Ukraine is how little role cyber has so far played. How do you assess the threat from China in this regard? And what do you feel is the best way of countering it?

Great, thank you very much. And then just on the issue of threats, most people see the Chinese threat on Taiwan as a military one, but clearly cyberspace has become a source of concern, as you just referred to a couple of times with cyber attacks and other disruptive actions.

I mean, do you sometimes think that the advantages and the disadvantages are almost the same now, or do you feel that still it’s overwhelmingly better that we have such a free-flowing internet and that it embodies freedom of speech and these things?

Do you feel sometimes that the internet, it’s bought great benefits, obviously, the World Wide Web, but it’s also bought massive problems, obviously, that had a bidding impact, a huge impact in American and European politics and your politics too.

When you use the term the information resilience, I think you said information resilience. What do you mean by that, information resilience?

How does it shape their behavior, and what does it do to their social and political lives?

I mean, I get the sense from outside of Taiwan that Taiwanese are extremely socially, kind of internet savvy, very digitally connected. How does that characterize Taiwanese today?

Great, thank you. When you look at, for instance, the online usage and social media in Taiwan today, this is obviously an area that you cover very intensively. What are the particular characteristics of online usage and social media in Taiwan today, and are there differences between age groups in ...

Do you think that today that sense is intensifying amongst Taiwanese people? Do you think that that’s kind of got more kind of intense in view of the current situation?

So the first question is a very broad one: What does it mean to be Taiwanese today?