On this one, the rationale is that…I mean, the goal and the vision – there should be a lot more supportive things – I’ve noticed both in the US and Taiwan is that there’s very, very little vision. There’s not much idealism. Among pure pro-independence, knew the Constitution, those type.

Yes.

A peace accord, but that’s with China. Here, it’s a joint communiqué with the United States.

I think most in Taiwan who think about it say, “A joint communiqué?” because they think normalization, but the reactions on this could be interesting. I ask the same questions.

And communicates to populations on both sides policies in terms of agreements and disagreements, would you agree with that?

In Taiwan…again, Russell, I don’t know if you’re maybe tired of me raising this issue, but a key question would be, particularly targeted toward the pan-blue side of it, but a question could be, if the United States after the election approached the new leadership and proposed the initiation of ...

…that I actually would rather pose toward Americans, because that’s really the key obstacle here.

You can come up with all kinds of interesting questions…

Do you frame the questions almost in a survey format, or…?

I can’t see the different groupings. You have categorizations or groupings of attitudes?

In other words, we take responsibility to move toward a more normal, stable, constructive relationship instead of…

Because as Americans, you can only control ourselves. You can’t tell the Solomon Islands or others what to…We have much more of a high degree of control over our own policy. I would twist that a little bit and say, for every door that closes because of what the Communist ...

I actually would modify that just a little bit.

Say it again?

None? Interesting.

Very domestic-focused. Any effort…

Most of them are on the technology side?

Sort of a transparency mission?

I’d be interested, I think all would, in your portfolio, background about what your office does, and your story.

Somewhere back there my suspicion if it’s a campaign, that campaign probably is coordinated by Central Military Commission Political Work Department Liaison Bureau. Just a thought. Somewhere back there, it has to be. Long story behind that.

I’m until today somewhat biased in terms of behind every action, whether its targeted against Taiwan or the US, a bias that, first suspect, whether it’s basically applying perception management techniques of disinformation and the like, going through PT, whatever term he wants to use, injecting false information.

Since 1937. Russell and I back in 2012, 2013 spent about a year, no funding, no particular reason other than…Well, there’s a background to it. It focused on one aspect of Chinese political warfare, Community Party political warfare at the PLA side, which is probably one of the most overlooked ...

Trying to pull together individuals from both Taiwan side and US side, who have been focused on influence operations to be able to share experiences.

Until he went to law school, now helped to establish Global Taiwan Institute, ROC has a very close relationship with GTI, a very close relationship with Mike. This particular project is Mike’s, that we’re working on now, is Mike’s brainchild.

As an institute we’ve been around for 10 years, we’ve had several iterations of people who have come and gone. Russell’s one of our alumni, for three years.

The target audience is Americans. Taiwan is not, I don’t think it’s that hard. I think most Taiwanese would be willing to engage, start negotiation on joint communiqué, or a joint statement. It’s US policy that really needs some change, so I’m trying to open people’s minds a bit. That’s ...

Legitimate government. Most recently, another manifestation is looking at, pushing as an institute, Russell joined in on this, it was kind of part Dan Blumenthal joined, we had a simulation of a joint communiqué, simulated the process of negotiating a joint communiqué. That was in the media here recently. That’s ...

Use the word as close you can to state, it’s actually two states.

China, or even some here in Taiwan, without having any definition at all. Most important thing is viewing as two legitimate governments.

Looking at the ways the US can extend greater legitimacy to Taiwan in a way that can balance legitimacy on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. It can be called different things, soft balancing is one, but I know it can be called ROC, basically like US “one China, two ...

It’s related to influence operations, but issues like soft balancing, to use Russell’s word. Soft balance in the sense of US policy in the Taiwan Strait oftentimes is very militarized, which is not bad, but often overly militarized, and it doesn’t think enough about other aspects like legitimacy. Legitimacy is ...

That gave us so much more confidence and I’ve been pushing a particular solution for US policy for a long time, having to do with…

They’ve sent you an email, copied me, and asked you. You said something like, “It doesn’t really matter as long as it’s viewed as a country.”

They had mentioned your name. They said, “Hey, you should talk to some of the younger generation in Taiwan,” because I was big on ROC. Ask the question to younger people in Taiwan, that they refer to the country’s ROC Taiwan.

It’s the first time that we’ve actually met. I don’t know if you remember, but maybe three or four years ago, with Chia-Liang Kao…You know CLKao, right?

Yeah. I’m sure Mike could give some background on what we’re doing here.