Together with Hong Kong and others, yeah. What recommendation would you give how to improve something like that, even if this index isn’t running any longer?

Germany was number 24.

They stopped already?

Last year, it was still running, wasn’t it?

Interesting. I can relate to that. Taiwan is number one, according to the Global Open Data Index.

OK, perfect.

For sure. You’ve made it perfectly clear, and I think we’re totally on the same page. I would prefer the term accountability as the overarching ideal, not transparency.

Especially how we handle it in the digital age. It sometimes seems to me as a means of control, taking over control, by checking each and every detail, which we can because transparency allows us to do. In the state of a trustful togetherness, you don’t need to do that ...

If I need to figure out everything on the basis of being transparent, it’s also a way of controlling and looking at everything to be sure that it’s in the way I would like it to be. While trust means that I just offer unconditional openness in a way because ...

I think you could argue that transparency is kind of undermining trust.

Confucius would have approved of how you approach public service?

We’re in the childhood stage of transforming ourselves into a new civilization?

Even encourage it, yes.

If I imagine, being a bit familiar with the Chinese culture — having lived here for a year 30 years ago — and thinking of the country still being influenced by Confucius ideas, for example, how do you manage to implement something like a failure culture where you’re allowed to ...

Figuring out this transparent way of approaching new ideas of government, it means that people can observe if things turn out right, work well, don’t work well.

There’s the tiny little actions. [laughs]

So they knew about me.

I guess you know that in Germany, you would never be able to approach a minister directly without a whole formal process, showing IDs. I could walk in here without showing my ID.

Not at all?

Have you ever experienced someone coming to you on Wednesdays and offending you or...

I understand. That’s really interesting. Talking about competing interests, from a German perspective, I’m sure that a lot of politicians would say, "We have competing interests between transparency and security."

That is very interesting, because it’s clear that it was a conversation between two people, and now you have just your answers. You still know who the journalist is when you look online, right?

Don’t you think that arcane moments are important in developing ideas, in exchanging views that are not supposed to be public directly all the time?

So I have no chance to have a clandestine meeting with you.

Everything is public, as well.

Anyone can just walk in on Wednesdays and talk to you.

I’ve just thought is this a tiny, little piece of example that’s difficult to introduce your radical ways of thinking government in a new way into existing structures?

A day afterwards, I also got a response from your office. The office suggested I come on Wednesdays, when you have open hours. You had suggested already that we meet here on Saturday.

When I wrote to you, it was the first time in my entire life that I immediately got a response from you directly, not some offices.

Then a bit about the digital industries and the economic outlook, if this is fine with you.

Now nothing can happen at all.

Good morning.

I thought you might like to talk about three things I’m really interested in. That would be under the overarching topic of hacking our worldviews, in a way — I’d like to talk a bit about reinventing government and public services. I’d like to talk a bit about we disrupt ...

Yes, let’s get started. Thanks for having me.