Thank you so much. This has been absolutely great.

I’m sorry to burden your time so much because…

I feel very privileged that both of you have met with me.

…and the various information that you were so kind to put together. It’s just extraordinary.

I can scarcely express how grateful I am to you. If you wouldn’t mind following up by both sending me the transcript that you come up with…

This has been an enormously helpful interview.

That would do the job. Philip who?

Thank you.

Yes.

Who do you think might be willing to…Few people would be so generous with their time as you are, but I need to talk with people within MOHFW and within the CDC. I’d be very grateful for your suggestions, maybe introduction of whom to contact within those two ministries.

WHO has sent their experts to Wuhan now, and they’re engaging in…They say they’re not restricted by the government. Who believes that? [laughs] Do you have a sense of how trustworthy the current WHO’s investigations are likely to be?

Another is — this is counterintuitive — Taiwan’s exclusion from the WHO. The argument goes that the exclusion forces Taiwan to become self reliant and to take measures as to which other countries might wait for WHO guidance. But self-reliant Taiwan needed to act immediately, and you did. Something along ...

Thank you very much. This is really great. One other factor that some people have mentioned to me as contributing to the effective Taiwanese response is…Well, a couple. One, of course distrust of China and information coming out of China.

I’m sure that I can count on you to send these excellent slides to me.

That’s very perceptive. Implicit in what you just said is a criticism of the American CDC and public health authorities for not taking action like this to put out this kind of message that might appeal to individualist among the American public.

[laughs]

Tell me about your thoughts about the reasons for that difference.

Why that is attitude, which is quite prevalent even today and a threat to public health, so different from the general view of Taiwanese that they didn’t like to be told that they didn’t have to wear masks?

I would value your perceptions on the reasons why so many people in America who believe that being required to wear a mask is somehow a violation of their constitutional rights and this kind of thing, and refusing to wear a mask.

You have a pretty deep experience with American thought and history, I perceive.

Ho Ping. OK, right there in…Have there been other kinds of disagreements?

Interesting. What kinds of disagreements between the central government and the local governments were there in 2003 besides the one…? I’m sorry, what was the name of the hospital?

I see. Just as a matter of personal curiosity, usually I commute between my apartment in Wanlong and to the NTU on a YouBike back and forth every day that it’s not raining. I’m wondering since I carry my cell phone in my pocket, does that mean that our movements…?

Yes, I should check with NTU. As you know, that’s quite a bureaucracy in and of itself.

I could teach my students in one of those parks within the NTU campus?

The seven, I’m told at least I can still ride my YouBike around, but I can’t teach my students. I don’t know if that’s true or not.

Oh, so the revision was a direct result of the Constitutional Court ruling?

I see. Mr. Yeh has been sitting silently all this time but now that we’ve raised the constitutional point, could you please explain…

I’ve heard mention of this hospital case back in 2003 that you just adverted to. Could you tell me more about that? I haven’t learnt about that much.

With Taiwan having a strong centralized government, you don’t have the same kind of issues about local jurisdictions disagreeing with these measures?

That’s something that’s entirely within the discretion of the CDC?

Part of the revision after SARS?

Are these phrases part of the amended Act after SARS?

They were sure there longer than 14 days.

Sent them to places like Arkansas to what are called concentration camps there. Actually, my aunt was a teacher of Japanese American kids at one of those places in Arkansas.

Concentration camps, back during World War II, the American government rounded up Japanese American citizens.

As I mentioned in my questions, I’ve heard that at least in a few cases, people have been fined or penalized or arrested for violations of quarantine or other regulations.

If the information was used for some personal retaliation against an enemy or something like that?

I see. Is the only thing that triggers the Personal Data Act, the PDPA the sale or commercial use? Are there other things also that could trigger its provisions?

When you say public servant will somehow suffer, what is…?

This is a fascinating story. Thank you. What about issues of surveillance and privacy? I’ve heard from some scholars over at, for example, Academia Sinica, that some lawyers’ groups have raised concerns about potential privacy invasions.

Eight million, did you say?

That’s fantastic. Taiwan actually — you probably know this — exported some masks to my home state of Arkansas…

That they don’t have to wear a mask? [laughs]

Now, in the US, as you know, there has been a tremendous amount of resistance to simple things like wearing masks. Much as that is politically driven. To what extent was there anything resembling that kind of public or editorial resistance to CDC policy on COVID 19?

Although my Mandarin is at an extremely elementary level, I have a teaching assistant who would, I’m sure, translate all this for me. That’s great. That’s really great.

I have the same kind of public interest orientation.

Then I went to work for my hero of that era, Ralph Nader. I spent three years in the Nader Organization in its Health Research Group as a consumer watchdog on the FDA.

Before continuing this fascinating conversation, I just wanted to mention to you that when I got out of law school a long time ago, as you see from my gray hair, I worked for a federal judge for a year.

She has never gone public?