Jakub Janda: Let’s get started. Thank you for having us. I’m Jakub Janda, Director of European Values Center for Security Policy based in Prague, Czech Republic, and this is my spouse Adriana. She runs Communications and People in Need, which is one of the largest NGOs in Central Eastern Europe.

Adriana Cerna: It’s a biggest one and I’m digital strategist. It’s such an honor to meet you. Thank you for having us.

Audrey Tang: It’s a pleasure.

Jakub Janda: I maybe would just briefly introduce what we do…

Audrey Tang: Of course.

Jakub Janda: …and then maybe discuss a bit what I think might interest to you as well. Our team is in Prague since 2005. We focus mainly on security policy affairs related to Russia and in recent years of China.

Jakub Janda: Most of our focus, we have team of 28 people, focuses on Russian disinformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Given the rise of China and Chinese interests activities in our region, we have found a lot of good partners here in Taiwan. Our official partners are the INDSR, the Defense Ministry think tank.

Jakub Janda: We are looking around how we could be helpful. That’s why thanks to your Foreign Ministry, we are here, both of us, so that we could spend a couple of months here in Taipei, learn about what other organizations are doing here, and, basically, plan our future activities, in cooperation between Czech, hopefully other Central European countries, like Lithuania, and Taiwanese entities.

Jakub Janda: That’s where I see a lot of potential. First, because of the shared values, but, second, of the shared threat as well. I would say, until now, there has been very little cooperation on practical level, because Taiwan has mainly focused on Western Europe. Now, because of our ongoing diplomatic efforts, between, not only Lithuania starting it, but I will create…

Audrey Tang: That’s a great phrase that I’m going to be using.

Jakub Janda: Yes.

Jakub Janda: I hope so. Now, in recent two or three years, we have a lot of political or diplomatic openings, between various political leaders from Central Europe, Lithuania being the bravest one to start it, but we hope that Czech Republic will be the second now. We finally have a good government to believe our…practically in after a lot of years.

Jakub Janda: Since our organization actually focuses on these affairs of national security and things related to digital disinformation, we are searching for what partnership we could make, so that, let’s say, the political relationship, which will be growing this year and the coming years, which is only…we could translate it into more practical things.

Jakub Janda: That’s what actually matters at the end. Not only the political one, but let’s say, the more practical ones, which have political impact.

Jakub Janda: In practical terms, we are opening our office here as EVC, hopefully, in a couple of weeks. We are finishing up our registration of with your Ministry of Interior, and we will have some future, let’s say, a permanent stand here in Taipei to actually have more direct cooperation.

Jakub Janda: Two areas, I was just finish up mentioning. One, we want to actually serve as a hub for Central European experts on disinformation, which could come to Taipei, to share their knowledge from Central Eastern Europe, mainly on Russian disinformation and public communications or government communications to it with their Taiwanese counterparts, government and non governmental ones.

Jakub Janda: Most of the cooperation which exists is, I would say, very short term. Usually, it’s conferences, delegations, but it’s short term.

Audrey Tang: I’ve been to hundreds of panels.

Jakub Janda: Yes, exactly.

Jakub Janda: Last two years.

Jakub Janda: Yes, exactly. We all like them to some extent, but I think we all hate them at some extent, right?

Audrey Tang: Well, that’s my job. [laughs]

Jakub Janda: Yes, I know. It’s job of all of us, so we know how it works, but we need more long term cooperation.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Jakub Janda: You can build trust between people from different parts of the world, when they meet each other in person for longer time than just one conference.

Jakub Janda: That’s the visiting fellowship program we plan for three or four months, every time to, let’s say, rotate expert on disinformation from governments and NGOs, here in Taipei. Also, give similar visiting fellowship programs to visit Prague or Vilnius, for Taiwanese experts. So far, nothing like this exists, and it’s right time to start it. That’s one area.

Jakub Janda: Second area, to finish up, is practical, let’s say, direct sharing of specific knowledge, which is some of it is specifically oriented to China as a, I would say, hostile actor. Some of it is on the experience, which you have with various levels of your defense, disinformation defense mainly. What is inspirational to us, is to see how you do it on the government level.

Jakub Janda: Because in Central Europe, many governments are relatively slow and bureaucratic in responding to disinformation, but there are many good people in the governments trying to change it.

Audrey Tang: It’s mostly about the tempo, right?

Jakub Janda: Yes.

Audrey Tang: Traditionally, bureaucracy works on a quarterly tempo.

Jakub Janda: Yes, so that’s where we are. I will stop here. This is basically where we are, what we are planning to do. I’m happy to discuss more of it, but I don’t want to speak that long.

Audrey Tang: Sure. I’m here for you.

Jakub Janda: Yes.

Adriana Cerna: I’m here like a communication advisor of the EC, but, me personally, I work for people in need which is the biggest NGO in Central and Eastern Europe. I think we are a very strong in media literacy.

Adriana Cerna: We have very big programs providing the media, I say, to schools like elementary and high schools. Maybe that’ll be interesting for you because I think we are leader in maybe whole Europe, so maybe there are some experience to share as well.

Audrey Tang: The curriculum in those countries, you look at them and you provide supplemental material, or how does it work?

Adriana Cerna: Yes. We are teaching the teachers how to teach the media literacy because our Minister of Education is not providing very well educational materials, only from the topic.

Adriana Cerna: Still, the media literacy is what’s important. That’s our priority, but the Ministry of Education is little bit too slow to follow the contents, so we are developing the educational materials for the schools and for the teachers.

Audrey Tang: OK, so there’s also a direct education program that One World in schools that also…

Adriana Cerna: Yes. You already know that.

Audrey Tang: Excellent. You’re still working there while serving as an advisor to the center?

Adriana Cerna: Yes.

Audrey Tang: A couple of clarifying questions. When you’re saying that you’re sending or sponsoring fellowship both ways, did you already have the names in mind in either direction?

Jakub Janda: Not yet. We are starting because in practical terms, we both arrived in October, and after almost a month in quarantine here, we basically started slowly in November.

Jakub Janda: Now, I hope that our programming could start in March or April. We are now discussing with your Foreign Ministry how much of that would they like to support.

Jakub Janda: Also talking to other partners and couple of foundations, which are usual partners for us, and what we are pitching there with is this fellowship program because that is missing.

Jakub Janda: That’s easy to do, and our center in Prague does this for Eastern European colleagues. We have these anchors who work or NGO experts who work in Georgia, Ukraine, or in Belarus, for example, and we bring them to Prague to learn about how some of the other NGOs work on disinformation, and then they come back home to their home countries.

Jakub Janda: This regular tool which we use and we see that it’s actually working because if you spend a couple of months in one country, you talk to the experts. You build further relationships as an NGO expert or as a governmental to mid level expert in the government because that’s something what is not usually being done in Central European governments.

Jakub Janda: I see this as a big opportunity in the future as well because it’s much easier to do it on, let’s say, let’s call it disinformation area.

Jakub Janda: For many things where we work regularly in, meaning defense and security, some of European governments are still having obstacles because of their own interpretation of One China policy, which for them means very limited security defense engagement with Taiwan, which I hope to change, but it’s not easy. Disinformation is much easier to do.

Audrey Tang: It’s not specifically. [laughs]

Jakub Janda: Exactly, because you could say it’s not defense, right? It’s much easier to do these things as…

Audrey Tang: …education.

Jakub Janda: Or education. Yes. That’s the tactics.

Jakub Janda: I think it’s a good time to start moving, let’s say, from doing only the conferences, which we do as well. You attend many of them and it’s important politically, but let’s say more on the sharing level between government experts or NGO experts. I think it’s very good to start doing it in this practical manner. That’s our hope.

Audrey Tang: Because you’re framing it in a mini lateral way, right? It’s not just about the couple bilateral fellows.

Jakub Janda: I hope for it, yes.

Audrey Tang: Rather, it’s about regionally building a community of practice, for lack of a better term, on disinformation defense education.

Jakub Janda: Or resilience, you could say, that’s easier.

Audrey Tang: Or resilience. That’s based on what’s already working for you. How many years have you been running that out of your…

Jakub Janda: Well, we worked on disinformation since 2015, but mainly on Russian disinformation, and what I think one of the reasons why your Foreign Ministry wants us to be here and we are proud of it, is that we actually have quite a good community of disinformation experts in Central Eastern Europe.

Jakub Janda: Most of them focus on Russia and that’s their main experience, but that community is already close to us. We have closed door meetings with them every year, couple of various things which you do in your region, we do in Central Europe.

Jakub Janda: We have this community, basically ready in hand if I put it that way, and many of them are good…I would say fans of Taiwan at this moment. They don’t have direct engagement yet.

Jakub Janda: That’s why it’s relatively easy to start bringing them into this possible visiting fellowship program where they would be interested, they have a lot of good experience with Russian disinformation in Central Europe. I think that kind of experience could be very well shared.

Jakub Janda: The interest is clear there. We are getting so many calls when we out here in Taipei over from Central European governments and think things over, “How can they engage? What can we do together?” I’m telling them, “Look, wait a bit. We need to put it together, get funding to it so that we could slowly start bringing people here because to go beyond one of conferences.”

Jakub Janda: It could go for a couple of months for every individual. I hope that we could be bringing two or three individuals at one time, that’s my hope. It’s like a small group which we could bringing and as you mentioned from multiple countries.

Jakub Janda: Because I am glad that our country, Czech Republic, is moving forward on Taiwan relations as this Lithuania. Our best hope is to use this practical tool, let’s say, for foreign policy reasons.

Jakub Janda: Because for many of our governments in Central Europe, they need to sell back home why engaging with Taiwan make sense? Not only on value based focus, but also on very pragmatic issues. Those governments need to be able to tell their own members of parliament or audiences, we are engaging with Taiwan, and we have very practical things…

Audrey Tang: Because it is a gold mine, right?

Jakub Janda: Yes, exactly it is.

Audrey Tang: It was literally described as such.

Jakub Janda: Our hope is that we could actually start this global effect. Where we could actually have more governments going into this very practical cooperation where they could, for example, send their government experts to be here for a couple of months to learn from you and then, in a way, some of the Taiwanese experts study their own countries.

Jakub Janda: That could be also used as a tool for foreign policy outreach of Taiwan. Because our hope is that, that’s something where we could solidify the already existing opening doors, let’s say.

Audrey Tang: I’ve met some teams doing this sort of arrangement, but they almost always focus on national election or referendum. They would arrive maybe half a year before a national referendum or election and so that they can do the good data gathering with the unfilled team with the back up with the team from abroad.

Audrey Tang: What you’re saying is that even in non election times like even for the next six months, for example, where there’s no election. First field personal election relationship and then we focus on specific research project, so not a research project based, but rather just fellows.

Jakub Janda: Yes. I think the case studies, for example, how you respond to some disinformation. I mean of China or on COVID and obviously related to China or only domestic that’s very interesting. Because for example, in the COVID situation or the pandemic, many…I would say most of European governments are very bad at communicating within the pandemic about…

Audrey Tang: 5G and masks.

Jakub Janda: Yes it is. Not only China related issues. All of that. It seems to me that you are doing quite a good job in doing it and Central European governments are not. I mean if I speak about government’s, I don’t mean only ministers. Those are the ones who are going to say, “Yes. It’s a good idea to cooperate.”

Jakub Janda: We actually the main cooperative bodies I think, are the specific teams you mentioned. Usually department heads at various ministries who are quite often connected to things like leaders like ourselves who work on that. Those are the communities of practitioners, let’s say.

Jakub Janda: Who will be invited to Prague every year, we know them quite well and we need to plug them into this Taiwan cooperation because they haven’t studied it yet.

Audrey Tang: It would be a, for example, two or three individuals coming to Taiwan on a better topic maybe infodemic management or whatever. Then without doing anything specific for the short term, just focus on building personal relationships with the people doing it.

Jakub Janda: Yes, they could do…I mean, our plan is that they would be do like a short comparative report of what their own governments does in communicating on COVID for example, what Taiwanese government and its institutions have been doing on COVID, so just brief comparisons.

Jakub Janda: That’s not the main thing, it’s not an academic research. It needs to be very practical so that when they get home, they actually have a lot of things which they would share back home with their own teams.

Audrey Tang: The other direction would be like people and STR or IORG or double thing or whatever going to your country and then learning about everything about Russians.

Jakub Janda: Yes, basically. I think so because there’s a lot of experience actually in Central Europe which let’s say, includes like Ukraine, the Baltic countries, there is so much of that knowledge and experience. Also the media literacy programs are well expanded in some countries.

Jakub Janda: I would say that often they are run by NGOs, not really by governments. That’s the case because many governments in countries even like Ukraine or the Baltic countries, are not very good at doing it. That’s where the activities and then her team’s activities actually are very interesting to us to compare. Do you have a lot of media literacy programs as well?

Audrey Tang: Definitely.

Jakub Janda: Basically like comparing it where there are things to learn. I think we already have a good idea and now in the coming months time to start matching it up, so people can actually pretty directly use this fellowship. That’s the easiest thing to do because everybody has to do it online.

Jakub Janda: If I very bluntly, if you are a Central European government official and yes, you are interested in Taiwan, but if you don’t have to travel here, if you are just sitting back home doing it from your couch, it’s interesting, but I don’t think everybody would pay a full attention because there are so many other…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, just like 20 others windows. [laughs]

Jakub Janda: Exactly, so you need to move the people here or let’s say, the Taiwanese people to send to you…

Audrey Tang: Let’s try the VR.

Jakub Janda: Yes, once possible, happy to do it. It would be easier to skip the quarantine.

Audrey Tang: OK. All right. It’s a good idea. The terms infodemic management, it would work well for the Taiwanese researchers to get behind this program and to say, as I mentioned, not just politically, it has a real shared urgency because everybody understand that in a transition to word of Greek letters, new variants of the virus, each time miscommunication can cost a lot to a country if the communication need to be U turned or reversed or dispelled or dissipated.

Audrey Tang: This is therefore urgent and also there’s a lot of expertise in Taiwan, so that we manage to not be perfect but be very quick and resilient in light of new scientific findings and new configurations of society in the future.

Audrey Tang: That’s a good export, so to speak on Taiwan. As for the importing of knowledge, I think the Russian angle it has a subtle distinction because if we’re specializing on election interference, then that becomes comparable. All the liberal democratic countries suffered, probably, from the same election interference tactics… We don’t do electronic voting for national elections though, so one less attack surface.

Audrey Tang: Otherwise, the same. If it’s not tied to elections, it’s rare for people to spend an extended amount of time because the assumption is that the tactics will probably change by the time that they actually deployed to the next election. Advanced research or advanced deployment does not quite work, because it is a double hermeneutics, right?

Audrey Tang: If they detect that one counter offense is working well or the media competence program has already inoculated people against one particular form of disinformation vector, then they would not double down on that vector. They would simply invent a new vector. The main message would need to be research capacity and development capacity.

Audrey Tang: The Taiwanese expert do not have to come up with the tools themselves. Rather, if the tools prove valuable to the Central European countries, then people would pool together their developmental resources on the common tool. It will be like a shared public infrastructure, like vaccines. Actually, unlike vaccines — like masks.

Audrey Tang: …that are truly shared between people and new mask designs and so on. They’re not really patentable anyway, so people just benefit from the common understanding of these things. Vaccines, too, but mostly AstraZeneca.

Jakub Janda: If I may add, this is the reason why we started our first annual gatherings. It’s called Stratcom Summit, like Strategic Communication Summit in Prague, since 2015, because we saw so many Russian disinformation attacks on European democracies.

Jakub Janda: We saw the need to create basic, like a closed door safe space for government officials or government experts, to talk to each other over how does Russia do it in individual countries. They all felt they are unique in the way, how they are targeted by the adversary, but in many ways, it was comparable.

Jakub Janda: What we started to do in Prague, and I would like to extend it here, but the connection is basically closed door discussions between those experts.

Jakub Janda: When they feel they are in a, let’s say, a trusted space between partners, they can actually, and they quite often do share their case studies. Meaning, that they can share, “Look in our elections last year, this is what happened. This is what we did. This is what we did not do, because we don’t have the political support, for example, and this is how it ended up.”

Jakub Janda: That’s the learning, which is practical, because some of the research is very quantitative. You have to look at the data, but in many ways, it’s good to talk to people who are in charge of responding.

Jakub Janda: Meaning, usually specific ministry officials at mid level, who are not politically motivated or affiliated, but who are government experts, who can say, “Look, this is where we screwed up, and this is what we should have done better, and this is what I think you could learn from us, next time.”

Jakub Janda: This is what you cannot do at conferences, because people are not going to say this on a panel. They will say it, if they are here for a couple of months, talking to each other. They can share lessons learned in practical sharing sessions, let’s say, but usually, this does not work in public or open panels, to my experience.

Jakub Janda: This is actually what, most of the time, the government officials we talk to in the Central Europe, this is what they appreciate the most. They can read the papers and read reports, but when they want to share, let’s say, government official to government official, they need to do it directly and privately. That’s what we can easily start now, because there’s already a political opening to it.

Jakub Janda: I would use one more foreign policy term, which could be useful. I call it “the jealousy tactics.” What we need to do is that countries which are opening to Taiwan, like Czech Republic and Lithuania, need to be seen by other Europeans. That they are getting something more incorporation with Taiwan and others…

Audrey Tang: Yeah. Getting a clear advantage.

Jakub Janda: Exactly. It actually motivates the others to start engaging Taiwan, exactly. That’s what happening now in Estonia, where their political and expert establishment is very much feeling jealous of Lithuania, which is having all of this cooperation with Taiwan and Estonia is not yet.

Jakub Janda: It motivates them to start doing it. When they have those practical things of sharing, this is what they can then tell the other Europeans and say, “Look, we are having this with Taiwanese experts. Maybe you should consider it too. We have a place if you want to join.” The foreign policy angle is important there. It helps your diplomatic efforts.

Audrey Tang: We need to have a slope of topics by beginning with public media and education and ends with, “I don’t have a fax” or something.

Jakub Janda: Yes.

Audrey Tang: Right? Then, as you progress on this, you get more tangible benefits on the practical level.

Jakub Janda: That’s my hope, because that’s where I see, let’s say, the practical interest in Europe who want to get that knowledge from Taiwan. The other way around, we want to use this tool for showing publicly that engaging Taiwan actually makes practical sense for Europeans.

Jakub Janda: There’s a way how to start a snowball effect across Central European governments, so that they feel like they are getting something very practical with cooperation in Taiwan. Also, it’s not only a PR exercise, is something very practical. That’s what I think actually.

Audrey Tang: It always begins with a PR exercise. [laughs]

Jakub Janda: I know, it does. It’s important.

Audrey Tang: It’s important so people know about it.

Jakub Janda: To keep it sustainable, we need to have these practical things like that.

Audrey Tang: I see that.

Jakub Janda: May I ask, do you have some let’s say projects or activities like this ones of sharing practical knowledge on communications with some other governments or…

Audrey Tang: The mobile framework for doing that, and correct me if I’m wrong, is the GCTF.

Jakub Janda: GCTF.

Audrey Tang: GCTF with recently other countries willingness to join as co host, were now acquired. Not that quite, but just quite. [laughs] . Many other countries are expressing interest in forming study circles, because GCTF fundamentally is about doing something.

Jakub Janda: Yes, it does.

Audrey Tang: That you just mentioned. Before the pandemic, there’s a lot of social gatherings, so it’s not just panels, but mostly workshops and social gatherings afterwards. We’re, of course, seeing MoFA being very resilient in adopting the form.

Audrey Tang: The hope is that, that you see here participating countries can actually establish mutual relationships of sending fellows around exactly as I mentioned post pandemic or at least postponed pandemic. That’s the framework I’m aware of.

Audrey Tang: Have you been in touch with the community?

Jakub Janda: Yes, and I’ve been talking at a GCTF and TFD did it two months ago. I was one of the speakers as well.

Audrey Tang: But it’s not, it’s over videos. [laughs]

Jakub Janda: I know. That’s why, it’s hard to distinguish from everything else for some of the participants. The physical part, that’s what I’m trying to press on the physical part, meaning, the visiting fellowship in the future.

Jakub Janda: Because even with the quarantine, if a person is here for three or four months and I see it on ourselves when we are here for four months ourselves, we could get a lot of experience, knowledge, direct contact with people, much better than if you are here only for two weeks or…

Audrey Tang: I was at a 2018 GCTF Defending Democracy through Media Literacy. Also TFD, of course. It’s very physical. It’s mostly about social gathering.

Audrey Tang: I hope that some of the topics that you expressed can actually be…I wouldn’t say, it’s just part of GCTF, but we need to think about that angle from the GCTF planning as well, instead of saying that video conference works OK. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: We need to see one of tool kits, but still have even with the quarantining at least three months or six months of relationships. That’s a point well taken.

Jakub Janda: The GCTF is very good actually, how it’s structured with the US and Japan, it does make sense, because it allows European governments to jump into it much easier than if they did it only bilaterally. It’s a good format to be used, I’d say, foreign policy wise.

Audrey Tang: Australia is also in, I believe.

Jakub Janda: That makes sense. It was good. May I ask, how are you? You’ve been engaging also with the Lithuanians. Forward with some of the invitations, they wanted to have you speak at some of their events as well. I assume you are not traveling that much, because it’s…

Audrey Tang: That’s why I’m getting the booster, so that I can travel.

Audrey Tang: I got a booster in Medigen, that’s also something to work with.

Audrey Tang: Anyway, I’m OK to travel, even with my previous vaccine passport of just two AstraZeneca shots. I’m good to travel till…The SWISS app tells me I’m good to travel till June next year. For the first half of next year, I’m covered.

Audrey Tang: I already agreed to some MEPS inviting me to Brussels. I don’t know whether that would be June, or before, or after, but it’s very likely that I would travel.

Jakub Janda: Very good, because for example, if you would be in Brussels during your trip, it would be worthwhile to actually possibly extending your trip for about two days. If you would be already in Europe, it’s quite close to get by, for example, to host you in Prague.

Jakub Janda: As you mentioned the knowledge from Taiwan, which is a great export, you personally, your story, and the way how you do it in Taiwan is a great export for Taiwan as well. Your physical presence if it would make sense in the future during any of your trips to Europe, it would be a perfectly good fit.

Audrey Tang: It’s just a couple hours flight.

Jakub Janda: Yes, it is.

Audrey Tang: Theoretically, I can be there the same day.

Jakub Janda: Yes. From Brussels to Prague is two hours by flight. It’s always very easy. If you’re already in Europe and you are vaccinated, it is easy to travel. I think and I hope it will stay that way. That should be easy for you to use that part as well.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. I told them maybe I’ll just stay in Europe until they relax the quarantine rules.

Audrey Tang: I’ll be back in Taiwan.

Jakub Janda: Go on a government strike. OK, wow.

Audrey Tang: I still work overseas, always as the minister since day one. If I say “No, that’s the ECC’s business.” I hope I didn’t set the quarantine rules.

Audrey Tang: An extended stay is something that we’re seriously considering. The meeting will be planned. We’ll take that into consideration.

Jakub Janda: OK, I’ll be in touch and we’ll see how we could be of good use of it and well.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, because if there’s a first batch of fellows coming from Taiwan to Europe, my itinerary overlapping with them that would be seen as…

Jakub Janda: That will be perfect.

Audrey Tang: …yeah.

Jakub Janda: That will be perfect to budget.

Audrey Tang: I can provide this kind of contextual introduction to their peers. What their role are between the Taiwanese social sector, which does most of the job, the government, the private sector, and so on without interfering with their work or the ranking of their work. I think that’s the best.

Jakub Janda: Mm hmm, it makes perfect sense.

Audrey Tang: OK, cool.

Jakub Janda: May I also ask if you could give us an advice who are here. I’d say the best partners to engage with. You mentioned most of them you already worked with the FDI, DSR, the Doublethink Lab, the usual ones, but is there somebody else you think is working…

Audrey Tang: Have you been working with Minister Wu Ming hsuan’s office?

Jakub Janda: Not yet.

Audrey Tang: Minister Wu is the architect of the counter disinformation while I’m just the technological psychic.

Audrey Tang: Basically, a lot of it boils down to the sheer urgency. The sheer sense of urgency and infodemic management because I think I’m on the front line of that. I can speak with some confidence. For example, foreign interference in non  infodemic, non pandemic related. Minister Wu knows a lot more about that than I do. Wu’s office is I think a natural ally of yours.

Jakub Janda: Thank you. I’m asking is that when we talk and plan those visiting policies for, let’s say government experts from some European countries, we’ll basically be putting together a plan for them. Where can they learn what? With some of the things, it is quite clear with you. It’s very clear what it is.

Jakub Janda: I’m just seeing what else, which other places on the map are there, so people can learn from virtually.

Audrey Tang: I see that. It depends on their interest, right? In Taiwan, Minister Wu also works with this broad range of people who do specific research on the kind of tools and tool kits, specific vectors, which I am less familiar with. It depends on the kind of disinformation or kind of misinformation that there may be or whether you’re focusing.

Audrey Tang: For example, instant messaging or whether you’re focusing on specific large platforms, such as Facebook, and so on, or whether may have safe spaces for things like that. There are specific research teams exploring those topics. Minister Wu know far better than I do. Although, of course, if you have a specific team already with names in their previous portfolios, I can also look it up for you.

Jakub Janda: No, thank you. Just to ask the final question on this. If I understand it well, you are basically the policy pusher. You are the one who is trying to change the way how the government operates on specific issues from your position. While the other minister is actually in charge of more the operational responses, right, the way of how doing it right.

Audrey Tang: We have nine Ministers at Large, if you’re referring to that. The spokesperson, Minister Wu is also a Minister at Large. We have 32 ministers that has commissioners, that has a ministry. That’s correct.

Jakub Janda: Yes. For European context, usually we would have a Minister of Interior who is in charge of basically disinformation in some areas. Then we have Foreign Ministry, which looks at foreign policy disinformation. Sometimes, Defense Ministry, but it’s really military oriented usually.

Jakub Janda: Sometimes in Europe, it is not really clear who should be the main responding body. In some of the European governments including the Czech Republic or others, our electoral systems actually mean that we have coalition governments. It’s not one party like in the UK around the whole government.

Audrey Tang: With government, there are problems.

Jakub Janda: Yes, I know. The thing is that it’s a problem of mandate quite often. Not a legal mandate, but in a way of who is responding how? That’s a painful issues quite often politically as well. The experts know how it should work, but the political reality doesn’t really correspond to it.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. In Taiwan, we have this system of at-large Ministers. When the original disinformation planning was done, it’s very clear. It’s Minister Lo as the Legal Minister at Large orchestrates this response and then the implementation is a spokesperson. At that time, Kolas Yotaka. Then later on, Kolas Yotaka moved on to be spokesperson for the presidential office. Now, Minister Lo is also spokesperson for the cabinet, so it’s basically his left and right brain coordinating this.

Jakub Janda: I see. OK, thank you. That’s interesting. This is exactly kind of questions, which our European partners would have, which is they are interested in the practical structures on how they could actually make good sense of it. There are practical things they could learn and bring back to Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. When the disinformation plan, come here, disinformation plan originally formed will have the spokesperson. Me, as a technological evaluator and Minister Lo chairing that conversation.

Audrey Tang: For the technological underpinnings, I basically give my assessments what to do with those tool kits and so on. Most importantly, which part is left best for the courts to do. Which part is best left for the NGOs to do, so that administration doesn’t overstep our boundaries.

Jakub Janda: Thank you. OK.

Audrey Tang: Anything else, I can? OK, cool.

Jakub Janda: Perfect. If anyway we could be helpful happy to be helpful.

Audrey Tang: Yes, sure.

Jakub Janda: This is a good advice for us.

Audrey Tang: We’re just one email away.

Jakub Janda: Yes. Maybe I’ll ask if I can connect also on Signal, so I don’t email these things. Some of those are more sensitive in the future as well, so I will communicate through there.

Jakub Janda: Thank you very much for that. We will be communicating here with MoFA to see how we plan the activities starting, hopefully, in March, all these fellowships. I would like to be also connected to see if once you travel to Europe, we could hopefully make a good sense of your presence in Europe.

Jakub Janda: Get you to Prague for one or two days. You would see a lot of Prague and a lot of good people there, who are all good friends of you and your work. That could be a good foreign policy push as well. Finally, with confidence can say we have a good government on Taiwan related issues, which we did not have the last seven years in Prague, but now we do after the elections.

Jakub Janda: For example, you might remember this Czech senate speaker who was here, two years ago, in September 2020, his party just won the elections and have the prime minister . So basically their are policy in many aspects will be close to it and you likely would know the mayor of Prague who’s a…

Audrey Tang: …celebrity in Taiwan.

Jakub Janda: Well known here yes, and his party actually now has the foreign minister in four dimension post, so they are on the right side finally, and they want to do things with Taiwan but quite often they don’t know how exactly so that’s our role, how to be, informally helpful to thing, plan out things, which could be done.

Jakub Janda: Sometimes on NGO level and some, hopefully, in the future all government to government level because those things don’t start easily as, you know, because of the diplomatic sensitivities, but we have the brave friends who already started many things.

Jakub Janda: So we could be on their back and trying to make it a snowball effect across Central Europe, so it’s not only one country doing it, which can be pressured, but if there is more of it, that’s our hope.

Audrey Tang: Excellent.

Jakub Janda: Yes, yes, thank you.

Adriana Cerna: Thank you.

Adriana Cerna: Thanks so much.