Category: Technology

Digital Governance or Digital Democracy? What Can We Learn from Taiwan’s Counter-COVID-19 Measures?

Written by Boyu Chen. Taiwan has won accolades internationally for its success in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still wreaking havoc worldwide. The IT minister, Audrey Tan, has gained recognition due to the successful application of information technology to control the pandemic. This includes the digital mask map that efficiently delivers masks to citizens, along with smartphone applications for contact tracing by GPS data. The young and innovative Audrey Tan has become very popular in Japan, where many people envy Taiwan’s excellent use of information technology to counter the virus.

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Keynote speech at the Yushan Forum (part II)

Written by Malcolm Turnbull. Countries that displease China have been threatened with economic consequences. It might be boycotting Japanese retailers; or stopping tourism to South Korea. Or as we have seen in Australia, holding up beef exports and slapping tariffs on wine. On the other hand, and especially in the developing world, billions are being offered for infrastructure development through the Belt and Road initiative.

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In between giants: how a EU-Taiwan partnership could ensure digital benefits for all

Written by Maaike Okano-Heijmans and Brigitte Dekker. The protection of digital freedom of speech, transparency and inclusiveness is at stake as governments resort to (sometimes intrusive) digital means to monitor and combat the coronavirus. At the same time, economic competitiveness in the digital age requires innovative approaches, as the US-China rivalry profoundly reshapes the global tech landscape and global governance. This is where Taiwan and the European Union (EU) have similar interests and stand to benefit from exchanging best practices.

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Prospect of Malaysia as the Gateway for Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) Push

Written by Karl Chee Leong Lee. Despite lingering pessimism surrounding the impact of COVID-19 on Southeast Asia’s economy, Malaysia has unexpectedly enjoyed a new wave of Taiwanese investment. According to official figures released by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) last April, the value of inbound manufacturing-based investment from Taiwan has increased seven-fold. In 2019 Taiwan became the fourth largest FDI source for Malaysia’s manufacturing sector after China, the US and Singapore.

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Preserving the History of the Present: Lessons from National Taiwan University Web Archiving System (NTUWAS)

Written by the team at NTUWAS. The 21st century is, of course, very much still ongoing. We have worked to preserve documents from defining events such as the 2003 SARS pandemic and the flooding that occurred in Southern Taiwan in 2008. Recently, we have been working on recording the digital history of the ongoing pandemic and have created a new event section titled “COVID-19”

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Disease in the Digital Era – is Taiwan in the midst of an “infodemic”?

Written by Sam Robbins. The coronavirus has become a hot topic of conversation on Taiwan’s popular social networking site, D-cart. This has become a space for (primarily university students) to share or ask for relevant information about the disease, but also to share their fears and difficulties that have resulted from the virus. A recurring theme on the discussion board are stories from international students—for example, from Hong Kong—who are not sure of their ability to return to study in Taiwan.

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A Strong Democracy Is a Democracy Rooted In Communities

Written by Chihhao Yu. People across Taiwan are building new communities. They are reaching out, with or without tech, to listen, to search for conversations, empathy, to connect realities, and create common experiences. These builders of community do not resort to fear or divisiveness when confronting challenges and attacks to their worldviews and values. They keep faith in our commonalities as people of this land. Communities are what we have and building them is what we should do.

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Towards a Harmony of Interlocking Differences

Written by Theodore Taptiklis. Taiwan and New Zealand share common themes around democratic participation and economic development based on distinctive comparative advantage. We are also connected via our indigenous peoples, the Taiwanese of whom may have formed part of the great chain of Pacific migrants that led to New Zealand’s pre-colonial settlement. And now, Taiwan’s ‘southbound’ outlook and its emphasis on youth development may connect us even further.

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Layering Digital Tools for a New Humanity: the Internet as a Landscape of Purposeful Accretion and a Lesson from Taiwan

Written by Theodore Taptiklis. In Taiwan established internet infrastructure is being overlaid with new levels of creative functionality. These are opening up and transforming the polity and the meaning of citizenship in a range of mutually reinforcing ways. For example, Pol.is is enabling public consultation to be scaled to large numbers. Citizens can create a Pol.is identity using Facebook or Twitter and can see themselves and their concerns in relation to one another much more clearly with the help of a visual interface.

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Brexit, Taiwan and the Global Semiconductor Industry

Written by Yu-Ching Kuo and Robyn Klingler-Vidra. In this piece, we discuss how Brexit affects Taiwan in its role as a key player in the critical innovation arena of the global semiconductor industry. To do so, we contextualise Taiwan’s semiconductor industry in the dynamics of the global marketplace and discuss the potential effects of uncertainty on innovation.

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