Dec. 2, 2025 - Bannon's War Room
48:54
Participants
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| This is the primal scream of a dying regime. | ||
| Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. | ||
| Here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people. | ||
| The people have had a belly full of it. | ||
| I know you don't like hearing that. | ||
| I know you've tried to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. | ||
| It's going to happen. | ||
| And where do people like that go to share the big lie? | ||
| MAGA Media. | ||
| I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience. | ||
| Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? | ||
| If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. | ||
|
unidentified
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Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | |
| You're in the war room. | ||
| It's Monday, December 1st in the year of our Lord 2025. | ||
| Natalie Winter is hosting today, I want to say a very special edition of War Room coming at you, actually pre-recorded from Taiwan. | ||
| I had the honor and privilege to interview the vice president of that wonderful country not too long ago. | ||
| We're airing it here on War Room for the first time this evening. | ||
| I had the privilege to meet so many wonderful Taiwanese who are engaged in politics and other areas. | ||
| And I really think there is a natural affinity, not just with the MA movement, but with this audience, particularly when it comes to grassroots and fighting for a cause that you believe in, which is, of course, the prevailing West, democracy, freedom, all the values that we cherish over the Chinese Communist Party, over communism, writ large. | ||
| And I was really inspired to see the strength and the courage not backing down to any intimidation from Beijing that really, I think, rests in the hearts of all Taiwanese people. | ||
| A quick disclaimer, I know it's sad in this media landscape that I have to say this, but I paid for this trip myself. | ||
| I was not offered any, you know, free trips or payments in exchange for favorable coverage. | ||
| I gave what I think was a very fair but hard-hitting interview answering all the questions that I'm sure you guys have, not just about what it's like living on the front lines against Chinese Communist Party aggression, but what American involvement looks like and what it should look like, depending on what happens in a country that really, like I said, is on the front lines of deciding every day what history and the future looks like. | ||
| I hope you guys enjoy this interview. | ||
| And again, thank you to the Vice President of Taiwan for giving me the chance to interview you. | ||
| I hope you guys enjoy. | ||
| Madam Vice President, thank you for sitting down with me today and for such wonderful hospitality here in your beautiful country. | ||
| Taiwan's strength and determination on the world stage has captured global attention and your leadership is central to that story. | ||
| I'm grateful for the opportunity not just to be here but to witness firsthand the resilience and bravery of the Taiwanese people in standing up to aggression from the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| Yes, well it's important that the American people also understand although we live in a very complicated geopolitical environment, the Taiwanese people are adamant about defending our freedom and protecting our society. | ||
| And I know Americans, you know, you look at your culture in the context of the land of the free and the home of the brave. | ||
| And although we have a very different history, I think a lot of Taiwanese also see ourselves and our island as island of the free and the home of the brave. | ||
| Many people fought to bring about the freedoms that you see in our society and the prosperity that has been delivered to the people. | ||
| The diligence of our society and the strength, especially of our civil society, and open government. | ||
| I think all of these have contributed to what you see today in Taiwan. | ||
| And you certainly are a testament to that. | ||
| I want our audience to understand you better. | ||
| Can you take us to a single day that quietly changed the course of your life in public service? | ||
| What did you see? | ||
| What did you feel? | ||
| What did you hear? | ||
| Yes, well, when you're in public service, there are just so many ups and downs that it's hard to qualify everything in a single day. | ||
| But let me bring you back to the 1990s, because that was a very important period in Taiwan's democratic transformation. | ||
| And we had just ended 37 years of martial law, one-party authoritarian rule in Taiwan. | ||
| And we were in the process of transition. | ||
| I was a young student and actually studying, I thought I would do a PhD, but I just got so distracted by a lot of things going on and all the changes happening. | ||
| I was studying in the United States and eventually went to work for Taiwan's leading opposition party at the time, which was the party that really fought for democracy and freedom in Taiwan. | ||
| But in 1996, Taiwan was having our very first ever presidential election. | ||
| Now, that's a big moment for a young democracy, for transition. | ||
| And China found that offensive and decided to conduct missile tests and exercises in the vicinity of Taiwan's coastal area and in the Taiwan Strait. | ||
| And as a young person living in the United States, I was looking at this and I thought, look, I don't want to spend the rest of my youth in the library of Columbia University, and I want to come back and be part of change and defending Taiwan, where I grew up. | ||
| And so it was around that time I made a decision to come back and started to get involved in political life here in Taiwan. | ||
| And I think for a lot of people, that was also a turning point in terms of the way we see our identity. | ||
| And that is, you know, Taiwan's identity, it's not just, it's not an ethnic identity. | ||
| It's about a civic identity. | ||
| It's about the fact that we can have elections, choose our own leadership, choose our own form of government. | ||
| It's about that power, empowering the people to decide our own future. | ||
| And it's about the determination to resist forms of coercion, such as the military, the missile tests, or the exercises that China conducted in an attempt to instill fear in our people. | ||
| And I think that was also the beginning of a very vibrant and robust democracy. | ||
| And I'm just so honored that I was able to be part of that. | ||
| And I was of a generation kind of in between. | ||
| The excitement was that we were in transition. | ||
| We were seeing change. | ||
| We were seeing Taiwan transform from a one-party dictatorship into an open, competitive, vibrant, robust democracy. | ||
| But at the same time, I wasn't old enough to have to endure the pains of martial law. | ||
| And that is, a decade ago, people were jailed, imprisoned, or even disappeared or murdered for their political beliefs and for advocating basic human rights. | ||
| And I came at an age when Taiwan was already in the process of transformation. | ||
| And so I did not have to endure those early dangers of my predecessors. | ||
| But it does remind me that, again, freedom is not free. | ||
| And it's generation after generation. | ||
| It requires a lot of work. | ||
| It requires a lot of activism to defend what is so meaningful and to cherish what we have. | ||
| And on this idea of standing up to fear, my audience, I think, deeply understands the existential threat that is posed by the Chinese Communist Party against free and open societies, our countries alike. | ||
| And given Taiwan's own very personal and long experience of confronting that challenge, could you speak to these sort of shared values and cultural principles that really link our societies? | ||
| Well, I think, as I said in the outset, you know, the way we see American values in the context of you being a country, the land of the free and the home of the brave. | ||
| And I think from our perspective, we fully understand, and within our generation, we have endured different types of political systems. | ||
| And our partnership is based on our shared values, and that is freedom and democratic form of government. | ||
| And also, beyond values, it's about interests. | ||
| It's about our shared interest in preserving the peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. | ||
| It's about our shared interest in upholding rules-based international order where the freedom of navigation, where trade and where societies interact with each other without force or coercion. | ||
| And it's also about our shared interest in prosperity, in developing technology that is not compromised for their privacy, developing technology that advances humanity rather than as tools of control by government. | ||
| And so I think we just have so much in common, again, although we have different histories. | ||
| But I do want to highlight one aspect of our history, and that is like the American people. | ||
| The people in Taiwan have come here over generations to build a good life, to find a good life, and to participate in creating opportunities for future generations. | ||
| And I think that spirit of diligence, of pioneering, of building, and I think that is also a very, very important kind of stream of values that's part of who we are. | ||
| And finally, I want to highlight the fact of our civil society. | ||
| And that is when you look at different countries, you know, you kind of sometimes you look at the form of government or what their states do, but I think the strength of Taiwan and the United States is also in the strength of our private sector and in our society, in our civil society, the innovation, the openness, the friendliness, the generosity, the hospitality. | ||
| All of that makes Taiwan a force for good in the world. | ||
| And I think a lot of Taiwanese people have also seen the United States as a leader, as a force for good too. | ||
| And we aspire to be also a force for good in the world. | ||
| Well, I think these shared values are wonderful, but there also is, of course, a shared reality. | ||
| And I'm curious to get your thoughts of how close are we or what the landscape looks like at the point where hybrid warfare, cyber information, psychological attacks, and other ways have become just as destructive as potential kinetic conflict. | ||
| Yes, well, I think this is a very sober situation. | ||
| And we are indeed in very complicated, a very difficult geopolitical environment where the military threats have persisted actually since 1996 or 1995, the moment I had just described when we were having our first ever presidential election. | ||
| And China has not renounced the use of force. | ||
| In fact, they have been utilizing their expanded and actually rapidly expanding military strength to assert themselves in a very aggressive way, not only towards Taiwan, but as we are seeing towards our neighbors, towards Japan, the Philippines, and the South China Sea. | ||
| And they're positioning their military even in Africa, Djibouti, and other parts of the world. | ||
| You mentioned another very important aspect, and that is hybrid warfare. | ||
| And I know you have quoted since in the art of war and how part of Chinese philosophy is an attempt to subdue the enemy without fighting. | ||
| And so they have also devised a number of hybrid war tactics: psychological warfare, cognitive warfare, disinformation, the use of cyber attacks and political manipulation, infiltration in our political system, many tools to try to coerce our society, to try to instill fear in our society into submission. | ||
| And that is an ongoing. | ||
| This is already happening. | ||
| It is, you know, Taiwan society is one of the most highly attacked societies in the cyberspace in the world. | ||
| And let me just give you some examples that maybe American people can also relate to. | ||
| And that is a few years ago when I was living in Washington, D.C., there was a colonial pipeline incident where a cyber attack paralyzed the delivery of oil and gas to many American homes and families and cars. | ||
| And it was during COVID-19, so many people were working at home. | ||
| But think about the impact that can have on travel and on your working and on the economy. | ||
| And more recently, we've seen in Europe also cyber attacks on airports, on flight controls. | ||
| And I was in Brussels a few weeks ago, and prior to that, there were drone presence in the Brussels airport also generated lockdowns or close downs and suspension of flights and really disrupting the normal pattern of life for people in that region. | ||
| And so I think we are seeing these tactics now appear in many parts of the world. | ||
| We are seeing our security affected, our lives affected by these hybrid forms of attack. | ||
| In Taiwan, we've also seen this too. | ||
| We've seen repeated attacks in our medical system, our hospitals, in our critical infrastructure, in government institutions. | ||
| And this is certainly an ongoing situation. | ||
| But beyond that, it's the psychological warfare. | ||
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| And I think the goals of the Chinese Communist Party have been clear, and that is they've been focusing on three key areas in terms of their psychological attacks. | ||
| And that first is discrediting the system of democracy and the democratically elected government. | ||
| I think they clearly want to assert that the communist system is superior to our open, free democratic system. | ||
| And so it involves sowing distrust in our society over our political system. | ||
| Secondly, it involves attacking personalities and individuals whom they see as threatening to their version of the world order. | ||
| They have been personally attacking, including me, the president and other personalities. | ||
| They have even put some of us on a wanted list, some of our legislators who have been advocating civil preparedness and self-defense. | ||
| And so these psychological warfare tactics that are also used and attempt as attempts to quiet our society, to suppress resistance to their political agenda. | ||
| The third general aspect involves sowing divisions between Taiwan and the United States and between Taiwan and the world. | ||
| I think they are trying to present a narrative in our society that, okay, America is not reliable, that Taiwan has no friends, that Taiwan is isolated. | ||
| Now, this is very typical of bullying tactics, bullying tactics that many people are familiar with. | ||
| Bullies in schools that say, okay, you cannot have friends, and nobody will stand up for you. | ||
| And you're isolated, you're alone, you can't be part of all of the activities of the other kids. | ||
| And that's what they're trying to do. | ||
| They're trying to marginalize Taiwan, isolate Taiwan from the international community. | ||
| They're trying to say, you cannot visit these countries, you cannot go out, you cannot join international organizations, you cannot contribute to global public health, although Taiwan was one of the first countries to try to alert the World Health Organization that there was a looming COVID-19 virus or potential pandemic. | ||
| And so, you know, all of these restrictions and trying to sow divisions between Taiwan and our partners, I think, is also another effort to force Taiwan into submission. | ||
| And this is ongoing. | ||
| They've made some progress, but of course, we continue to resist. | ||
| And our society is also very proactive in educating ourselves in media literacy and in trying to discern disinformation from the truth, in trying to fortify our confidence in our political system, in our military, in our government, but also between our peoples. | ||
| And again, we're working on strengthening our partnership with the United States so that China cannot sow these divisions, try to isolate Taiwan. | ||
| And there is a lot of work to do in this space, but I think with our determination and with a little help from others, I think we are making also some good progress. | ||
| And given that evolving and certainly ever-present threat landscape, how would you define winning in cross-strait relations? | ||
| What would a 2032 end state look like where peace is maintained, ties are normalized without a shot being fired? | ||
| Well, I think ultimately sustainable peace, which is what we aspire for, sustainable peace eventually, I don't know why you put the timeline of 2032, but for us it's about enduring and sustainable peace on that day or beyond. | ||
| And we don't have timelines for peace. | ||
| It is something that we have to continue to work for. | ||
| From Taiwan's perspective, peace cannot involve domination by one side over another. | ||
| That is never sustainable. | ||
| As long as there is domination, repression, or suppression of others, there will always be resistance. | ||
| And that is not a sustainable form of peace. | ||
| So peace has to involve a degree of respect for each other. | ||
| And from Taiwan's perspective, what we are aspiring for is continuing with our way of life, preserving our freedom, our democracy, and the right of the Taiwanese people to be masters of our own destiny. | ||
| And that is the right of the Taiwanese people to determine our own future and also to be respected by other countries in the world for that particular position. | ||
| And I think a sustainable peace across the Taiwan Strait would involve an enlightened, much more enlightened leadership in China or awareness that a degree of respect for the wishes of the Taiwanese people is part of the formula for peaceful coexistence. | ||
| Now, as I said, sustainable peace involves all stakeholders, and all stakeholders need to feel that we are part of a winning formula. | ||
| It's got to be a win-win situation. | ||
| And I know the Chinese leadership has talked about the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. | ||
| And I think the Chinese people also feel that they deserve a degree of respect for their economic progress, for their technological progress. | ||
| But I think from our perspective, we hope that that progress is also accompanied by greater compassion, empathy, and understanding that the people of Taiwan should have the right to also determine our own future. | ||
| And I think if that respect exists, we will be in a situation where I think the people of Taiwan are generally very friendly and open and that we can work with each other. | ||
| But again, that's a very ideal situation. | ||
| So I need to come back to reality, and that is the reality that there is a lot of nationalistic animosity coming from China towards Taiwan. | ||
| There is very aggressive military posturing. | ||
| There is a threat to use force against the Taiwanese people. | ||
| And none of that is conducive to that scenario that I just described, to mutual respect and sustainable peace. | ||
| And that is why we also need to build on our strength. | ||
| And so I think an ideal situation for us involves a strong and confident Taiwan economically and also militarily with also some international support where we can feel confident that our decisions about our future will be respected. | ||
| And so we also subscribe to the concept that Americans talk about, and that is peace through strength. | ||
| Ultimately, it's about understanding the language of strength. | ||
| And by building a greater strength, and I think that is also part of deterrence. | ||
| Ultimately, what we are doing is celebrating and building on peace, but also deterring and preventing conflict. | ||
| And that requires a lot of hard work. | ||
| It is very tough. | ||
| It is not easy, but it does require determination to invest in our own strength and our own self-defense. | ||
| And getting granular on what that hard work looks like, what options for defense industrial base collaboration between Taiwan and the United States make the most sense to you? | ||
| Are there co-production opportunities that would be of interest? | ||
| Yes, well, the United States has been Taiwan's most important security partner, and Taiwan over the years has acquired a lot of very important defense equipment from the United States. | ||
| But we are at a stage where sometimes the delivery doesn't meet demand, and that we need to take it upon ourselves to also shoulder responsibilities in building ourselves, but also in co-production opportunities with the United States. | ||
| And I think Taiwan has certainly accumulated many capabilities in scaling and manufacturing where we can also contribute to our partners in working together. | ||
| And I would say that we've been putting a lot of focus in drones and robotics. | ||
| And we're looking at theaters around the world and how asymmetric capabilities support resilience. | ||
| And so we have just over the last year or two started from ground zero and built up our own domestic drone supply chain, our own capabilities, and we're also moving into other forms of robotics. | ||
| And I think these are areas where cooperation with secure supply chains and innovation with the United States and other democratic partners will help to expedite the ability of us to sustain that asymmetric edge and the ability to deter and defend. | ||
| And speaking to the broader American public, what is the 90-second case that you would make for how Taiwan can help ordinary American workers and small businesses, whether it's supply chains, jobs, resilience? | ||
| Let me start by bringing everyone to Arizona. | ||
| And Taiwan, our major chip manufacturing company called Taiwan Semiconductor, a chip manufacturing company, TSMC, has invested in Arizona to build megafabs to produce high-end chips in the United States. | ||
| It is a mega facility. | ||
| It's like an airport. | ||
| But it is also the largest greenfield investment by a foreign country in the United States in your history. | ||
| And it's meaningful. | ||
| It will contribute to making the chips that will go into your cars, your manufacturing. | ||
| They will go to Detroit, they will go to other parts of America. | ||
| They will go into your iPhones. | ||
| They will go into a lot of the electronic products, your AI data centers, your computing powers. | ||
| And this is Taiwan's contribution to American manufacturing. | ||
| That is, we will contribute to parts and components that are reliable, trusted, efficient, and competitive. | ||
| We will contribute to manufacturing in the United States. | ||
| In the agenda of reindustrializing in the United States, we are also contributing to reliable supply chains as we're in a very integrated world today. | ||
| And, you know, no country alone can make all of the high-tech equipment that is needed by the world today. | ||
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unidentified
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Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | |
| But together, with our supply chains working together, I think we can certainly advance a lot more. | ||
| And Taiwan will continue to contribute to the supply chains needed for manufacturing in the United States. | ||
| And I think this is a win-win situation for both of us. | ||
| Ultimately, Taiwanese companies also desire to be global companies. | ||
| And partnering with our best friends in the United States is one of the ways to expand Taiwan's presence in the world. | ||
| It's also a great way to contribute to American manufacturing, to the growth of American businesses, and the growth of American technologies. | ||
| I know the American people are very grateful for that, and I think that collaborating on all things drones only seems to be the logical conclusion and next step. | ||
| But for those Americans who would argue that we're stretched maybe too thin, Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific heating up, what would you say to those who are maybe fearing another foreign commitment? | ||
| I think nobody wants conflict or war. | ||
| And I think we feel the same way as American peoples, as American people feel, that we do not want to see a conflict here in the Taiwan Strait. | ||
| We do not want to see a war. | ||
| And so everything we are doing today, including the strengthening of our own military and self-defense capabilities, strengthening of our economy, is part of deterring and preventing a conflict. | ||
| And so I think it's important that American people understand that supporting a strong Taiwan is also part of our shared agenda, our shared interest in sustaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. | ||
| And sustaining the balance, although it is not a satisfactory situation for any single stakeholder here, but it is a balance, a status quo that has worked for all of us. | ||
| And preventing conflict is our shared agenda. | ||
| And part of that, as I have said in this interview, is about building Taiwan's strength, sustaining peace through strength. | ||
| And so continuing this very strong defense partnership, but also working on the economic side in ways that we can foster win-win prosperity for both our peoples so that we do have the strength to continue to build is important. | ||
| And the second aspect is, as a second point I want to make, is that the Taiwanese people are not sitting around waiting to be saved. | ||
| We are proactively investing in our defenses. | ||
| We have increased our defense budget over the past few years by 80% over the last DPP administration. | ||
| And we intend to increase our defense spending in the years to come, including not only acquisitions from the United States, but also in building here in Taiwan. | ||
| The drones, robotics, the AI systems, the new and emerging technologies that could also contribute to broader national security. | ||
| And we are taking, you know, shouldering responsibilities to promote and support peace in the Taiwan Strait. | ||
| And we are also going beyond that, shouldering international responsibilities, although Taiwan is preventing from joining international organizations wherever there is a need in the world. | ||
| There's an earthquake, a natural disaster. | ||
| Taiwanese people are very compassionate, kind people, and we're always ready to contribute to help and to support people in need in other parts of the world. | ||
| And so again, we are not sitting around waiting to exploit a blank check or to be saved. | ||
| We are building to defend ourselves. | ||
| We are building to be partners. | ||
| We are not just a victim of coercion and military threats. | ||
| We are a proactive partner, and we can contribute. | ||
| We can work with others to ensure that our shared interests, that our shared agenda can be achieved. | ||
| I think a topic of discussion that I hear a lot on Back Home really can be distilled into the question of do you foresee any scenario where American boots would ever be on the ground here in Taiwan? | ||
| Well, I think everything we are doing is to prevent that particular hypothetical situation from staying hypothetical, from never actually happening, so that no one will ever have to make painful decisions about going into conflict or war. | ||
| And that's why deterrence is just so important. | ||
| That is why strengthening Taiwan's capabilities is just so important. | ||
| And we are in a very asymmetric situation right now. | ||
| So while we are very committed to investing in our own self-defense, in defending ourselves, in protecting ourselves, it's a very difficult task. | ||
| And as we are also quite isolated from the international community, we also need advice, support, and help. | ||
| And we really appreciate the United States through the Taiwan Relations Act, but also through some recent initiatives by Congress, the National Defense Authorization Act, and some other initiatives in supporting co-production opportunities with Taiwan, in building defense equipment and technology together. | ||
| We also welcome, we are thankful, actually, we're very thankful for some U.S. initiatives to help train our people. | ||
| And after all, the United States is the most experienced and top rate. | ||
| And I think the Taiwanese will feel greater confidence if we know that we are being trained by the best in the world. | ||
| And so we have a lot of reforms needed and we are in the process of doing so. | ||
| But good coordination with our partners, building together, working together, I think all of that contributes to preventing that particular scenario from ever happening. | ||
| And speaking of Washington, I know you've spent a lot of time there. | ||
| What would you say is the largest misconception that Washington has surrounding Taiwan? | ||
| I would say that it would be very dangerous for anyone, not just Washington, but Beijing or anyone in the world. | ||
| It would be dangerous to underestimate the will of the Taiwanese people to protect and defend ourselves. | ||
| And the will of the Taiwanese people to protect ourselves, I think, is also the most important part of deterring conflict. | ||
| And we will certainly continue to work on the necessary reforms and the steps needed to fortify ourselves. | ||
| But I do want to say that in this area, China is working very hard to project narratives and disinformation in Washington and the United States. | ||
| They want to project a narrative that Taiwan is weak, that Taiwan's incapable, and that Taiwan is not worth supporting. | ||
| They also are trying to project Taiwan as a troublemaker in some sense, as if like from the first free election we had for the president in 1996, they found that offensive. | ||
| And they tried to make the argument that that is a disruption of the One China policy. | ||
| Everything we do, including our efforts to defend ourselves, the act of having free elections in Taiwan, the Chinese find offensive. | ||
| And they tend to put that into a narrative of accusing Taiwan as being troublemakers. | ||
| And I think that is highly inaccurate. | ||
| And the only one seeking to disrupt peace and the status quo in this region is the People's Liberation Army. | ||
| We are all for the status quo and for stability. | ||
| And I think, although I think most American people are very wise and smart, and they can really see through these psychological warfare, disinformation tactics that are making attempts to divide our countries, our governments, and our peoples. | ||
| But time and again, sometimes when you project a lie ten times, some people catch on to it. | ||
| And we have to be very careful and vigilant about China's political interference, about their narratives, about their disinformation and psychological warfare, and again, | ||
| work with each other to fortify, to coordinate, and go beyond maybe just Taiwan, the United States, but freedom-loving people around the world also need to be vigilant about these playbooks from authoritarian states. | ||
| Just in the few short days that I've been here, it's really been an honor to witness that strength that you're talking about of the Taiwanese people firsthand. | ||
| But continuing to sort of zoom out to that multilateral level, I'm curious how the internal dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party influence your approach to deterrence. | ||
| I think for a lot of Taiwanese people, we tend to want to wish for the best, but prepare for the worst. | ||
| And as we prepare for the worst, I think we have to not rule out any possibility. | ||
| And that is, you know, there are internal dynamics in China, but experts have a variety of analyses on what that means for Taiwan. | ||
| For example, there are experts who say that political instability or economic troubles in China might lead to the Chinese calculation that nationalistic diversions or external aggression is needed to sustain the legitimacy of the government. | ||
| And that is a scenario that would be rather dangerous for Taiwan. | ||
| Another scenario, as experts have analyzed, is a China that is overly confident, that miscalculates the will of the Taiwanese people to defend and the actions of international stakeholders to ensure that the rules-based international order is maintained. | ||
| An overconfident China that misjudges that may also take very dangerous steps. | ||
| And so I think no matter how things go in China, we have to, again, prepare for the worst. | ||
| And that is why building on our own strength is so important. | ||
| But I also have to say that, as I said, we want to wish for the best. | ||
| And that is, we want to wish for or work on Greater international strategic communication in instilling, first of all, complicating calculations in Beijing that any attempt at aggression would be a cost too hard to bear. | ||
| And these calculations, these complications are an important part of deterrence. | ||
| But on a more proactive and positive side, and that is we need to foster greater understanding in China that greater respect for the rights of other societies and for the wishes of the Taiwanese people to determine our own future is something that could also be good for China, that could also support sustained peace and more normalized engagements between the people across the Taiwan Strait. | ||
| And they need to arrive at that understanding because everything they're doing now is generating greater hostility. | ||
| They're generating uncertainties, anxieties, and it is completely counterproductive to an agenda of peace, which we feel is also an agenda that should be good for the Chinese people. | ||
| Parallels between Beijing's current actions and what we saw from Russia in the lead up to its invasion of Ukraine. | ||
| Well, in the lead-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the two leaders got together and announced an alliance without limits. | ||
| And we see a lot of indications that they are working from the same playbook. | ||
| All the hybrid warfare tactics that I just mentioned, the cyber attacks, the disinformation, the infiltration in our societies, the political manipulation, all of that is ongoing and is happening. | ||
| But we also see indications of China's very focused military exercises, their military buildup that also pose very dangerous threats to the stability of this region. | ||
| And that is why we're quite vigilant about this. | ||
| And we're in a race against time to fortify our defenses, to deter and to prevent any such conflict from happening. | ||
| And ultimately, we see a lot of pain and suffering in Ukraine. | ||
| We see a lot of pain and suffering in other parts of the world who are in the middle of conflicts. | ||
| And we never want to see that happen to the Taiwanese people or to the people in this region. | ||
| And again, highlighting this among stakeholders, that this is any attempt at invasion, war, annexation, or the use of force to resolve our political differences is unacceptable, is such an important priority right now. | ||
| What's one small thing people anywhere could do this week to understand Taiwan better? | ||
| Well, let me go from small to big. | ||
| And I think it would be easy for many Americans to pick up a book about Taiwan or even easier to, you know, a lot of people see Taiwan through the lens of geopolitical complexities, but Taiwan is so much more than that. | ||
| We are a very vibrant society with living people, with human beings who have been innovative, who have strived to build opportunities for themselves, who have strived to be that force for good in the world, to contribute to the global good. | ||
| And we also have very vibrant culture. | ||
| We have food and music and film and the creative arts, everything that free societies also enjoy. | ||
| So I think trying some Taiwanese food or a cup of bubble tea, that's a connection to Taiwan. | ||
| But going beyond that, it's also looking at all the products around you, the supply chains, and how important it is to work with trusted and reliable partners like Taiwan. | ||
| And going beyond that, if there's more time, taking a visit here to get a feel of our society like you have, to understand the people. | ||
| And I think all of that's very important. | ||
| And actually in most American cities, there are Taiwanese American organizations too who are very active in presenting Taiwanese food and culture to American society too. | ||
| And I think some engagement with them might also work. | ||
| Although I think the best preference would be to welcome everyone to Taiwan. | ||
| But I want to add another point, and that is for young people, young Americans. | ||
| And for me as a young person, it was very useful for me to have my upbringing in Taiwan, but also an education in the United States. | ||
| And of course, you have the top universities and institutions in the United States, and a lot of us in government, in business, in all walks of life in Taiwan, our engineers, our scientists have had some form of this experience with the United States. | ||
| But I think we also want to be open to welcoming American youth who want to get to know the world, who want to get to understand another culture. | ||
| And Taiwan's, like America, we respect academic freedom, the freedom of speech, the freedom of thought, the freedom of information. | ||
| And we want to also make our institutions and universities areas where young people can develop their visions of the world. | ||
| And we want welcome American youth to also live and study in Taiwan as part of their learning experience, especially if anyone wants to learn Chinese, this is the place to do it, rather than a Communist Party-managed Confucian Institute around the world. | ||
| And so I think there are a lot of things that American people can do to get to understand Taiwan. | ||
| But ultimately, it comes back to our shared values and what we believe in and our shared interests. | ||
| And we just have so much in common, although we are culturally very different. | ||
| But I think ultimately we're part of humanity that wishes the best for the world. | ||
| I think as we approach America's 250th birthday, a lot of people are looking at these founding principles and values. | ||
| And I think there's just such a strong overlap with what you guys promote here in Taiwan, the civil society, the academic freedom. | ||
| Finally, I know you're very busy, it's my last question, but is there a line of poetry, scripture, or proverb that you carry into tough days with you? | ||
| You talked about tough days, and so I just say, you know, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. | ||
| And it's our daily reality. | ||
| We are living in very tough days. | ||
| It's very tough being a Taiwanese in the world today, as we are up against just so much pressure. | ||
| And it's tough being Taiwanese because very often we're also rendered invisible. | ||
| In many countries, we cannot even be called Taiwan. | ||
| We're called Chinese Taipei or China Taipei or Taipei or some other form. | ||
| And just being Taiwan is so difficult. | ||
| And so what many other countries take for granted is a daily struggle for the Taiwanese people. | ||
| But I think the Taiwanese people deserve better. | ||
| And a part of deserving better is because we are also toughened and resilient, toughened by our difficulties, toughened by the challenges that we face, toughened by the injustices. | ||
| But that has never prevented the Taiwanese people from wanting to be contributors to the global good, from achieving the economic progress that has been such an important part of our accomplishments and from achieving democracy and from defending that. | ||
| Well, Madam Vice President, thank you so much for your time, transparency, and willingness to talk to the American people about the stakes of a delicate relationship that impacts all of us. | ||
| And again, thank you to the brave Taiwanese people for standing so courageously on the front lines against the threat of the Chinese Communist Party, treating these complicated decisions with the gravity and knowledge that they will affect the world order as we know it, are our shared values in action. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| Well, thank you. |
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