The Taiwan Take

Jimmy Lai, the 77-year-old media tycoon of British citizenship, has been detained for over five years, mostly in isolation. He is one of over 1,500 political prisoners in Hong Kong.Today's interview contains a clip of a conversation between Jimmy Lai and Natan Sharansky from November 20, 2020, one month before Lai’s arrest. Sharansky is a former Soviet dissident who spent nine years imprisoned as a refusenik during the 1970s and 1980s. “... What you said about physical survival is not important. Spiritual survival is very important. Never back down. The peak of your life is when you were in prison. I totally understand, and that is very important; because I take up the responsibility of imagining myself influencing so many people as an example. If I don’t back down then they won’t back down. So that is a responsibility that is also uplifting spirit for me. And I really thank you so much for inspiring me on this.” - Jimmy Lai in November, 2020. (Transcript)Mark L. Clifford is the author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic” (Simon & Schuster, 2024). He first met Lai in 1993. Jimmy Lai was born in Guangdong, China. At age 12, he cramped into a fishing boat and arrived in Hong Kong as an illegal immigrant. The year was 1961. Hong Kong was still a British colony. In two decades Lai became a leader in the city’s fashion and textiles industry, then became a newspaper publisher. He launched Next magazine in 1990 then Apple Daily newspaper in 1995, both quickly became Hong Kong’s top-selling publications.In 2001, Next opened its Taiwan offices. In this interview, Clifford recounts the importance of the Taiwan operation. It was supposed to have been a stepping-stone to publishing in China, Clifford explains.Jimmy Lai stands out as a business tycoon who is an outspoken advocate for pro-democracy causes.In 1989 Lai sent aid to students protesting at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In 2014 he joined protesters at the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, and again in 2019 as million-plus residents marched against China for what became the largest series of demonstrations in the history of Hong Kong. Hong Kong, a special administrative region of People's Republic of China since 1997, implemented its National Security Law on June 30, 2020. Months later, on December 31, 2020, Jimmy Lai was arrested.Apple Daily printed its final edition in Hong Kong on June 24, 2021. Five additional editors were jailed.Our guest today is Mark Clifford, author of the new biography on Jimmy Lai. Clifford spent 28 years in Hong Kong before leaving the city in 2020. Clifford had been a director of Next Digital - publisher of the newspaper Apple Daily, executive director of the Asia Business Council, editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post, and publisher and editor-in-chief of The Standard. Clifford left Hong Kong in 2020 and now serves as the founding president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation, a U.S.-based NGO established in 2022 to fight for Hong Kong and its people in the wake of China’s national security crackdown.Recent updates on the Jimmy Lai trial:  March 6, 2025: Lai wrapped up his testimony. March 10, 2025: Lai’s son, Sebastien, wrote to the U.S. President Trump in an op-ed in the New York Post, “President Trump, we need your help to get Hong Kong to release my dad, Jimmy Lai — before he dies in solitary confinement”. (Trump’s commitment was stated on the Hugh Hewitt Show in October 2024. March 11: Closing argument is set for August 14, 2025 (RTHK) April 1: A bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. U.S. lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill to rename the street next to Hong Kong’s Washington D.C. office in Dupont Circle to “Jimmy Lai Way” (Chris Smith, R-NJ) April 10: Lai will be an honorary recipient of the Bradley Prize for being a “courageous advocate for democracy and freedom of the press.” See “Support Jimmy Lai dot com” for regular updates:https://supportjimmylai.comMore information from the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong: https://thecfhk.org/Support Ghost Island Media: http://patreon.com/taiwan Follow and tag us on social media:Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEmily Y. Wu | Twitter @emilyywuA Ghost Island Media production: www.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

British-Canadian-Taiwanese writer Jessica J. Lee (李潔珂) is the author of three books of nature writing, Dispersals (2024), Two Trees Make a Forest (2019), and Turning (2017), the children’s book A Garden Called Home (2024), and co-editor of the essay collection Dog Hearted (2023). She has a PhD in Environmental History and Aesthetics and is the founding editor of The Willowherb Review. She teaches creative writing at the University of King’s College in Canada. She lives in Berlin.This episode was recorded live on April 11th, 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan. The evening was co-organized by the Czech Hub in Taiwan, and moderated by Korean-American writer, Esther Kim. About Czech Hub in Taiwan - Launched in 2023, this gathering space in Taipei hosts monthly forums on policy, security, and business. It’s curated by the European Values Center for Security Policy and the Czech-Taiwanese Business Chamber. Sign up for its newsletter, Indo-Pacific Currents:https://europeanvalues.cz/en/newsletters/About the Moderator - Esther Kim is a writer living in Taiwan. She is the first and former Digital Communications Manager of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, a major literary nonprofit in NYC. She joined the Workshop as a magazine editor. Before that, she worked on staff at book publishers with an international perspective and received her Masters degrees at SOAS, London and at Edinburgh. She writes a column for The Korea Times and is working on publishing a family heirloom into an art book.About the Conversation - Two Trees Make a Forest is a memoir on Jessica’s journey searching for her family roots in Taiwan. The latest title, Dispersals, is a collection of fourteen essays on the interconnectedness of the lives of plants and the human world. This evening, Jessica and Esther spoke about soy, swimming, nature writing and its relations to politics and anthropology, and writing for the diaspora community. Jessica is interested in investigating the gaps in the identity of plants and their cultural significance. While soy - a plant she writes about in Dispersals - is valued by her family as a source of food while growing up in Canada, she often heard anti-soy narratives outside of home.Jessica discusses the significance of addressing political and societal issues in natural writings. “We're living in this moment of biodiversity crisis, climate change,” she says. “And these are things that disproportionately impact the people who have contributed to those problems the least… So it doesn't really make sense for nature writers who purport to be writing about those crises and the sort of fallout from them, to not also address the human cost, the cultural framings that get us to that place.”Jessica cites Taiwanese writer Wu Ming-yi and American anthropologist Anna Tsing as writing influences. Ghost Island Media first interviewed Jessica J. Lee in August 2020 for the podcast Waste Not Why Not. Check out this episode here: https://ghostisland.media/zh/shows/waste-not-why-not/jessica-j-leeJessica J. Lee’s publication links:Dispersals (2024) - https://www.jessicajleewrites.com/dispersalsMandarin as《離散的植物》 - https://www.cite.com.tw/book?id=100902Two Trees Make a Forest (2020) - https://www.jessicajleewrites.com/two-treesMandarin as《山與林的深處》 - https://www.cite.com.tw/book?id=91572Support The Taiwan Take by donating on Patreon http://patreon.com/taiwan Follow and tag us on social media:Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEmily Y. Wu | Twitter @emilyywuA Ghost Island Media production: www.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen is former Prime Minister of Denmark (2001-2009) and Secretary General of NATO (2009-2014). He’s Chairman of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation.We sat down with Rasmussen this week at Yushan Forum, the annual summit organized by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation.Rasmussen is worried about a new world order “where might makes right… a world order with three power centers: one in Washington, one in Beijing, and one in Moscow. That's what concerns me the most, and I will devote the rest of my life to counter that world order.”In Asia and in the Indo-Pacific, he’s looking to see more multilateral approaches on security and trade. “I would also like to see a bigger investment in your own defense,” he says, referring to Taiwan. “That's what we have concluded in Europe, and I think the same conclusion goes for Asia, that each individual country must demonstrate a clear commitment to its own security by increasing defense investment and by cooperating closer together.”He warns of the consequence of a collective weakness if democracies don’t support each other. “If Putin gets success in Ukraine because of our weakness, it would send an extremely dangerous signal to autocrats in other parts of the world: Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un…” He spoke of the need for a reform of the United Nations. “The United Nations reflect the world as it was in 1945 with the United States as really, a dominant power. But since then, other powers have risen, like Germany in Europe, like Japan in Asia, like Brazil in South America… In the current [UN] Security Council, Russia and China have so called veto, right? So they can block all decisions in the United Nations that go against their interest, and that makes the United Nations useless, because we cannot pass any resolution. So I think we need a reform of the United Nations, but as it requires the consent of both Russia and China, it's more or less impossible in the short term. So yes, long term, we should reform the United Nations. Short term, we have to deal with what we do have.”In the last 5 minutes of the episode we play Rasmussen’s full speech at Yushan Forum. To see the full opening ceremony, see here. This includes speeches by Taiwan’s President Dr. Lai Ching-te, former Prime Minister of Denmark Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Prime Minister of Slovenia Janex Janša, Member of the Japanese House of Presentatives in the Diet Keiji Furuya, Director of the American Institute in Taiwan Raymond Greene, as well as Chairman of the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation, Dr. Michael Hsiao: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ2qq_dLmn4Support us by donating on Patreon http://patreon.com/taiwan Follow and tag us on social media:Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEmily Y. Wu | Twitter @emilyywuA Ghost Island Media production: www.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mariia Makarovych is Head of the East Asian Office of the Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine. Today, we discuss the on-going peace negotiations, the role of civil society organizations the past three years, society preparedness prior to 2022, Russian propaganda since 2014, and today, the role of China. Makarovych is an economic and policy analyst with a background in CSO throughout Ukraine and in European think tanks. She had worked to strengthen democratic tools among communities in Donetsk and implemented projects on education, land management, and funding. She was an Information Defense Analyst at the European Values Center for Security Policy. Since 2022, she has shifted her focus to researching Ukrainian economic policy and Russia propaganda. She moved to Taiwan from Ukraine in August 2023. This conversation was recorded on March 10, 2025. Makarovych reflects on the on-going peace agreements led by U.S. President Trump. She warns of the dangers of signing a mineral deal without security guarantees and emphasizes the risk of Russia regaining strength and attacking Ukraine again: a peace agreement without fair conditions could set a dangerous precedent for aggressive regimes worldwide.Drawing from her own experience growing up in Eastern Ukraine and at the onset of the full-scale invasion in 2022, we discuss society's response to pressure, civil defense, and the differences between preparedness for natural disasters versus active hostilities. Liberal Democratic League is a Ukrainian NGO established in 2014 by students in Kyiv as a response to the Revolution of Dignity (Maidan Revolution.)It’s been three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For our retrospectives on year one and two, please the following podcast interviews: Alex Khomenko (Taiwan Stands with Ukraine): https://ghostisland.media/en/shows/taiwan-take/ukraine-war-two-years-taiwan-aid-alex-khomenkoOleksandr Shyn (Ukrainian Voices): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87mQDj9X8rs&list=PLOV_JV4K99T5UF76rRj9z5WUNztzIk0Fi&index=10&t=23sDmytro Burtsev (political scientist), in Mandarin: https://ghostisland.media/en/shows/5-star-nation/ukraine-dmytro-burtsevSupport us by donating on Patreon http://patreon.com/taiwan Follow and tag us on social media:Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEmily Y. Wu | Twitter @emilyywu A Ghost Island Media production: www.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jonas Parello-Plesner is Executive Director of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation. He’s the author of the book, “The Battle for Taiwan”.“The Battle for Taiwan” (“Kampen om Taiwan”) was first published in Denmark in 2023 as the first book on Taiwan for the Danish audience. The English edition was published in April, 2024.Alliance of Democracies works to strengthen democracies around the world and to encourage cooperation between the world’s democracies. It also organizes the annual Copenhagen Democracy Summit. It’s founded by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. In 2021, the Foundation was sanctioned by China. This was recorded live on February 19th, 2025 at a book launch hosted by the European Values Center for Security Policy. Introduction by Marcin Jerzewski, Head of Taiwan Office of the European Values Center for Security Policy.(Since then, U.S. President Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine; Taiwan’s semiconductor company TSMC has announced an additional U.S. investment of 100 billion U.S. dollars.)“The Battle for Taiwan” on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Taiwan-Jonas-Parello-Plesner/dp/B0CZRYS4RZSupport us by donating on Patreon http://patreon.com/taiwan Follow and tag us on social media:Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEmily Y. Wu | Twitter @emilyywuA Ghost Island Media production: www.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alejandro Mayoral Baños is the Executive Director of Access Now, an international NGO focusing on digital human rights. Access Now is the organizer of RightsCon - world’s largest digital human rights summit. The 2025 edition is set to take place in Taipei from February 24 to 27, 2025, where more than 550 sessions are expected to be staged. Baños talks to Ghost Island Media about digital authoritarianism, data governance, and artificial intelligence. Prior to his role at Access Now, Baños has been a life-long leader in advocacy and research on  indigenous rights and digital development. He gives advice to CSO on navigating new challenges, finding new financial sustainability, and the importance of networking. This interview was conducted on January 22, 2025. Impact of the U.S. President Trump’s executive orders on the freezing of foreign assistance was not discussed. Baños’s grew up in Mexico as a member of the Mixtec indigenous people and is now based in Canada. In 2015 he founded the Indigenous Friends Association to bridge the gap between indigenous communities and digital technologies. He has been a Ashoka Fellow for his work as a social entrepreneur. In 2020 he was named a Toronto Community Champion by CBC. On-line sessions for RightsCon are available for those who cannot come to Taiwan. Register: https://www.rightscon.org/registration/ Resources Baños mentioned in the interview: Indigenous Data Sovereignty: CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance: https://www.gida-global.org/care#:~:text=CARE%20Principles%20for%20Indigenous%20Data%20Governance,-The%20current%20movement&text=Existing%20principles%20within%20the%20open,power%20differentials%20and%20historical%20contexts. Approaches to create AI Models for the Indigenous -  Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Working Group: https://www.indigenous-ai.net/Support us by donating on Patreon http://patreon.com/taiwan Follow and tag us on social media:Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEmily Y. Wu | Twitter @emilyywuA Ghost Island Media production: www.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Graham Jones is an election observer. In his new report “Taiwan POWER” on the 2024 presidential and legislative elections in Taiwan, Jones sets up Taiwan as a model for resilience against foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). Jones identifies a set of strengths that's the core of Taiwan’s resilience against FIMI: Purpose-driven, Organic, Whole-society, Evolving, Remit-bound. Jones stresses it’s the bottom-up approach of Taiwan’s civic society that’s made it particularly resilient.  “What’s interesting about Taiwan is we often consider Taiwan to be patient zero of Chinese information operations, Beijing’s information operations… If we are to move from not just defining the problem, but also defining the solution, I think Taiwan is a place that provides a good deal of inspiration to the wider world.” Jones points to Chinese PRC influence of political elites, often through tourism, and why countries need to understand the work of the United Front. We also talk about AI, deep fake, media literacy, and where he stands on the responsibility of social media platforms against false information.  The Taiwan 2024 elections took place on January 13, 2024. While the ruling DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) won an unprecedented third consecutive term in office, it lost the majority in parliament. Elections take place in Taiwan every two years. They alternate between national and local elections. The next local elections for mayors, city counselors, and village chiefs should be in November 2026. Taiwan POWER by Ben Graham Jones, commissioned by DoubleThink Lab, was released in August 2024: https://medium.com/doublethinklab/taiwan-power-a-model-for-resilience-to-foreign-information-manipulation-interference-70ea81f859b7 Previous episodes from Ghost Island Media on disinformation: “Disinformation: Building Digital Resilience” on Dispatch From Taiwan - with voices from Taiwan FactCheck Center, DoubleThink Lab, and Citizen Lab: https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/01/disinformation-building-digital-resilience “Influence Operations on PTT” with Oddis J.F. Tsai and J.M. Hung (INDSR): https://ghostisland.media/en/shows/taiwan-take/indsr-ptt-influence-operation “Disinformation” with Puma Shen (Doublethink Lab): https://ghostisland.media/en/shows/taiwan-take/disinformation-doublethink-lab “China Information Warfare” with Jeremy Hung (INDSR): https://ghostisland.media/en/shows/taiwan-take/indsr-china-information-war Support us by donating on Patreon http://patreon.com/taiwan Follow and tag us on social media:Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEmily Y. Wu | Twitter @emilyywu A Ghost Island Media production: www.ghostisland.media  Support the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Decathlon: The CK Yang & Rafer Johnson Story” 《奧運傳奇：楊傳廣與強生》is a tribute to one of the greatest Taiwanese Olympians - C.K. Yang - and his American rival and long-time friend, Rafer Johnson.  At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, C.K. Yang (Yang Chuan-kwang 楊傳廣) won silver and became the first person with a Chinese surname to win an Olympic medal. Rafer Johnson carried the flag for the U.S.A national team and was the first black American to do so.  The 45-minute film - 18 years in making - was released in August 2024 during the Paris Olympics. Directed by Frank W Chen. Written by Mike Chinoy and John Krich. Interview footage with C.K. Yang, Tom Brokaw, Chi Cheng, Michael Eaves, and more. Mike Chinoy is an American journalist who spent 24 years as a foreign correspondent for CNN. He was CNN’s first bureau chief in Beijing, and has won the Emmy, the Dupond, and the Peabody Awards for his coverage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. He is the author of five books. He currently lives in Taipei. Frank W. Chen is a Taiwanese-Canadian documentary filmmaker. His previous film, “Late Life” (2018) on the Taiwanese MLB pitcher Wang Chien-Ming (New York Yankees, 2005-2007) was nominated for a Golden Horse Award and won audience awards in Los Angeles and Vancouver. Stream the film here on TaiwanPlus Docs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usbdC5v3LX8 If you’d like to organize a screening in your city, please contact [email protected] Support us by donating on Patreon http://patreon.com/taiwan Tag and follow Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEPISODE CREDITHost / Emily Y. Wu @emilyywuEditing / Wayne TsaiResearcher / Zack Chiang A Ghost Island Media production / @ghostislandme www.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Taiwanese writer Chi Ta-wei (紀大偉)'s 1996 novel “The Membranes” has seen global success in recent years, with translations in French, English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Spanish, Danish, and forthcoming editions in Portuguese, Greek, and Vietnamese. “The Membranes” is a dystopian fiction set in the 22nd century. Climate change has devastated Earth, and humans now live at the bottom of the sea. The protagonist is a dermatologist named Momo who can read her clients’ memories through their skins. Chi Ta-wei is an important voice in Taiwanese queer literature.  We talk about the year 1994 - the era of Pulp Fiction, Nine Inch Nails, and Nirvana. In Taipei, a bookstore called FemBooks (女書店) was opened. Artists and students wanting international cinema flocked to the Golden Horse Film Festival.  One of Ta-wei’s contemporaries is the late author Qiu Miaojin (邱妙津). Ta-wei talks about why he and Qiu shared a fondness for Europe. We also talk about the Australian writer and translator Ari Heinrich who worked on English translations for both Chi Ta-wei and Qiu Miaojin. Chi Ta-Wei also talks about his appreciation for translators, and advice for writers, editors, and publishers who are working on bringing Taiwanese books to the world.  For French listeners, here’s our Interview with theater director Cédric Delorme-Bouchard on the stage adaptation that premiered in Montreal 2024: https://ghostisland.media/en/shows/france-taiwan/membrane-cedric-delorme-bouchard More on Chi Ta-wei: www.taweichi.com/ Links to the novel “The Membranes”: (In English) “The Membranes” translated by Ari Heinrich (University of Columbia Press, 2021) - https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-membranes/9780231195713 (En français) “Membrane” traduit par Gwennaël Gaffric (L'Asiathèque. 2020) https://www.asiatheque.com/fr/livre/membrane 《膜》繁體中文版 (聯經出版, 1996) https://www.linkingbooks.com.tw/LNB/book/Book.aspx?ID=184182&vs=pc Tag and follow Ghost Island Media on social media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter Support us by donating on Patreon - http://patreon.com/taiwan  EPISODE CREDIT Host / Emily Y. Wu @emilyywuEditing / Zack Chiang, Wayne TsaiResearcher / Skylar NguyenA Ghost Island Media production / @ghostislandmeSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This was the first Academy Awards nomination for a documentary from Taiwan. “Island in Between”《金門》was a nominee for Best Documentary Short at the 2024 Academy Awards. In this 19-minute documentary, we see Kinmen (Quemoy) through the lens of filmmaker S. Leo Chiang (江松長) and the diverse cast of characters he meets there. Kinmen - made of a set of islands - is governed by Taiwan but sits just 2 miles across from China. Here Chiang portrays an “uneasy peace on the frontline between Taiwan and China.” We talk about Kinmen, the making of the film, the path to the Oscars, and Chiang’s personal journey from being a parachute kid to the U.S., and his evolving identity as a Chinese, Taiwanese, American, and everything in between.  Chiang is co-founder of the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc). In 2009, Chiang was nominated for an Emmy for the documentary “A Village Called Versailles.”“Island in Between” is produced by CNEX, and distributed by the New York Times Op-Docs. Producer, Jean Tsien. Watch: https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000009146242/island-in-between.htmlSupport us by donating on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taiwan Follow and tag us on social media:Ghost Island Media | Instagram | Facebook | TwitterEmily Y. Wu | Twitter @emilyywuA Ghost Island Media production: www.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.