Your prayer was very touching.

Your job description?

Did you write this yourself?

It’s beautiful.

I’ve shared it with a colleague. I said, “we should create a course based on this job description to counter the predominant mentality.”

Yes.

Smart cities is one of the areas that the Singapore Government has targeted for Singapore’s future growth. Singapore hopes to become a center of innovation for smart cities. They want our university then to develop research focuses on smart cities

Yes. Let me share with you that I was at the Oslo Freedom Forum last year. I was invited to a human rights roundtable, a group of maybe 10 or 12 people.

Each of us had to talk about our work and we would see whether anything came out of that. The people at the table were from different parts of Asia and represented different nationalities. Most all of them were working with refugees, and indeed…

Indeed, they have big challenges in protecting the human rights of refugees, not only in their countries of origin, but also in relocation camps. Everyone at the table had to speak. I do some work with the Indonesian migrant workers here, so I mentioned them.

The Indonesian migrant workers with whom I work in Taiwan are all formal sector employees. They aren’t housemaids. They aren’t fishermen. They’re mostly factory workers or they work in hospitals or nursing homes.

I said, “Taiwan’s formal sector has pretty good labor regulations that protect the human rights of these migrant workers from being violated.” Every once in a while, one of them might get tricked or something like that…

Yes. I said, “Listening to all of you express your interest in protecting the human rights of particular groups, I realize, more basically, that we also have to protect human rights themselves.”

I’ve been in this region about half the time since 1981, much of which time I’ve spent in Taiwan and also in Indonesia, and the last eight years in Singapore.

I said, “I’ve noticed that in recent years democracy seems to be backsliding in the region. If you want to protect human rights, you have to protect democracy. I think democracy is increasingly threatened.”

I said, “Two bright spots for democracy in this region are Taiwan and Indonesia.” I often travel between these two countries. Exchanges between them have multiplied very rapidly in recent years, but such exchanges are still at an early stage.

I said, “Most people in these two countries do not yet share a great deal of mutual understanding nor speak each other’s language. I think they ought to become more aware that they are the two leading democracies in this region. I have my own historical argument for why Taiwan is part of Southeast Asia. It may not be politically correct, but it has a historical basis.”

Yes, Taiwan is also a Pacific island. And the indigenous people of Taiwan are Austronesian, the same as…

Yes. The indigenous people are Austronesian. Also, the Hoklo population…. Hoklos were in Java before they were in Taiwan.

Some Hoklos came to Taiwan directly from Fujian, but some of the earliest Hoklos also came from Java. When the Dutch set up in Tainan, these Hoklos were already in Batavia, and so some of the Hokkien speakers already in Batavia came to Taiwan with the Dutch.

Also for many years, Taiwan shared a similar sociological experience of single Hoklo men coming here and marrying local women and creating a new mixed-race culture.

It’s very similar in some ways to the Peranakan in Java.

So, I have a historical argument for why Taiwan is part of Southeast Asia.

Thank you for helping to develop that curriculum.

In order to change the way people think, you need to reframe their understanding of connections.

At the OFF last year I said, “You know, Taiwan and Indonesia are the two brightest spots for democracy in Southeast Asia, so they are where human rights will probably be best protected, and this commmonality could be better recognized.”

I said, “In April of 2019, Indonesia will have a presidential election. In January of 2020, Taiwan will have a presidential election.

“This is all going to come up in the next 15, 16 months, and I know from being in Indonesia in 2014, during the last presidential election, that so-called ‘fake news’ was already a problem.

“In 2019, for sure, it will become a bigger problem.” I said the same thing about Taiwan. I said, “During the last presidential election in Taiwan” – it was in 2016 – “disinformation was a problem. It will become a bigger problem in 2020. This problem is going to grow. It’s not going to go away.”

I said, “These fact-checking agencies were recently set up in Taiwan and in Indonesia.” You probably know…

There’s an equivalent that was set up in 2016 in Indonesia. It goes by the acronym MAFINDO. It stands for Masyarakat Anti-Fitnah Indonesia, which means The Association of Anti-Slander Indonesia.

These are good people whom I believe are respected by the Jokowi administration.

Officially, it’s neutral. It’s nonpolitical. It’s a nonprofit group of largely volunteers. It’s not connected to a political party, but the people who run it or the people who volunteer are supporters of freedom and democracy.

I thought, “There are these new fact-checking agencies in both places. There could be an established channel of communication between them to share ideas and experiences, they could learn from each other, their dialogue could be focused on preventing disinformation in multiparty democratic elections that should be just and fair.”

Earlier this year, I went back and forth, and both sides said, “Yes, we would like to do this,” so it’s getting underway now.

The better educated people in Indonesia who know what’s going on in the world are aware of sensitivities that are attached to dealing with Taiwan.

They have to be careful. They’re interested in doing things with Taiwan, but they want to be sure that this relationship is set up properly.

These fact-checking agencies are nongovernmental agencies, so…

…this can be done. I think in terms of disinformation, Taiwan is a particularly important place, because it’s at the forefront of new methods that China is developing. Taiwan will become the expert on China’s methods.

Once they perfect these methods in Taiwan, or believe that they have made them effective, sooner or later, they’ll use them elsewhere. I think Taiwan has something to teach.

To export, yes, but to say that their dialogue is motivated by such a future export may be sensitive.

Absolutely. This is something very practical versus something that’s more strategic. Let me tell you what’s on the short-term horizon. Here in Taiwan next month, October fifth and sixth, there’s going to be an international forum held in Taipei.

I received an invitation from Professor Hu to come and make a presentation. This is going to be a gathering of fact-checking agencies from the other democracies in Asia. There will be representatives from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia…

…the Philippines and India.

At this gathering next month, Professor Hu has asked me to make a presentation for about 20 minutes. There’ll be numerous presentations. Mine will be just one of many.

My presentation will be relatively short and cover a relatively general topic. It will not be a terribly scholarly presentation.

I wanted to ask for your advice, to speak to an audience of people who are very intelligent, but not scholars. They’re doing practical work with setting up these fact-checking agencies in the Asian democracies.

I’m not an expert on South Korea, Japan, Philippines, or India. I can say something about Taiwan and Indonesia. I’m wondering, in a 20-minute presentation, what can I say?

What basic message can I get across to these people to help them understand a little bit more about Taiwan and Indonesia and the importance of having a channel of communication between their fact-checking agencies.

I wanted to ask you for your advice. In order for these fact-checking agencies to have credibility, they do have to be neutral. They do need to have a critical stance domestically, as well as internationally.