The Taiwan Take

On June 30, 2026, legal amendments come into effect in Taiwan that will open disability certification to permanent residents (APRC holders) with 10+ years of total residency in Taiwan as foreign professionals. The changes will allow disabled individuals from this group to opt into disability benefits and care. Our guest is David Chang, Founder and Secretary-General of  Crossroads , a non-prof...

90% of the world’s AI hardware is manufactured in Taiwan; 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips (they power AI) is made in Taiwan. This gives us a sense of why AI is an industrial priority for Taiwan. Computex  (June 2-5) is Taiwan’s flagship industry trade show. (Begun in 1986, it’s one of the world's oldest and largest computer trade shows.) Our guest...

World Press Freedom Index is an annual report released by the international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on the status of press freedom in 180 countries. Its 2026 report, released on April 30, found that press freedom around the world is at a 25-year low. Our guest today is  Aleksandra Bielakowska, Advocacy Manager of RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau and Presid...

Matej Šimalčík is the Executive Director of CEIAS (Central European Institute of Asian Studies), a think tank that focuses on foreign and security policy issues related to East Asia. Its new report “Partners in need, partners indeed? Tracking Europe-Taiwan relations amidst global disruption” is an updated overview of Taiwan’s relations with 30 European countries. &S...

We speak to Hsin-mei CHENG , producer of the 2025 television series “ Zero Day Attack” (零日攻擊) - a 10-episode drama that imagines Taiwanese internal divide and cohesion after the Chinese PLA have launched an invasion of Taiwan. She speaks about her experience developing the show and the challenges of censorship and self-censorship in the creative industries in Taiwan. Hsin-Mei CHENG...

On July 26th, a third of Taiwan will vote on recall referendums (大罷免) for 24 legislators throughout Taiwan. Our guest is Nathan F. Batto, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica. Taiwan watchers also know him as the writer of  Frozen Garlic wordpress on Taiwanese elections. We discuss how we got here: the KMT/TPP coalition in the legislature, the...

Michael Caster (Head of Global China Programme) and  I-Chen Liu (Asia Programme Officer) are researchers from the international non-profit organization ARTICLE 19, whose report “ Cybersecurity with Chinese Characteristics ” (2025) outlines PRC’s influence over cybersecurity norms in 3 Indo-Pacific countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam; and with a Taiwan alternative. Th...

Mimi Yu (尤虹文) is the author of three memoirs, including the 2019 title “The Unforgetting Body” in which she details her recovery from depression. Yu is a cellist who has worked with musicians like Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Katz, and Robert Levin. She played cello while at The Juilliard School and has a B.A. in economics from Harvard University. Born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Mimi Y...

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 i...

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 Revie...

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. This conversation was recorded on March 17, 2025. Rasmu...

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...

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...

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 Medi...

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-bou...

“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...

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 bo...

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 ju...

Alex Khomenko is the organizer of Taiwan Stands with Ukraine 台灣烏克蘭陣線. We talk about conducting citizen diplomacy at a time of war, Taiwan’s humanitarian aid to Ukraine and public donations that amounted to the sending of power generators and ambulances, Taiwan and Ukraine relations, and the internal politics the Ukrainian government may be facing at home.  Ukraine has no representatives bas...

Reinhard Bütikofer is a familiar name in Europe and Taiwan relations. He has been a Member of European Parliament since 2009, where he is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, chairperson of the Delegation for Relations with China, and an alternate member of the Committee on International Trade. Reinhard also co-chairs IPAC, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.  (This conversation was r...

This 5-episode limited series delves into policy debates within Taiwan that could have implications for the region and beyond. Each episode features Taiwanese local experts and voices weighing in on social, economic and defense issues as they discusses how Taiwanese society is responding to these challenges. From Ghost Island Media in Taipei and U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C, this is...

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Prior to moving to Taiwan, Louis Heng had spent time in Singapore, Germany, Malta, and Scotland. Louis’ first time in Taiwan was with the Singaporian military. He then worked briefly as an airline pilot before entering a career in life insurance. In this episode, Louis and Emily talk about relocation with your family, managing and navigating multi-cultural teams...

As global attention on Taiwan intensifies, so does the significance of the work undertaken by domestic journalists. Today we speak with Taipei-based journalists as Taiwan gears up for its presidential and legislative election on January 13th, 2024. This is a collaboration with the NüVoices Podcast.  Many thanks to the team at NüVoices partnering with us for this collaborative episode.  Today's gue...

“Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation” includes over 130 recipes and stories of the food in Taiwan, its history, and its people. It’s been named a Best Cookbook of Fall 2023 by Bon Appetitit, Forbes, Food & Wine, New York Magazine, Eater, and Tasting Table. It was published by Simon & Schuster in September, 2023. Clarissa Wei has been a food journalist for a decade -...

Winner of 2023 Golden Melody Award in Best Arrangement, Jen-Ting Chien 簡任廷 and Jen-Yu Chien 簡任佑 are the two pieces of Twincussion 雙子二重奏. Jen-Ting and Jen-Yu trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 2018 they played in Carnegie Hall. In 2023 they were selected for Center Stage, a cultural-exchange program from the U.S. Department of State. The brothers are versatile in Western cl...