Secure Line Podcast Episode 9 - The View From Taiwan

In this special on-the-ground episode, host Stephanie Carvin takes listeners to Taipei, where she attended a series of academic and security-focused conferences.

These conferences included the first-ever Canada-Taiwan academic conference on Indo-Pacific Security and the Halifax Forum's inaugural overseas event. Amidst rising global tensions and growing concerns about authoritarianism, Steph sits down with three guests offering unique perspectives on Taiwan’s geopolitical situation and its implications for democracies around the world. Maria Makarovich, head of the East Asia Office of the Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine, draws compelling parallels between Ukraine and Taiwan, emphasizing the need for democratic resilience and mutual learning. She highlights Ukraine’s civil defense experience as a valuable lesson for Taiwan and stresses the importance of grassroots collaboration between democracies. Steven Chase, reporter for The Globe and Mail, breaks down Taiwan’s internal political turmoil, marked by a legislative standoff between the ruling DPP and opposition parties. He discusses how this “constitutional crisis” is affecting Taiwan’s ability to fund defense and foreign affairs—at a critical moment when Taiwan must brace for a potentially less supportive U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump’s return to power. Fan Yun, a DPP legislator, offers a passionate defense of democracy and Taiwan’s need for civil defense, democratic unity, and greater international cooperation. She calls for Canada to deepen ties with Taiwan, not just in defense, but across political, cultural, and civic sectors. Steph closes with her reflections from Taipei, noting the vibrancy of its civil society and the urgency facing Taiwan’s democracy in the face of rising disinformation and dwindling foreign funding. She emphasizes that Canada, while not in the same situation as Taiwan or Ukraine, has much to learn from these frontline democracies as we all navigate an increasingly unstable global order.

Listen to the episode below:

Read the transcript below:

Intro: Steph Leah, Jess. Is this line secure?

Stephanie: Hi everyone. Stephanie Carvin here. So this is a bit of a different episode. Between February 15th to the 23rd, I found myself in Taipei attending a series of conferences and events. Notably the Asia Pacific Foundation and the University of Calgary, shout out to Professor Jean Christophe Boucher, organized what was described as the first ever Canada Taiwan academic conference on Indo-Pacific Security.

The conference featured academics and experts from Canada, Taiwan, and a few from around the region, including Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. I also managed to attend the Halifax Forum in Taiwan, which I believe to be the first time the forum has ever been held abroad. So being there, I thought I would take the opportunity to try and interview a few of the participants to try and get a sense of why they were there and what they were thinking about.

However, I just wanna give a few notes of caution before I begin. First, I took this trip last month and events globally have moved on. So some of the information may be a little out of date, but I think these interviews still hold up. Second, I had to take advantage of the venues as it was, in some cases this meant interviewing people during breaks and yeah, the sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. Trust me when I say I'm working on my microphone etiquette, but this was a learning experience. My first guest is Maria Makarovich, head of the East Asia Office of the Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine.

She talks about how Ukraine and Taiwan can work with and learn from each other. There are clear parallels between the two situations and the need for democracies to work together, but also for democracies to strengthen themselves. Can you introduce yourself?

Maria: Okay. My name is Maria Makarovich. I'm head of East Asian Office at the Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine.

Stephanie: And what are you doing here in Taiwan?

Maria: Basically, my main goal here is to establish more common projects between Taiwan and Ukraine. So what we are doing thanks to reputation of our organization in Ukraine, because we were established 10 years ago and all this time we have been working to reduce China influence on Ukraine and uh, Eastern Europe and also promoting Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Thanks to this activities. We have a lot of contacts from the Ukrainian civil society, business politicians, et cetera, who wants to establish somehow cooperation with Taiwan. But due to the lack of awarenesses about Taiwan, lack of official cooperation and understanding of this part of the board, they just don't know how to start.

And I have been living here for a while, I had opportunity to receive a lot of contact here to understand business culture, environment, business environment, and right now with all my expertise, I can just help people from Ukraine and from Taiwan to get together and to create something new and cool for both of our countries.

Stephanie: Okay, and so what is it you think that Ukrainians could learn from Taiwan?

Maria: Okay. I think in this matter we can be more useful for Taiwan as Ukraine, as a country who are fighting in a huge war with a much more bigger enemy because Taiwan now, and for many decades, experienced the same situation that China that is much more bigger than Taiwan have threatened Taiwan to occupy Taiwan physically.

So in this matter, I think we are talking more about mutual beneficial cooperation. Taiwan can support Ukraine with humanitarian aid, with different projects, even investments. Ukraine can help Taiwan to establish better defense infrastructure, including civil defense.

Because in Taiwan there is something ongoing, something new. For example, they have several civil defense organizations that were established quite recently.

Stephanie: The Kuma Academy

Maria: Yeah, exactly, they took an example from Ukraine territorial defense forces and organized something. But in Ukraine, there's difference, in Ukraine, it was part of a state program, here it's fully civil society initiative.

Stephanie: It's a businessman has been funding this.

Maria: Yeah a businessman who collects money, donations and to organize these activities and it's still ongoing and spread. They have pretty good results. But also without cooperation, strong cooperation with the state, it can be so useful like it was in Ukraine. So without opportunity to train people how to use weapon, for example, without easy access of these people, train people to armed forces in case of invasion, it's these people, despite all these trainings, might remain like trained civilians, but not like defenders. Right. So this is a big problem here. Lack of communication between state and civil society.

And this is actually as for me, is the main lesson that Taiwan can learn from Ukraine.

Stephanie: Oh, that's so interesting. That's really interesting. And you were saying earlier that maybe people in Taiwan don't necessarily understand Eastern Europe, the dynamics with Russia and things like that. So what is the biggest challenge in your work?

Maria: Okay. I can say that I have this kind of challenge because of lack of understanding from Taiwanese people, our context, situation, history. It's even, uh, beneficial for me because when I work, when I used to work in Europe and just always fighting this cause because people have been growing up this particular Russian narrative in academic sphere, in political sphere, media, et cetera, and it was hard to even for big supporters, hard to convince even big supporters of Ukraine that some particular narrative is like Russian propaganda. It's not the real situation. But here people discovered Ukraine for themselves just three years ago when a full scale invasion started because they understood this ties between our situation and their situation. And they don't know a lot about Ukraine, so they don't, they ask sometimes some things, uh, some questions that might, may include some Russian narratives, but its never a statement, it's usually a question.

And when I explain to them, “no, sorry, we are not Brother Nation, we weren't like one country” and other small things like this. They say okay, we understand we wanted to be educated and you gave us this information. Now we know.

Stephanie: Okay. And that's interesting, do they see parallels with their own situation vis-a-vis China?

Maria: A lot of parallels. Okay. There's a lot of differences, but we can’t deny, uh, similarities that we have, right? Because the differences in the geographical, economical, historical positions can’t be denied, but there's like similarities that they also have a huge neighbor, very powerful, worldwide neighbor that can attack them anytime. And they're already under the threat of China. And China try to penetrate many spheres here. But the worst situations that may happen is like physical attack and this is the biggest parallel so I can't say thanks to Ukrainian state, but after full scale invasion started, Taiwanese society woke up, not fully, but they started to do their homework much more better because they have been living under this threat for decades and you can't live in fear for decades.

So people started to be less nervous about potential Chinese invasion, but full-scale invasion in Ukraine showed them that they don’t need any like, logic, explanation, or reasons to attack if they make a decision, they do it. So that is why it was big push for Taiwanese people to Taiwanese society and government to wake up and start to start to do something that can increase their resilience and defense infrastructure.

Stephanie: So my last question to you, you're here at Halifax. You're trying to network and meet with other people. What message are you trying to convey to them or what would you like them to know?

Maria: Okay, probably considering the present situation, I would say is that you don't need to rely on somebody and see something and things that somebody can do our work.

We need to unite, we need to work for our country. So we need to protect democracy worldwide because unfortunately, in current times, democracy means, democracy should be protected, sometimes physically, as you can see in Ukraine. And we can do this by ourselves. So we need this unification and we need to do our preparation, even if we have somebody who can help us a lot, still, we need to be prepared to resist by ourself in case it would be needed.

So I think it's like the biggest challenge for us right now and finally, Europe, Canada, Taiwan, countries in Asia realize that we don't need to, we can't rely on facilitator of the process of our unification. We need to do this by ourself, at least right now, but not wait until somebody do this for us.

So let's do our homework. To protect democracy, because if one democracy fails, all democratic infrastructure worldwide will be on this venture.

Stephanie: That was brilliant. Thank you so much, and thanks for taking the time.

Maria: Thank you so much.

Stephanie: Thanks to Maria for her excellent insights.

Next up I had the chance to speak with Globe and Mail reporter Steven Chase, who provided some context on Taiwan's current political difficulties, its early attempts to work with the Trump administration in the United States and what this means for Canada and its relations in the Indo-Pacific.

Okay, here I am now with Globe and Mail reporter Steve Chase. Hi, Steve.

Steve: Hi.

Stephanie: Now, normally you're the one asking questions. I get to ask you some questions, but you've been here for a few days before Halifax talking with and interviewing Taiwanese individuals and officials about what's going on here in Taiwan.

I'm curious as to what your impressions are about what's happening in Taiwan right now.

Steve: Sure. A couple of takeaways. First of all, this constitutional crisis or this legislative showdown that is currently happening, there has been international coverage of it, but it seems protracted and almost unresolvable.

The governing DPP, of course, controls the executive, but doesn't have a majority in the house. The opposition, Kuomintang (KMT), and the Taiwan Peoples Party together have more seats. And these two parties, I mean, led by Kuomintang, have been passing legislation, cutting government spending.

Stephanie: So let's just break that down quickly.

So we have like the Legislative Yuan and the Executive Yuan, right? And the, and so the president of Taiwan is the executive effectively, right? And then the legislature. So the legislature is what you're talking about here. There's a deadlock between the Democratic Peoples Party, the Taiwanese Peoples Party, and the Kuomintang, the KMT who are seen, they're the ones who are seen as a little bit more good relations with China or the TPP or maybe trying to cut out a middle ground, but they're siding with the KMT here. And then the DPP, which is the President's party, has a minority in the legislature.

Steve: Right. The DPP, I like to think of as the China skeptic party.

Whereas the Kuomintang is the party that thinks just by talking and being nice to China, they can stave off any kind of annexation and the TPP is a relatively recent invention that sprang up in the last election and have a brand new leader. The leader that led them in the last election is currently under investigation and could face charges, so that's Koen Joe.

So yes, there's the DPP while they control the executive don't control the house, and the house is passing legislation engineered by the Kuomintang/KMT, that basically effectively cuts government funding for a host of things, but including foreign affairs and defense. So right at a time when we're all wondering what the path forward is for Taiwan, they're facing funding cuts to their ability to both talk to the world and to fund their military.

Stephanie: And that's not good because Donald Trump has basically said he, you know, I think the Taiwanese have said that they're gonna spend up to 3%, or would like to spend up to 3% of their GDP on defense. Donald Trump has come out and said it should be 10%.

Steve: Yeah, he has asked, like, he's asking many allies to pay more yourself. William Lai, the president of Taiwan has proposed they would go to 3%, but the question is how they're gonna reach it when the opposition seems determined to hamstring them.

And this, of course, has created or generated a real political battle here where supporters of the government of the DPP have initiated recall campaigns against legislators, primarily Kuomintang, the KMT folks, trying to recall them or basically cut their term short and force reelections. This, of course, has been funded in part by the billionaire Robert Chao, who is a big supporter of Taiwan and of protecting and defending Taiwan from China.

So we're in the, Taiwan is in the middle of this protracted political battle that could see 50 plus legislators forced to, uh, rerun elections. And the hope, of course, is that the DPP can win more seats this time and erase that minority or erase the, the gap that they need to pass legislation.

Meanwhile, the Kuomintang is proposing legislation that would undercut the powers of the President. And it, it's never, it's a scorched earth battle that's gonna leave this place stymied to really move forward in terms of more defense spending.

Stephanie: So it's a really divisive political issue to the point where it's being called a constitutional crisis.

Steve: Yeah and the allegations from the DPP at the Kuomintang is that it is a tool of China, here is being used by China to effectively reduce their effect the, the government's effectiveness in the hopes that the next election, the Kuomintang, which is of course was once the natural governing party can turn to voters and say, look, this government can't do a damn thing, we should be in charge.

Stephanie: So I think that maybe brings us then to this kind of wider context, right? So there's this kind of current constitutional crisis going on. No one really seems to know how it's gonna end and based on, um, what you're saying. And I guess, so the issue here is how then are the Taiwanese in your view feeling about the global order now that Trump is sure has started his second term.

Steve: They're talking, they're very rosy and optimistic. When speaking to reporters or speaking to political analysts, I suspect it's far more uncertain behind the scenes, the government likes to, members of the Taiwanese government like to point to the fact that they know many of the people in Trump's National Security Council.

They're the same people they've dealt with before. They know Marco Rubio. Who is a friend of Taiwan, they know Mike Waltz, National Security Director. They feel like these people are longtime friends of theirs, and that's gonna somehow be enough to convince Trump not to trade Taiwan away in some power deal with China.

But I don't think, I think they're overly optimistic and we really don't see the way through yet, Mr. Trump has talked about another trade deal with China. He's talking about putting tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors. He's really not played his, revealed his full hand and his intentions for China. And the concern of course, fundamentally would be that somehow Taiwan would be traded away just, or, and cut out of the table or the negotiations just like Ukrainians with Russia right now and with the White House and the Russian negotiations over the future of Ukraine.

Stephanie: Right and there has been some speculation that the China Hawks in Washington are gonna be disappointed if Trump decides to go for this grand bargain.

There's some reporting today in the news that China is very supportive of the Russia US talks over Ukraine, right? And trying to solve this crisis. And sitting here in Taipei, you can see why.

Steve: Yeah. And, and China has a lot of problems of its own right now as they have massive real estate valuation problems. They have major youth unemployment, they have messed up supply chains, so they're really, in their preference has always been to avoid a war with Taiwan. Threaten one, prepare for one, but somehow convince Taiwan reluctantly to bring it to the table for negotiations on annexation.

So if they can do this without a war, that'll be all the better for them if Mr. Trump pulls back American power from the region, in any sense, realign, redeploys, the Pacific fleet and so on, all those things are gonna be the Taiwan's detriment.

Stephanie: You're a reporter for the Globe Mail. What is the Canada angle here? What should people who are listening to this think about?

Steve: One thing that I'm, I'm thinking a lot about these days is that the, um, the challenge that Mr. Trump poses to Canada, the taunts, the threat 51st state. Yeah. To become the 51st state. Uh, every time he talks about another tariff, he says we can avoid it.

Uh, this is of course going to drive the Canadian government to look for other trading partners and other relationships, and I am wondering how it's going to change our approach to China whether this makes us, less skeptical of engagement with China, purely for the sake of finding new markets for our products. And so that does make me wonder how that will affect by consequence, our support for Taiwan.

Taiwan is a very important democracy in a very fraught region. Just like Ukraine, there are hundreds of thousands of people in Canada with Taiwanese background. There's about 60,000 Canadian citizens living here. They're a major trading partner of ours, but they're also part of the rules-based international order that we want to perpetuate and that we want to protect. So it's in Canada's interest to support Taiwan and support its continued self-governing status.

Obviously Canada is not looking to change the status quo, but we do not want Taiwan's fragile situation to get worse. And it's in our interest not to allow China to take over Taiwan because the island is in a commanding position in the first island chain, and that would push American power out of the region and force all the regional partners to have to reassess their foreign policy and it would not, I don't think it would end well for, uh, Western countries and the international order.

Stephanie: Steve, thanks for your time.

Steve: You're welcome. Thanks again to Steve Chase for taking the time to speak with me. For my final interview, I spoke with Fan Yun, a Democratic People's Party, or DPP representative in the legislative Yuan, which is a bit like our parliament.

I asked her about her own view of Taiwan's global position and what she personally would like to see in terms of Canada-Taiwan cooperation. And I'm just going to give another warning here. The background music here is wild. It was certainly having its moments and the sound quality is not great, but we pack a lot in four minutes, if you can get beyond a bit of noise.

So I'm sitting here now very fortunately with DPP legislature. Fan Yun, thank you so much for joining me on short notice. I'm really interested in your impressions of the Halifax Forum, and because you were a speaker, you've been listening. What are your takeaways from the conference?

Fan: Oh, I think this is my first time to participate in this kind of national security forum. Actually I'm a legislator in the Committee for Education and Culture, so national security is not my specialty, but I'm glad that they invited me. So I talk what do Taiwanese people see for our democracy and how to our way of living.

So democracy is resilient because we have quite a strong democratic stock, but actually we are facing an extremely strong threat from China. So there are a lot of things that we have to do, not only militarily, but also from, perspective of civil defense to strengthen people's awareness and people have to rise up to protect the democracy because we have a very polarized politics so people have different kind of viewpoint, but I believe that China is trying to disrupt Taiwanese society within our own society. So that's the thing that we are dealing with there right now.

Stephanie: So, right. We've heard so very much being here about Taiwan's kind of leadership in terms of countering disinformation, and I know Canadians have taken a lot of lessons, uh, from the Taiwanese themselves.

What is your impression of kind of the global picture where Taiwan is sitting at this moment? You've hinted towards that, but, and it's a little difficult because so much is uncertain, but sitting here right now, what is on your mind?

Fan: I think Taiwan's interest is not only the interest for Taiwanese people, it's also the interest for the global people who love peace, prosperity and democracy.

Okay. Because China's ambition is not only to invade Taiwan. They want to be a superpower in the whole world. So actually China has conflict with the Philippines. China also has conflict with - so, if we allow China to take Taiwan, actually that is not only economically harmful for, you know, people in Canada, but also a threat in the region including United States and other who has some commercial interest in the region. So I would say that it's really a serious threat that every country. Canada who enjoy peace, democracy, and prosperity should, should carefully watch and should, should also embrace something in the regional security.

Stephanie: And so this brings me to my final question because I know you're very busy. What is it that you would like to see Canada and Taiwan cooperate on? How do you think Canada could support Taiwan or what could maybe Canada even learn from Taiwan?

Fan: Yeah, I think we all see what's happening in Europe right now, so I would say that I know that Canadian people love democracy, peace, and also equality, and also appreciate that. I know there are lots of collaboration between Taiwan and Canada, so I think that, you know, Canadian people can be Taiwan's trustworthy democratic partner and we can build a larger democratic alliance together. Start from like a military cooperation and then go to other parts of cooperation. I think it'll be great, but of course it's a national security issue that the Canadian politician have to communicate with people in Canada.

Stephanie: Great. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it and I hope you have had a wonderful experience here at Halifax Forum.

Fan: Okay, thank you.

Stephanie: So, yes, apologies for the sound there. I swear I did promise to boost the sound levels where I could, but I do wanna give a very big thank you to Fan-Yun for speaking with me as the conference ended. I hope you enjoyed these three short interviews from Taiwan, despite the fact that they were from three different countries, I think it's clear that our guests shared a few things in common in what they said.

In particular, all observe the fact that we are living in a moment of global uncertainty with a autocracy seemingly ascending, putting new pressures on democracies around the world. But equally important, each implied that democracies need to be, as Maria said, doing our homework.

And we need to understand that there's not going to be any great facilitator that's going to bring the remaining democracies of the world together. We need to get our house in order now and come up with serious plans to support one another.

So what did I think? Well, I've only been to Taiwan twice. The sense I got from being there this time is that the Taiwanese are externally optimistic.

But perhaps they too are privately worried about the global situation, as are all democracies trying to navigate what may be a new world order. In my view, Taiwan has one of the most interesting and vibrant civil societies comprised of many pro-democracy and anti disinformation groups. The organization that comprise this movement are full of young people.

They combine the energy of a startup company with the determination of a society that knows it's under siege. There can be little wonder that discussions about Ukraine and Taiwan often go hand in hand, but Taipei is no war zone.

All around the city. You can find public art exhibits, concerts, and cafes with live music. There's a real sense of public space. The street food is amazing and it's not too hard to get by with Google Translate and a She-she or thank you. It's a society that I think a lot of people, especially young people, would love to live in.

On my last day in Taiwan, I attended a talk about the future of persuasive technology and authoritarian regimes in the small but spacious startup room, activists and researchers gathered many bringing food with them to give it a potluck flare. But amid the strong coffee and snacks, there were also whispered conversation and worries expressed between participants. Much of Taiwan civil society has benefited from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. One activist said that their organization was already going out of business next month because their funding had been cut and they were not sure they would find anything new to replace it before some serious bills came due.

Taiwan civil society, and its activist groups from which so many around the world have learned about disinformation campaigns and how to counter them, are at risk. This is at a time when Taiwan's National Security Bureau has stated that disinformation efforts against the island nation had increased by 60% in 2024.

Taiwan has come far in its fight for its own democracy, but the risks that it faces are only likely to grow in the near future. I returned to Canada in late February to a country that was still celebrating its win over the United States in the first four Nations hockey tournament. But the realization of the threat to its own sovereignty were beginning to sink in I think.

Now I want to be clear here. Canada is not even remotely close to being in the same position as Ukraine or Taiwan, but it is clear that we have much to learn from these two countries that continue to seek and fight for their own independence in a new and murky, uncertain international order. I think it behooves us to support them.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe or if you subscribe, tell a friend, rate and review, send us emails. We've enjoyed hearing from so many of you in the last couple of weeks, and we look forward to working on some of your excellent suggestions.

Talk soon!