
vTaiwan: An experiment in participatory governance - mkm416
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611816/the-simple-but-ingenious-system-taiwan-uses-to-crowdsource-its-laws/
======
jimmybot
Mentioned in the article: As an accomplished programmer and a bit of an
anarchist, Audrey Tang is a super interesting government minister. I just came
back from regularly scheduled office hours, which I find really rad for a
minister to have (both walk-in and by appointment office hours are available).

I wanted to compliment her g0V org on a great rewrite of the online dictionary
published by the Ministry of Education: really clean URLs, using open data for
translations, publishing the original data under a nice license, behind a CDN
– and she commented, oh yeah I just deployed an update (!).
[https://www.moedict.tw/](https://www.moedict.tw/)

Many years ago, Audrey also elucidated Chinese language Twitter users living
in 2x the density of English users, which foreshadow's Twitter's decision in
lengthening limits to 280 chars for English but not for Chinese:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875414](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875414)

About g0v and a list of projects: [http://g0v.asia/](http://g0v.asia/)

~~~
titanix2
I’m surprised the g0v version include translations in foreign languages (and
other Chinese languages). Doesn’t the ND clause of CC forbid it?

(Edit: this is not a rethorical question. I worked with this dictionary before
and if it is indeed allowed to extend it I have work to do)

~~~
wibr
The website displays search results from several dictionaries:
[https://www.moedict.tw/about.html](https://www.moedict.tw/about.html)

~~~
titanix2
I already read this page. It does not address my question. My interrogation is
around the fact that mixing several dictionaries in the same page is
considered a derivate product or not. Intuitively it is, so I don’t understand
how this does not break the ND clause of some source material. So they must be
some non obvious legal loophole I want to know about, or this website is
breaching some licences.

~~~
audreyt
It's a fair question. The Ministry of Education's interpretation for its use
of ND clause scopes specifically to the individual items, not the compilation:

"The use of words, radicals, strokes, glyphs, phonetic readings and
interpretations of the individual items in the Revised Mandarin Dictionary may
not be modified or converted into simplified forms.

However, the change of the code according to the contents of the reference
table provided by the Ministry of Education, as well as modifications
unrelated to the specific items in the Revised Mandarin Dictionary specified
above, are deemed as outside the scope of prohibition of modification."

(Source:
[http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/reviseddict_10312.pdf](http://resources.publicense.moe.edu.tw/reviseddict_10312.pdf)
)

使用者對於《重編國語辭典修訂本》個別條目的詞目、部首、筆畫、字形、音讀及釋義等內容不得為任何修改，或轉為簡化字。惟依教育部所提供對照表內容作字碼改換，或不涉及更改《重編國語辭典修訂本》個別條目所有內容之調整行為，可不被認定構成上述禁止修改條款之拘束範圍。

~~~
titanix2
Thank you very much for your reply and for the source link. This is indeed
different from my previous understanding, which was based mostly on
English/French CC explanations website.

I'm surprised but pleased by the clause concerning the transformation in
simplified characters, and all in all this is less restrictive than what I
thought.

------
eric_khun
Talking about Taiwan, they're trying really hard to attract foreign talents.
If you're interested, check their Golden Card Permit. It's a visa+redisent
card allowing you to stay and work for anyone there up to 3years. The only
requirement is to justify of a salary of 160k NTD/month(~USD 5210/month),
anywhere in the world, if you don't earn that, try the skills application[1].

And about the article, they are now requesting feedbacks from the public for
the next immigration bill [2], that will make even easier to apply fo the
visa.

[1]
[https://foreigntalentact.ndc.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=128B875DE9C...](https://foreigntalentact.ndc.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=128B875DE9CBEBE3&s=0FCDB188C74F69A0)

[2] [https://join.gov.tw/policies/detail/1b688f9c-5f05-47ce-
ab56-...](https://join.gov.tw/policies/detail/1b688f9c-5f05-47ce-
ab56-10820643a38a)

~~~
mattkrause
Any idea why there’s a fairly specific special category for neutron physics?

~~~
garmaine
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Taiwan)

~~~
ddeck
Let's hope they find the talent they need for that.

Taiwan is home to the world's largest coal-fired power station (which is also
the world's largest emitter of CO2 - equivalent to that Switzerland) and just
announced construction of a new coal-fired plant 40 minutes from Taipei[1],
much to the dismay of residents, environmental groups, and those related to
the estimated 1,000 people killed each year by the existing plants. [2]

[1] [https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/taiwan-takes-a-step-back-
wit...](https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/taiwan-takes-a-step-back-with-new-
coal-plant/)

[2]
[https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b03731](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b03731)

------
Apocryphon
> In any case, Kao says, if vTaiwan’s recommendations are ultimately ignored,
> as they were with the alcohol sales law, then the whole process runs the
> risk of being viewed as “openwashing”—something that creates the pretense of
> transparency. “The end goal is legislation,” he says.

Sounds like what happened to We the People in the U.S.

~~~
audreyt
Indeed, We the People was one of the earliest inspirations of the Join
platform.

After I joined the cabinet as the Digital Minister, we have iterated on it
quite a bit: [https://civichall.org/civicist/what-vtaiwan-teaches-us-
about...](https://civichall.org/civicist/what-vtaiwan-teaches-us-about-
digital-democracy/)

------
pabs3
Audrey Tang also spoke about this at DebConf18 in Taiwan recently:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDwfk5jo_ow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDwfk5jo_ow)
[https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-
meetings/2018...](https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-
meetings/2018/DebConf18/2018-07-28/q-a-session-with-minister-tang.webm)

The tech sounds interesting to apply to other situations too, like
collaboration on open source projects.

------
ericdykstra
I'm by no means an expert, but Taiwan has a very interesting political scene
due to the relationship with China. The dominant party is Taiwanese
nationalistic and for Taiwanese independence, whereas the biggest opposition
is Chinese nationalistic.

The Sunflower Student Movement, mentioned a throughout this article, lead to
the formation of the progressive nationalistic New Power Party in 2015. This
party was co-founded by lead singer of the political metal band Chthonic,
Freddy Lim, who is now one of 5 members of the party in the Taiwanese
legislature (out of a total of 113 seats).

~~~
robjan
An important bit of context to this comment is that the official name of
Taiwan is "the Republic of China", as opposed to "The People's Republic of
China". According to international treaties there can only be one China. The
nationalist party claims that the Taiwanese government is the government of
all of China and is not, as the comment may seem to suggest, "pro China"

~~~
koube
I want to clear up some terminology here.

The revolution was between the Communist party and Nationalist party. The
Nationalist party, the Kuomintang, has it's roots in China, consider
themselves Chinese, and consider themselves the true government of China as
they were in the past. They only claim this officially. Of course people in
reality know that they don't actually have any control of China and have zero
chance of regaining it in the future. Typically they are descendants mainland
Chinese. This is the blue party. In an extreme simplification, they can
thought of as the republican party. Usually older people, more conservative,
more friendly to China, and consider themselves more Chinese. (Extreme extreme
oversimplification.)

There is also the Green party, which grew in opposition to the kuomintang.
They were not as involved in the revolution and I think they care even less
about sovereignty over China than the blue party, who as I mentioned, already
care very little about it. The green party members are typically descendants
of families that were in Taiwan before the revolution. In an extreme
simplification, they can be thought of as the democratic party. Usually
younger people, more liberal, less friendly to China, and consider themselves
more Taiwanese. (Extreme extreme oversimplification.)

I don't have enough knowledge to elaborate past the very very basics but I
thought I would clear up some of the differences, and point out that both
parties care little about sovereignty over China. Also, the grandparent
comment I think made a good distinction by specifying "taiwanese nationalist"
and "chinese nationalist", removing ambiguity about what the "nation" in
"nationalist" refers to. The capital-n Nationalist party does claim
sovereignty over China, but only in an official capacity and they are indeed
more pro-China.

~~~
eric-hu
I'm not an expert on the subject either, but I believe they Taiwanese
government is in a stalemate with China over Taiwan's "Republic of China"
title. Taiwan can't get it's own seat as a country in the UN because of the
"China" in its title. On the other hand, any attempt to remove China from its
title would provoke China. China would see it as a gesture towards
independence and sovereignty. Some fear China would react with hostility in
that case. Some anti-independence Taiwanese see it as the best way to keep the
peace.

~~~
garmaine
Taiwan had its own seat as a country in the UN. They were a founding member
and had a permanent seat on the security council. The UN has just adopted the
"one china" policy and recognized the PRC victory in the Chinese civil war as
legitimate. The UN is wholly recognizing the PRC's claims here. In fact,
Taiwan tried to (re-)join the UN in 2007 under the name of "Taiwan", dropping
the "Republic of China" bit entirely. No dice. See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_2758)

~~~
CogitoCogito
Honestly, what are you talking about? At which point has the UN accepted the
PRC's claims to Taiwan or the PRC victory? There hasn't even been a peace
treaty signed so how could that be possible anyway. Without knowing all the
UN's history, I 100% totally don't believe that the UN has recognized the
PRC's claims, simply since the US itself hasn't actually accepted those claims
and the US is on the security counsel (thereby capable of blocking such a
motion).

Both the PRC and the ROC would have long ago been seated in the UN if there
never were a position for "China" on the security counsel. That position
allowed the ROC to block the PRC's seat in the UN when it represented "China"
and it then allowed the PRC to block the ROC's seat later when it represented
"China". The reason that the representation for "China" was switched to the
PRC from the ROC was because that step was possible procedurally within the
UN's rules even though the ROC was against it. In other words, due to a
procedural quirk the ROC could keep the PRC from being seated as a separate
country, but couldn't keep its own representation from being switched. After
that point the PRC could play the same games.

If there were no seat for "China" on the security counsel or if the rules were
different or simply if the ROC would have allowed it at the time, both the ROC
and the PRC would have seats in the UN. But none of this means that the UN
accepts the PRC's claims to Taiwan.

edit: The downvoting is a bit disturbing. I'm quite honestly curious if there
is anything factually wrong with what I've written. My suspicion is that these
facts do not match the false assumptions of some HN readers and that they'd
rather hide it away instead of confronting it directly.

~~~
abcmngbfkqes
The U.S. has accepted the principle that Taiwan is a part of China. It's
official legal status is kept deliberately ambiguous to avoid provoking a war.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-
China_policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy)

 _In the case of the United States, the One-China Policy was first stated in
the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: "the United States acknowledges that Chinese
on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that
Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that
position."_

You are correct that there is no 'legal reason' why a country could not
recognize both states, other than that recognizing one means the other will
break off relations (and, in the case of the PRC, possibly take punitive
action against that you). Ultimately, the legal niceties are irrelevant; what
is important is power politics.

~~~
CogitoCogito
> The U.S. has accepted the principle that Taiwan is a part of China.

The quote you provide does _not_ say that. It says that the US has
_acknowledged_ that both the PRC and the ROC maintain their is one China and
that Taiwan is a part of it. It does _not_ say that the US _agrees_ with that
position. It also does not say that it considers the PRC the government of
that "China". It does not say that Taiwan is governed by the PRC. The US has
_never_ stated that it considers the PRC the rightful government of Taiwan.

You are however extremely correct about the ambiguity of the US position.

------
shalmanese
Audrey Tang has been a HN member since 2009
([https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=audreyt](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=audreyt))

------
baileyp
People seem to misunderstand the relationship between Formosa (a.k.a Taiwan)
and Chinese government (ROC and PRC). Actually Formosa is not related to ROC
in terms of sovereignty. ROC, merely a governing authority, happens to exist
on the island of Formosa. Basically ROC do not own Formosa's sovereignty.

ROC is still contending against PRC regarding to the representation of
China[0]. It's Chinese government's affair, and nothing related to Formosan
because both of them, including PRC and ROC, do not own Formsa's
sovereignty[1].

> JURIDICAL ASPECTS OF THE FORMOSA SITUATION

> In the Japanese Peace Treaty of April, 1952, Japan formally renounced all
> right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores, but again this did not
> operate as a transfer to Chinese sovereignty, whether to the Chinese
> People's Republic or to the Chinese Nationalist authorities.

And Formosa may be handled in the same way as Ryukyus[2][3]. That's the reason
why ROC rejected to admit Japan remains residual sovereignty over Ryukyus when
Ryukyus was returned back to Japan[4].

[0]. [https://imgur.com/a/eoJhPsY](https://imgur.com/a/eoJhPsY)

[1].
[http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-129-...](http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-129-73.pdf)

[2].
[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23...](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23p1/d89)

[3].
[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23...](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v23p1/d31)

[4]. [https://imgur.com/a/HeGbcB3](https://imgur.com/a/HeGbcB3)

