As a Taiwanese American, I’m always interested in reading, hearing or watching in the American media discussions about Taiwan. So it was with great pleasure a few days ago that my local National Public Radio affiliate, San Francisco’s KQED, dedicated a whole hour show in its daily morning local program Forum on Taiwan. The segment an interview with Shelley Rigger, author and professor of East Asian politics at Davidson College and her new book, Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse.
(If you don’t want to stream the show, you can download the MP3 here.)
For the most part, all but one of the callers were very supportive of Taiwan (including of course, a few Taiwanese Americans). As you can guess, the one caller, who was originally from China, took offense that Rigger called Taiwan a country. But Rigger took essentially the argument that Taiwan has its own free elections, own government, currency, distinct language (and I would argue also, original Chinese Traditional character set), etc. I thought Rigger did an excellent job of describing Taiwan’s societal, political, and economic situation for a general American audience who may not have known much about Taiwan.
