Show Notes
In this episode of Strait Forward, hosts Channing Lee and Libby Lange delve into the complex history of Taiwan's democratization. They explore the critical periods that shaped Taiwan's identity and political landscape, from Japanese colonial rule to the arrival of the KMT and the subsequent White Terror. Featuring guest historian Dr. Dominic Yang, the discussion uncovers the profound impact of trauma and memory on Taiwan's journey to becoming a modern democracy.
More from Strait Forward
In this episode of Strait Forward, host Channing Lee goes to the Taiwan Expo 2026 in Dallas, where more than 150 Taiwanese companies are showcasing Taiwan’s latest innovations in artificial intelligence, autonomous drones, robotics, semiconductor manufacturing, and more.
In this crossover episode with our “Chipping In” event series, host Channing Lee takes the stage with Taiwan's Minister of Digital Affairs, Lin Yi-jing (林宜敬), one year into his tenure at the Ministry of Digital Affairs (moda). A former IBM researcher, startup founder, and bestselling author, Minister Lin explains why "who controls AI controls the past," how Taiwan is building a sovereign AI corpus and a weekly-updated “Basic Evaluation Benchmark” that tests 180+ models for Taiwanese values, and why he calls Taiwan the "honeypot of the free world" as it absorbs 2.6 million cyberattacks a day. They discuss how a Trojan horse incident inspired new cybersecurity standards; Taiwan's push for access to frontier cyber models, data backups and satellite links for wartime resilience; and how an anti-scam partnership with a U.S. company traced a thread from Taipei to Cambodia. Plus: what keeps the minister up at night, and why he sees echoes of Oppenheimer in today's AI race.
In this episode of Strait Forward, Channing Lee tours Foxconn's Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin campus with Robert Schlaeger, Head of U.S. Region Public & Government Affairs at Foxconn, to unpack how the Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant built one of its largest U.S. footprints — and is enabling America to build in the age of AI.
Building advanced semiconductor foundries — and serving as the world’s trusted semiconductor supply chain capital — requires far more than purchasing multi-million-dollar lithography equipment. It also requires a fundamental alignment between a company’s business strategy, structural architecture, and organizational culture.
In this episode, Channing sits down with Stephen Su, Senior Vice President at ITRI, to trace how a single 1974 breakfast meeting between Taiwanese officials led to a pivotal technology licensing agreement with RCA — bringing 36 researchers to the US for a year of training that would seed Taiwan's entire semiconductor foundry industry. Su walks through how ITRI incubated both UMC and TSMC as spinoff companies, and explains why he attributes only a small fraction of Taiwan's success to luck — the rest coming from decades of sustained hard work once that initial opportunity was in place.