What can a party office accomplish in Washington that official government channels sometimes cannot?

cannot?Well, that's a really good question.

And having served, uh, in both, um, institutions, uh, let me try to explain this in two parts.

Um, as first as the opposition party, um, before twenty sixteen and as the ruling party since.

So when the DPP US missions started off in, uh, twenty thirteen, our job here, uh, was to rebuild Washington's confidence and debunk false narratives, particularly on cross-strait and defense issues.

Um, there is a backstory here, um, that my predecessor, Mr. Mai Fantay, has talked about, uh, that was when Dr. Tsai Ing-wen made her first presidential bid in twenty eleven.

Uh, she ran against the KMT incumbent Ma Ying-jeou and, uh, faced real doubt in Washington about the DPP's position on cross-strait relations.

How do you balance those important security concerns with also highlighting Taiwan's vibrant civil society and democracy?

Why was this party founded? Why, or I guess how, under what conditions? How have you evolved? But yeah, let's start with some of the history.

Okay, so not to go way further back, but you mentioned about the Civil War era.

So my predecessor actually recommended me to bring up what has happened in 1945, because it's an important context of why people in Taiwan pursue their freedom, human right and liberty.

how the DPP was born from the street in that very authoritarian, isolated, and turbulent time.

So in 1945, after the war, George Kurtz Formosa Betrayed detailed a lot of information you know, how that post-war era, how people of Taiwan long for the day of being liberated from Japan and other previous colonizers and to be able to determine their own faith.

But instead, 1949, there was the civil war going on in mainland China and Chiang Kai-shek came and asserted the martial law.

Then Taiwan went into a long period of 38 years of the deprivation of freedom of speech and freedom assembly.

great job with