EP 295 | Counselor Chen of New Taipei City: Talks About her Political Career and the Controversial Bills Passed by Taiwan's Legislature

Talking Taiwan

In July we took the show on the road bringing Talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference, East Coast that was held at West Chester University. I sat down and spoke with New Taipei City Councilor Chen Nai-Yu (陳乃瑜市議員). We spoke about how she went from being a journalist to a politician, working on Lai Ching-te’s presidential campaign, and the controversial bills that got passed in Taiwan’s legislature in May and that led to massive protests and the Bluebird Movement.

Special thanks to Bill Wu who sat in on the interview to provide translation assistance to City Councilor Chen, and to Anmy Lee for additional research and translation assistance.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How Naiyu went from working as a journalist for 14 years to becoming a politician

· Issues she’s focused on as a City Councilor

· Anti-Han Kuo-yu rally in Kaohsiung

· Naiyu’s work as a journalist

· How her experience as a journalist prepared her to be a politician

· The challenges she faced in working on Lai Ching-te’s presidential campaign

· Cases of state-owned land on which people built personal mansions

· The different communication styles and approaches to social media use of Lai Ching-te and Ko Wen-je

· What Naiyu has to say about President Lai Ching-te’s personality and character

· What could happen with the controversial bills that led to the Bluebird movement protests in Taiwan in May

· Cases of ill-gotten assets and how the handling of ill-gotten assets could be reversed

· Naiyu’s observations of the Bluebird movement

· The most rewarding thing about being a City Councilor

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