Taiwan’s Democratic Values

—Observations from Foreign Journalist Eryk Michael Smith

Esther Tseng　/　photos Jimmy Lin　/　tr. by Phil Newell

July 2026

中文

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“Taiwan’s democracy is underappreciated by the international community.” —Eryk Michael Smith

Eryk Michael Smith, an American journalist, has a long connection with Taiwan. In the 1980s he came to Taiwan with his parents, non-denominational Christian missionaries, and spent three or four years of his childhood in Taipei and Kaohsiung. In 1996, during Taiwan’s first direct presidential election, Smith was a young adult traveling back and forth between Japan and Taiwan. He was aware of the significance of the election at the time, though his deeper engagement with Taiwan politics and journalism came later, after he began working with local media in the mid-2000s.

Eryk Michael Smith

Founder and editor-in-chief of the Kaohsiung Times, an English-language newspaper based in Southern Taiwan, Smith has also worked as a stringer for Fox News Digital. His ability to work with Chinese-language sources helps him report on Taiwan with a local perspective, rather than relying only on English-language discussion.

He founded the Kaohsiung Times in 2025, motivated by a desire to push back against a Taipei-centered view of Taiwan. In our interview, he noted that Kaohsiung has a population of roughly 2.7 million, about the size of Chicago, yet far fewer people around the world know its name. Through international storytelling, he hopes to help readers see that Taiwan is much more than Taipei.

Smith enjoyed his time in Japan and also spent time in Hong Kong, but he says Taiwan was the place that seemed to fit. This gradual emotional connection led him to settle here long-term in 1997. After work connected to local media, including the China Post, International Community Radio Taiwan (ICRT), and Next Media, he moved with his Pingtung-born wife and their children to Kaohsiung in 2015. He says Taiwan is not his “second home,” but simply home: the place where he has spent more than half his life and where he feels rooted. “When the plane touches down at an airport here, there’s that feeling of, ‘Nice, I’m home,’” he says.

Here follows a synopsis of our interview with him.

Q&A：We asked Smith to talk about the special characteristics of Taiwan’s democracy and the importance of Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996.

Regarding the 1996 election, Smith said that Taiwan’s first direct presidential election was important not only for Taiwan, but also for the broader Chinese-speaking world.

For Taiwan, 1996 was the first time people directly elected their president. It also mattered beyond Taiwan because it challenged the idea that Chinese-speaking societies are somehow unsuited to democracy,” he said.

He explained that Beijing often presents democracy as alien to Chinese culture, or argues that Chinese society requires emperors, strongmen, or tight political control. Taiwan’s experience offered a direct counterexample. The election did not simply produce a winner; it weakened the argument that democracy could not take root in a society shaped by Chinese language, history, and culture.He suggested that one of the most admirable things about Taiwan’s democracy is its high level of citizen participation. Some presidential elections have drawn turnout above 80%, while recent elections have remained high by the standards of many democracies. To observers from countries where turnout can be far lower, this level of participation is striking.A society of toleranceSmith argued that “there is sometimes too much focus on Taiwan versus China,” with Taiwan too often understood only through that framework. “If you look at Taiwanese society itself, you see something very impressive,” he said. “In a single extended family, you may have Hakka and Hoklo/Taiwanese backgrounds, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, and people with different political views, from pan-blue to pan-green.”What impressed him, he said, was not the absence of political disagreement, but the ability of many families and communities to continue living together after sharp political contests. “After an election is over, people can sit down at the table together, have tea or beer or dinner, and not hate each other. The contest is done,” he said.Moreover, he said, direct elections became rooted as a norm with impressive speed. People still argue intensely, but the expectation that elections decide power has become part of everyday political life.

The shock of the March 19 shooting

Asked about the most memorable event in his nearly 30 years in Taiwan, Smith replied that the one that stands out most was probably the 2004 assassination attempt on President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu, also known as the March 19 shooting. When it happened, Smith was in Taipei, staying in a building across from the Democratic Progressive Party headquarters. After news of the shooting spread, people began gathering around the building. “As it got later in the afternoon, more and more people came,” he recalled. “My memory is that there was a large crowd there. It was a very emotional time. Some people were crying. There was a lot of talking. Was it China? Or perhaps a coup?” The speculation was intense because Taiwan’s democracy was still young. In 2004, Taiwan had held only a few direct presidential elections, and it had been only four years since the first peaceful transfer of power in 2000. “The question was whether Taiwan would be able to continue this democratic experiment,” Smith said.

Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu won by only a tiny margin, and large protests followed. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, and there were tense scenes in Kaohsiung, including a person who tried to drive a truck through the gates of City Hall. Yet even under that pressure, the democratic foundation held. For such an explosive event to happen in 2004, and for Taiwan to survive it, was deeply impressive, Smith said. It showed that Taiwan’s democratic system had already developed a strong respect for procedure, even when emotions were high and the result was bitterly disputed. Unlike countries that passed through bloody revolutions to build democracy, Smith said, Taiwan went through a process involving compromise, including painful compromise. But as its democracy evolved, a basic expectation took hold: one candidate wins, the other concedes, and life continues. This stable democratic status quo, he said, is precisely what is often underappreciated internationally. Smith emphasized the difference between evolution and revolution. “Because Taiwan evolved into a democracy rather than having a dramatic revolution, it is perhaps not appreciated in the same way as places that had revolutions,” he said.

DPP candidates Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu take part in a motorcade during Taiwan’s 2004 presidential election campaign. (MOFA file photo)

A memorable interview with Tsai Ing-wen

During our interview, Smith occasionally moved between English and Chinese, though he was careful not to overstate his Chinese ability. For him, language is a reporting tool: a way to follow local sources and avoid English-language filters. He recalled a humorous moment from a 2012 interview with Tsai Ing-wen. “She came in, and we started talking. I said something like, ‘Madam Chairperson, your English is really excellent.’ She looked at me and said matter-of-factly, ‘I have a degree from the London School of Economics.’ I thought, ‘Oh, yes, good point.’” For Smith, the exchange was memorable because it exposed an assumption. It also reflected a point he often makes: Taiwan’s public figures are often more internationally experienced, and more complex, than outsiders may expect.

Sharks and blood in the water

What is distinctive about Smith’s approach to journalism? He is drawn to the losing side, where the emotional truth of politics is easiest to see. “I like to go to the side I know is going to lose,” he said. He wants to understand how they process the result. That, he said, gives real insight into the strength of Taiwan’s democracy. “I remember being in Kaohsiung the night Han Kuo-yu lost in the 2020 presidential election, at the KMT headquarters for ICRT. People were sitting on the street and crying. I would go over respectfully, ask them questions, and try to understand what they were thinking.” What surprised him was their honesty. “It is surprising how honest people are, what they will tell you, and how strong their opinions are. They are usually quite willing to share them.” Smith also recalled interviewing Han in early 2019, shortly after he became Kaohsiung mayor. During the interview, Han used a colorful English phrase about sharks and blood in the water. It was hard to know exactly what he meant, whether Kaohsiung was the shark, the blood, or the water. But Han, now speaker of the Legislative Yuan, clearly had a flair for the dramatic.

Eryk Michael Smith had a fascinating interview with Tsai Ing-wen after she lost the 2012 presidential election. (courtesy of Eryk Michael Smith)

Unlocking history, treasuring the present

Today, 30 years after Taiwan’s first direct presidential election, Smith sees democracy here as “the norm.” “Young people today, like my own children, cannot imagine a time when Taiwan did not have free and fair elections,” he said. He also objects to the habit of framing almost every Taiwan story through cross-strait tension. “I do not like it when everything is framed as ‘as tensions with China rise,’” he said. “Taiwan has a story that goes beyond that issue. Taiwan has its own history, culture, and everything else. It deserves to be looked at without always being seen only through that frame.”

This is one reason for his work on Formosa Files, an English-language Taiwan history podcast he co-hosts with New Zealander John Ross, a longtime Taiwan resident. The program tells stories from Taiwan’s history in a way that resists simple political labeling. “We tell stories about horrible things the Japanese did to some Indigenous people,” Smith said. “But we may also tell the story of Akashi Motojiro, the seventh governor-general of Taiwan. He died during a trip home to Fukuoka, but in his will he asked that his ashes be buried in Taiwan, so he could be a guardian spirit for Taiwan.”

Smith said he hopes people can escape black-and-white labels when discussing transitional justice and historical memory. Taiwan’s history, he suggested, is rarely simple enough to fit neatly into one political camp’s preferred story. “History is the thing that helps you understand why everything around us today exists,” he said. “When you tell these stories, it helps you appreciate living today.”

He added that he is concerned that too many may take the Taiwan of today for granted. “I do worry that we have not adequately expressed it to young people, or given them a clear enough sense of what Taiwan was like before democratization,” Smith said. Through his journalism and podcast work, Smith tries to help preserve those memories: not as a museum piece, but as part of the living story of Taiwan’s democracy.

Eryk Michael Smith puts much effort into producing his Formosa Files podcast, through which he hopes to give the younger generation a broader perspective for understanding Taiwan.