this is bbc news. the headlines — rishi sunak will be the uk's next prime minister, he next prime minister, was just the first ever british—asian to hold the post. russia's foreign spy—chief denies moscow is engaging in nuclear sabre—rattling and accuses ukraine of planning to use a so—called �*dirty bomb'. ina in a letter, russia's upper use of any such device would be seen as an act of nuclear terrorism. us attorney—general meret has accused china of trying to undermine the us

justice system as he announced indictments against 13 of its nationals. in one case, the department ofjustice nationals. in one case, the department of justice accused two chinese intelligence agents of attempted bribery and espionage in america. now on bbc news it's hardtalk with zeinab badawi. welcome to this special edition of hardtalk with me, zeinab badawi, from the taiwanese capital, taipei. people here in taiwan, which is self governed, live under a constant threat from china, which lies about 160 kilometres across the waters. beijing claims taiwan as part of its territory, and in the past few months has carried out hundreds of military sorties neartaiwan, leading to speculation that it is preparing for an invasion. taiwan has also been subjected to cyber attacks from china. my guest is the taiwanese

digital minister, audrey tang. can taiwan really forge its own path? minister audrey tang in taipei, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, really happy to be here. president xi of china reiterated at the recent chinese communist party congress that china wants to strive for the prospect of peaceful unification with taiwan but that he would never promise to give up the option to use force. just sum up for briefly the mood for us, the reaction to that possibly new threat? that's a familiar message, we have been hearing that for quite some time. of course, we have to prepare ourselves to face the authoritarian expansionism but that has been the case for as long as i can remember.

so people have not been at all worried by this renewed threat? not especially worried, of course, we've been seeing renewed interest in, for example, countering disinformation, service security attacks and so on, but i think the overall mood is quite calm. ok, because china has claimed taiwan as part of its territory since 1919 but now, according to intelligence from the united states, president xi wants to accelerate the programme and unify taiwan by 2027. so you've got this time frame. we've seen increased military activity, spy planes, bombers, missiles being fired over the taiwan strait, surely, you cannot discount the possibility that there could be a military conflict? well, in taiwan, we face earthquakes or typhoons all the time. earthquakes doesn't give us a lot of advance notice either, so our role is to be resilient, meaning that we prepare for adversity and recover from it, our readiness,

i think stands high at any given time. you sound quite relaxed about it, if i may say, ministertang, because the foreign minister of taiwan, joseph wu, says "china's "behaviour is provocative and threatening regional peace and stability." i mean, taiwan is the reddest of red lines for china, isn't it? well, we are on the frontline, and because i'm the digital minister, i wouldn't think in the case of china, event of a time because we literally face cyber attacks every day. alright, as you say quite rightly that you face cyber attack, millions, every day from china. every time. i put it to you that mr fang at the global china hub at the atlantic council says this, "we are already at war, this is a constant thing," is he right, is taiwan constantly engaged in a cyber war with china? it's quite continuous, for example, when the us speaker nancy pelosi visited,,

we have seen one single time the peak 23 times higher than the previous peak of the distributed denial of service attack, trying to shut down the websites of the ministry of national defence or the president's office, and so on, although they didn't succeed in revealing any sensitive information or exposing the confidential documents and so on, the height of the attack is quite visible to everyone, so because of that there is a renewed interest in strength ing our cyber security. you've broken many glass ceilings, you're a hacker turned minister, you were a child prodigy, you established your own technology company at the age of 1a, you were involved in the sunflower student protests in 2014 to try to avoid the fast tracking of a trade bill with china, you are the first openly transgender minister anywhere in the world, a first there.

given that your own department is the ministry for digital affairs, you need to strengthen taiwan's digital protection, so how capable is your infrastructure at withstanding these cyber attacks from china? i would say that we build resilience in order to counter notjust the hard cyber security attacks but also the disinformation, the propaganda, the foreign interference to our elections and so on. so these two go to hand in hand, on the countering disinformation part, we rely on world journalism but also ou citizens practising journalism, fact checking, for example, is popular pastime for taiwanese students to do their exercise and so on. once we are armed with so—called antibodies of the mind, we're less vulnerable to the misinformation attacks.

now, in terms of cyber attacks, it's been pointed out the submarine cables is one of the vulnerabilities in taiwan because these are the places that connects us to the world. so learning from ukraine we are now investing 15 million us dollars over the next years to build more than 700 mobile or fixed satellite receivers for the non—geostationary satellites in orbit so we can still keep our line open to talk to our democratic allies around the world, even in the event of a secret disruption to our submarine cables. so the idea, part of a digital strategy is to keep information about taiwan flowing, as part of that ambition you propose a satellite trial programme to try to guarantee internet services across taiwan, but given the current tensions with china, these talks are pretty urgent, aren't they, between private sector companies and the taiwanese government? yeah, we're quite happy of our existing collaboration with vendors currently in middle earth orbit,

and we of course will expand that to new vendors to the low earth orbit but i think taken together this provides a heterogeneous, that is to say, composed of various different solutions and vendors pallet for us to continue the conversation. because if you do not have real—time video feed in the event of a disaster, the appetite for information is still there and so this information will take the place of realjournalistic reports if we do not provide journalism with high speed and width of internet. one thing that taiwan is hugely significant for in the global economy is the fact that you provide about 90% of the world's advanced microchips, and these are, of course, critical in all sorts of ways, microchips we use in our phones, in cars and laptops, and so on, and one taiwanese company, tsmc, accounts for over half the global market. how does this affect your relationship with china

because china is one of your big partners, economically, trading, and yet, it's this foe we have been discussing and there's talk about the silicon shield, that this kind of supply of microchips can protect you from an attack by china, yet on the other hand, it could also prove a very attractive, valuable acquisition for china. so how do you see it? yeah, i think the silicon shield, so—called silicon shield is a symbol of the trust that the entire world places on the made in taiwan chips, because as you mentioned, the chip powers everything from military to science and so on, the trustworthiness of the manufacturing of those chips, the cyber security, for example, the eu cyber

security standard we built from taiwan to ensure the trustworthiness of those chips in its computation, that is very important and we see that is truly an asset that made in taiwan, mit, also stands for trustworthiness. and so i think this idea that things made from taiwan can power the science and military and whatever other applications from around the world is a symbol of trust and that is the true shield that unites taiwan and our western allies. a symbol of trust but does it protect you from chinese aggression? i think if the world comes to see taiwan as a partner in providing trustworthy computation, then the entire democratic camp will see us as a very valuable partner and so will come to our defence. another paradox which is quite puzzling about taiwan is you are part of the government, which came to power in 2016 when president tsai ing—wen, who leads the democratic progressive party, the dpp, won the elections very decisively.

what is the position of the government when it comes to independence, because polls consistently show the taiwanese people don't want independence, and yet they don't want unification with china, so how does the government reconcile this? i think, all the major parties, including the dpp, the democratic progressive party, you mentioned in the parliament reject authoritarian expansionism. when we look at hong kong, the so—called one country, two system has turned into so—called only patriots can rule hong kong. so i think we all reject that, and our way of life, of course, is a free and democratic one, so in the digital realm, we are happy, for example, that our domain name, .tw, is quite independent from .uk, .us, and .cn, obviously so people care more

about the state as a full—fledged member, a partner to the democratic community more than anything else. but you are part of the government, i appreciate you are non partisan and not part of the ruling dpp, but the president tsai ing—wen�*s comments are quite puzzling. for example, in 2020, she told the bbc that "we don't "have a need to declare independence, "we are an independent country already, and call ourselves "the republic of china." what does she mean by that? well, the roc government officially relocated to taiwan in the 1940s and ever since then, we say roc taiwan with or without the parenthesis to symbolise that when we talk about the roc now it means that the people in this free country elects the president directly since 1996 and so on, and so they have become like synonyms, the roc and taiwan.

you are talking about when chiang kai—shek left china having been defeated by the communists in 19119, and fled to taiwan with 2 million of his followers, and we had the republic of china there, but it's still not clear the government or the president not backing formal independence, really, and yet saying we reject unification. you use words like country but actually only about a dozen very small states in the caribbean or latin america... the vatican city. and the vatican recognise taiwan as a nation, i mean, you are losing that argument. but in the digital realm, when we signed on the declaration for the future of the internet which i signed on behalf of taiwan we are one of the 61 partners for democracies signing that declaration, together, to place our investmentsjointly, to build, to shape the internet into some

thing that is resilient against authoritarianism and to protect human rights, and in the declaration we are all referred to as partners or as democracies, so on that front, we are gaining new ground. but can say you are a country, when major countries, the united states all of the european union don't recognise taiwan as a nation state, you don't have a seat at the united nations? but we do have a top—level internet domain, so my point here is that... so you exist as a country only in the digital space, is that what you're saying? what i'm saying is that nowadays, there's more multi—stakeholder or hybrid multilateral and multi—stakeholder meaning, composed of countries but also eu and, well, the vatican city, and many other entities that comprise the democratic partnership, which is why in my ministry, the ministry of digital affairs, our department is called the department of democracy network, not international cooperation. all right.

eric chu, the leader of the opposition party kuomintang — or kmt party — criticises the dpp, the president, for not maintaining a dialogue with china. i mean, even the americans — the us secretary of state anthony blinken and the chinese foreign minister wang yi held talks on the sidelines of un general assembly in september — they talked for an hour and a half. why is president tsai, here, not accepting to talk directly with the chinese? over the weekend, well, i think in her national day address, president tsai ing—wen said very clearly that as long as there's equitable terms for dialogue, she's happy to have a conversation to keep the taiwan strait peaceful and so on. but, i mean, she says she would only talk if beijing drops that precondition that taiwan is part of china. and so, you've got a deadlock. they're not going to do that — president xi hasjust reiterated unification must happen — and so, you have no dialogue. maybe a videoconference, then?

but, i mean, that's not even taken place. i mean, have you — are you encouraging her to do that? my point here is that if there are ways for the beijing authorities and the taiwan government to have a more matter—of—factly conversation around the day—to—day conversations of the matters when it concerns to people's livelihoods and so on, that has been going on for quite a while. what you're asking is essentially the political question. but from my point of view, because i'm non—partisan, i think it's far easier if we focus on the parts — for example, advancing democracy, human rights and so on. we work, as the ministry of digital affairs, through the department of democracy network notjust with government entities, fellow democracies but also people who are advocating for a democracy and independent

journalism and so on, even if they live in authoritarian regimes, and so, on these topics, we're happy to have conversations. all right. but it's notjust the political question where there is a lack of clarity — even taiwan's defence strategy is lacking. taiwan's former top military official staff admiral lee hsi—min — who retired three years ago — says the taiwanese army is not prepared and that it must think strategically, which he says it isn't doing. his criticisms highlight the inertia in the taiwanese army because it was the armed wing of the kmt, the chinese nationalist party, that ruled under martial law for decades and so, therefore, it's not reinvented itself sufficiently for the modern era. so, what do you say to that criticism? i believe you were mentioning the asymmetric defence concept. yes. i think in the cybersecurity domain, this is obviously the case. we need to create places

where we spent, as minimal resource as possible, in order to counter the far more resources that adversaries throws at us. so, when i talk about for example mitigating the denial of service attacks following nancy pelosi's visit this august, we developed a way to tie our defence, the web 2 and web 3 defences, to the international backbones that powers the nfts, the cryptocurrencies and so on, so you take this down, then you also must take down the entire... crosstalk. yeah, but i'm talking about military hardware, really — that's what the admiral�*s criticisms were. i mean, president tsai hasjust announced a 40% boost in taiwan's defence spending. you face an army, a standing army of about 2 million in total. i think you've got something like 170,000. you've cut your army personnel by more than half since the 1990s. it's that kind of defence strategy that the admiral

is referring to and so, that's all pretty unwise, isn't it, that kind of approach? we've seen recently that under the call of the all—out mobilisation, people having an interest of getting the training they need in order to — well, again, learning from ukraine — to contribute in a time of an invasion. and in the domain of cybersecurity, which i'm more familiar with, we've also have people from students to the people already working, to learn notjust a basic cyber, like, sanitation or good habits but also ways to — again, learning the so—called it army, from ukraine — to work with the international people... sure. ..when times come for a kind of all—out defence, so i think this not just about the ministry of national defence but also about equipping our citizens. so, for example, the taiwanese tycoon robert tsao has pledged

$33 million us to help train civilian fighters, as you are referring to there — but he's doing the job of government there, isn't he? he's trying to fill in the holes to make up for the lack of a proper defence strategy that the government should be addressing. i think that these two work in tandem. i have a heart condition that prevents me from actually enrolling in the compulsory two—year military service at the time, but it doesn't mean that i don't want to know about our defence strategy and get training in cybersecurity and other matters when the time comes, so i think the connection between people who willing to contribute and the national defence, that is the bridge that we're building. all right. when it comes to defence, it seems like taiwan is going to be relying a great deal on the united states. the us senate has passed a bill to provide $6.5 billion to fund weapons and other military support for taiwan. strong bipartisan strategy for the americans there. and president biden, it seems,

has been abandoning american policy which has been called �*strategic ambiguity�* for many years — not spelling out what would happen from america's point of view if china did invade taiwan — but now, he is saying that the us would get involved militarily if china invaded taiwan. he says yes, that's the commitment we made and when pressed in an interview on american tv whether that meant that american men and women would defend taiwan, he answered yes. so, what's your interpretation now of us policy towards taiwan? well, it is obviously to deter expansionism by authoritarian regimes by making it clear, as i mentioned, that the cost will be insurmountable if they even consider annexation. do you see a shift in policy? do you see an abandonment of that strategic ambiguity in favour of a more robust approach to taiwan. yeah, it�*s been called �*strategic clarity�*, right? spelling it out as you mentioned, yeah. so do you.

hm—mm. but do you think that�*s reassuring for the taiwanese or arguably, it could put you right in the middle of the growing tensions between china and the united states. you could end up becoming a pawn in this superpower rivalry. yep, a couple of things. i think first of all, clarity doesn�*t mean escalation. so it�*s not like we�*re escalating the tension here. that�*s the first thing. and the second thing is that, as i mentioned, there�*s a lot of willingness from not just the us but also european counterparts and many other democratic allies — all the 60 signatories of the declaration for the future of the internet, have committed to keep us a free and open. sorry, just sticking with the tensions, you�*re not escalating the tensions but the tensions between china and the united states and are escalating. joe biden has got the export controls now on the chinese technology and so on and my point is how is taiwan viewing this?

because, i�*ll give you a quote, michael swaine from the quincy institute for responsible statecraft says "biden�*s statements make taiwan less secure and — because they increase the chance of the us being pulled into a war." it makes you less secure. he�*s right. the point i�*m making is that, for example, the uk also realised that a previously considered inexpensive 5g communication equipments from authoritarian regimes are actually expensive if you think about the risk it poses to national security, so it�*s not like only us has that assessment. everyone else is doing the same assessment and concludes that taiwan is the more trustworthy partner when it comes to powering their secure telecommunication or any scientific military computation needs and so on. is the better democratic partner they are willing to commit... yeah, exactly. ..military support for them — and that�*s something that�*s good, in your opinion? right, so this is not a us—prc thing. this is a free democratic alliance thing. all right. finally, as minister

for digital affairs, audrey tang, you are trying to transform taiwan into a digital democracy. around 87% of people under the age of 12 are connected and, you know, you want to increase citizen participation online. yes. how do you think you are going to be able to develop this? i mean, could you go the way of china, that uses surveillance to increase its authoritarianism? america, where we�*ve seen the internet being used in a way that polarises society more? how are you going to avoid falling into either trap? yeah, so our point is that democracy can deliver if it becomes more democratic, so that everybody can participate. you mentioned chiang kai—shek�*s relocation of the roc government to taiwan in the �*40s. at the time, there�*s very — like, people with very different life experiences suddenly having to coexist together. my own grandma is a local taiwanese who studied japanese and my grandpa comes

from sichuan so in my family, i understand the need to collaborate across diversity. today, taiwan is home to, like, 20 national languages and many different ethnic people, so the point i�*m making is that democracy must build collaboration across diversity, and that�*s the way we�*re employing these digital technologies to do. audrey tang, minister for digital affairs here in taiwan, thank you very much indeed for on hardtalk. thank you. live long and prosper.

hello, there. one of the most notable features of the weather over the next few days will be the temperature. it is going to feel very mild, it is actually going to feel warm in places where we get some sunshine, but there will equally be some rain at times. it is all being driven by this big area of low pressure churning, spinning to the west of the uk, throwing showers or longer spells of rain northwards, but also sucking up this very warm air from a long way south, you can see the orange colours surging northwards towards our shores. now, that said, tuesday morning is getting off to a relatively cool start, certainly not a particularly cold start for an october day but a little bit on the cool side first thing, clear skies overhead, but that means there will be some spells of sunshine. equally, a scattering of showers here and there but many places will avoid them and stay largely dry. thickening cloud will push rain into south west england and parts of south—west wales late in the afternoon. temperatures, 13 degrees in stornaway, 18 degrees in london, those values a little bit

above what we would expect to see at this time of year. a wet evening across the south—west of england, wales, this heavy and perhaps thundery rain driving its way northwards into north—west england, northern ireland, and then across scotland. so, a wet start to wednesday, particularly across the northern half of scotland, and there will be bands of heavy, thundery showers following on behind. but once again, we will see some spells of sunshine developing. quite a strong wind, it is going to be breezy whereever you are, but as you can see from our wind gusts, particularly windy around some of these western coasts, easily 40mph gusts, maybe those gusts touching 50mph in some exposed spots, but with the wind coming from the south, it will be mild, even warm in places, 15 for glasgow, 20 degrees for norwich, and for thursday, we will see some further showers here and there, some of which could be heavy, possibly thundery, this weather system trying to bring rain into the west. but ahead of that, that surge of warmth from the south with temperatures in parts of eastern england potentially getting to 21 or 22 degrees.

another warm day, particularly in the south and the east on friday, where we won�*t see too many showers, where is further north and west, there is a bit more rain in the forecast. and as we head into the weekend, well, it will start to feel just a bit cooler.

this is bbc news. i�*m sally bundock with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. ready to take office — rishi sunak is to be appointed as britain�*s new prime minister — the third injust a few weeks. senior officials in europe congratulate the new pm, saying they hoped for a strong and constructive relationship. new research commissioned by dramatic coronavirus iramatic coronavirus pandemic on ,, healthandthe " ' w . flhzaliiif7151152313; ' " ' "£515.15. afidtiiépria; being welcomed an the