Do we like them?

Do we like Hsiao Bi-khim?

Our score: 8 out of 10. A long run of backing LGBTQ+ equality and nothing harmful found, marked down only because I couldn't open pages to check the full record.

Hsiao Bi-khim is Taiwan's vice president and a former Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker who also served as Taiwan's representative in Washington. She's been a public figure for a couple of decades, and early on she was pressing the Cabinet over human trafficking and immigration law gaps in 2005. Her background is half American, which Beijing's propagandists have milked for years.

That brings us to the smears, and they're a story in themselves. During the 2023 campaign, posts claimed she couldn't speak Mandarin, and Asia Fact Check Lab found that false. Claims that she held US citizenship were also rated false, with reports saying she gave it up after becoming a legislator. None of that counts against her, it's abuse aimed at her.

The pressure keeps coming. Czech military intelligence's director said Chinese operatives had planned a staged car collision involving her on a Prague visit, and Taiwan demanded an explanation from Beijing. In November 2025 Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau said it would refer two men to a summary court over false claims that taxpayers paid for her speech at the European Parliament.

On the harm test she looks very good. She has been tied to marriage equality for years, and on the sixth anniversary of legalisation in 2025 she said the push for equality goes on. In 2024 she joined a Pride march in Taipei described as east Asia's biggest. That's using a platform for other people, and nothing harmful or dodgy about her company turned up.

The recent stuff is mostly defence and diplomacy. In 2026 she's been talking about Taiwan building its own strength, and told an interviewer in June that Taiwan won't let the CCP define who it is. Where you land on cross-strait politics depends on whether you read that as sensible self-defence or as risky brinkmanship, but it's not a harm issue.

The honest gap: the news sites wouldn't open for me, so I haven't read her voting record bill by bill or found a fact-checker's scorecard of her own claims. I found no court cases against her and no credible reports of her mistreating anyone. That's absence of evidence, not a full audit.