Premier-designate Sean Chen (陳冲) yesterday unveiled his Cabinet lineup after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) formally announced his appointment, with 16, or about one-third, of the 47 positions reshuffled.
All the Cabinet members were chosen because of their skills, which matched their respective positions, and regardless of their ethnicity or party affiliation, Chen told a press conference.
Chen said he was reluctant to use any “adjective” to describe the Cabinet, but that he hoped each agency would fulfill its full potential.
“The Cabinet is not the Chen Cabinet. It is the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China. I would not call it a finance and economic Cabinet, a culture Cabinet or by any other names,” he said.
Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), who served as the first director of the Taipei City Government’s cultural affairs department — an agency created by Ma when he was the city’s mayor — was named minister of the Council for Cultural Affairs, replacing Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗).
Chen said Lung would continue to lead the department after the council is upgraded to a ministry, scheduled for May 20.
Simon Chang (張善政), director of Google Asia Regional Infrastructure, was appointed minister without portfolio in charge of technology-related affairs.
Chen said he persuaded Chang, who he said has a profound knowledge of hardware operations and digital convergence, to give up a higher-paying job at a multinational company to work for the government out of a sense of “patriotism” and to serve “national interests.”
Chen Yi-chen (陳以真), a former TV news anchor who ran as the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) legislative candidate for Chiayi County last month but lost, was tapped to replace National Youth Commission Minister Lee Yun-jie (李允傑).
Among the 47 Cabinet officials, 36 are male, 11 female. None of them hold dual nationality. Lung has permanent residency in Hong Kong, but she is in the process of relinquishing this status, Sean Chen said.
Four of the incoming Cabinet members have backgrounds in civil engineering: Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) and Chang, who have been tapped as ministers without portfolio; Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧), who is taking over the Ministry of Education; and Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源), who will head the Ministry of the Interior.
Four holdovers in the Cabinet are Hakka, including central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南), Hakka Affairs Council Minister Huang Yu-cheng (黃玉振), Minister Without Portfolio Lin Junq-tzer (林政則) and Environmental Protection Administration Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏).
Earlier yesterday, vice president-elect Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who was also the premier, led the Cabinet in resigning en masse, a day before the swearing-in of the new legislature.
Wu said a handover ceremony for the new and outgoing Cabinet members would be held on Monday.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) expressed their disappointment over the new lineup.
“The Cabinet reshuffle was disappointing in a lot of ways,” DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) told a press conference.
The new Cabinet was hardly “refreshing” as most of the new ministers are veteran politicians and familiar names, he said, adding that they were likely appointed as a reward for helping Ma win re-election.
Tsai said the most disappointing choices were Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Christina Liu (劉憶如) — who is moving on to head the Ministry of Finance — while Minister without Portfolio Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) was tapped to replace her at the council.
Tsai accused the two of being the “hired thugs” of the Ma administration for their attacks against the DPP’s presidential candidate, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), during the campaign.
“It would be difficult to count on the controversial pair [Liu and Yiin] to carry our country through the euro-debt crisis,” he said.
Tsai Huang-liang also expressed concern over the appointment of Chiang as minister of education. He said that Chiang, a university president whose specialty is civil engineering, might not have the expertise to carry out the KMT’s campaign promise to implement a 12-year compulsory education system by 2014.
Incoming Council of Agriculture minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基), who had shown an interest in representing the KMT in the Pingtung County commissioner election, has been described as an academic with strong political ambition, Tsai Huang-liang said.
He added that he hoped Chen would be able to maintain administrative neutrality and work on improving the well-being of farmers.
TSU legislator-elect Hsu Chun-hsin (許忠信), who is also the party’s designated caucus whip and an economics professor, said he was concerned with the performance of Liu and Yiin, given their poor records.
Hsu, who strongly opposes closer trade relations with China, said the priority of any economic policymaker in Taiwan should be the creation of a diverse trade and investment architecture, rather than placing all its eggs in one basket — that is, China.
Additional reporting by CNA
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS