Chief of the General Staff General Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) will succeed Wu Shih-wen ( 伍世文) as the next defense minister, sources said yesterday.
While an official announcement has yet to be made, the leaking of the information puts an end to weeks of feverish speculation about which dignitary will occupy the post after a Cabinet reshuffle expected at the end of this month.
While President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) appears to have backtracked on his previously stated intention to put a civilian in charge of the ministry, General Tang's accession to the post is not uncontroversial, marking as it does the first time a native Taiwanese has occupied a post hitherto exclusively given to mainlanders.
Tang was also the first Tai-wanese to be the chief of the general staff three years ago.
Tang will enjoy considerably more power than any of his predecessors, since under the new military command structure to be introduced on March 1 the general staff will fall under the remit of the defense ministry and the Executive Yuan. Previously it was autonomous, answering only to the president.
The chief of the general staff is to be downgraded to chief of staff to the defense minister.
The increasing stature of the defense ministry, from acting as little more than a commissariat for the general staff, to being the highest authority in defense planning, has made the appointment of a new defense minister the subject of wild speculation.
Over the weekend, during a interview with a US delegation, the president said that while he still wanted to see a civilian in the defense ministry post, the time was not yet ripe for such a transition.
Defense sources say that the president had already decided last week to offer the post to Tang, who accepted.
The sources also said that Chen has decided that navy commander-in-chief Admiral Li Chieh (李傑) will succeed Tang as chief of the general staff.
Tang's appointment is expected to be formally announced on Jan. 20. At the same time it is expected that details of a major reshuffle of the military top brass -- at and above the ranks of lieutenant general or vice admiral -- will also be announced.
This will be the largest reshuffle of the military leadership since Chen became president two years ago. It is to cover the leaders of all branches of the military and is widely seen as an important chance for Chen to consolidate his control of the military for the rest of his presidential term. Factionalism in the armed forces however, is seen as preventing the president from purging all the generals whose loyalty he finds suspect.
When Chen was first elected in 2000, there was considerable opposition in the officer corp -- dominated by mainlander unificationists -- to serving a DPP government.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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