The full lineup of premier-designate Chen Chien-jen’s (陳建仁) new Cabinet was unveiled yesterday, with academics and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters among those appointed to deputy ministerial positions.
Incoming Cabinet spokesman Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥) announced the appointments at a news conference yesterday.
Professor and researcher Roy Lee (李淳) is to serve as deputy minister of foreign affairs. Currently the senior deputy executive director of the Taiwan WTO & RTA Center at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, Lee is to replace Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) following Tsai’s appointment as National Security Bureau secretary-general.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Wang Ya-fen (王雅玢), a professor at Chung Yuan University’s Department of Environmental Engineering, has been appointed deputy minister of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Wang, who currently heads the Sustainable Environmental Education Center and Taiwan Association for Aerosol Research, is to become the agency’s first female deputy minister, and replaces the retiring Tsai Hung-teh (蔡鴻德).
Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋), a former DPP lawmaker, has been appointed deputy minister of labor.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Former DPP Taipei city councilor Ruan Jhao-syong (阮昭雄) is to serve as deputy minister of the Overseas Community Affairs Council, while Chou Chiang-chieh (周江杰) is to become deputy minister of the Hakka Affairs Council.
Incoming Executive Yuan secretary-general Li Men-yen (李孟諺) said that the three new women appointed to the Cabinet has increased their number to seven.
Li said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had tasked the new Cabinet with addressing four main areas — post-pandemic economic recovery, infrastructure, bolstering the social safety net and assisting the six key strategic industries of communication technology, information security, precision healthcare, defense, renewable energy and wartime necessities.
Outgoing Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) led Cabinet members in resigning en masse to facilitate the reshuffle prompted by the DPP’s many losses in the local government elections in November last year.
The 75-year-old Su, who has headed the executive branch under Tsai since January 2019, tendered his resignation on Jan. 19 after his earlier offer to resign was turned down by the president on election night.
Su is the longest-serving premier since Taiwan first held direct presidential elections in 1996.
The new Cabinet, led by Chen Chien-jen, who served as vice president during Tsai’s first term from 2016 to 2020, is to be sworn in today.
Separately, the Presidential Office yesterday announced that Lin Yu-chan (林聿禪), a former secretary at the Office of the Minister of the Interior, is to serve as one of its spokespeople, while Kolas Yotaka would be reappointed to the same position.
Yotaka returns to the Presidential Office following a failed bid to become Hualien county commissioner in November’s local elections.
Yesterday’s moves are part of a reshuffle that began with the appointment on Thursday of former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) as Presidential Office secretary-general.
Other personnel changes announced include the selection of former Presidential office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) as specially appointed deputy secretary-general to the president, Xavier Chang (張惇涵) as politically appointed deputy secretary-general to the president, and Chu Tsai-ching (朱財慶) to head the Presidential Office as senior secretary.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TAIWAN ADVOCATES: The resolution, which called for the recognition of Taiwan as a country and normalized relations, was supported by 22 Republican representatives Two US representatives on Thursday reintroduced a resolution calling for the US to end its “one China” policy, resume formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan and negotiate a bilateral Taiwan-US free trade agreement. Republican US representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th District were backed by 22 Republican members of the US House of Representatives. The two congressmen first introduced the resolution together in 2021. The resolution called on US President Donald Trump to “abandon the antiquated ‘one China’ policy in favor of a policy that recognizes the objective reality that Taiwan is an independent country, not
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
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