March 8, 2001	atimes.com

China Reshuffle exposes Taiwan's house of cards By Laurence Eyton TAIPEI - On Monday, Taiwan's Premier Chang Chun-hsiung announced a small reshuffle of the cabinet, bringing in four new appointees. Agencies with new chiefs are the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) where Hau Lung-bin, leader of the ultra-conservative New Party replaced Lin Jun-yi, a ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) stalwart, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) where Hu Chin-piao, another conservative, replaced Hsia Der-yu, and the National Science Council where National Chiao Tung University Vice President Wei Che-he will replace Weng Cheng-I. Meanwhile, Hu Sheng-cheng, director of the institute of economics at Academia Sinica, Taiwan's premier academic research establishment, has been drafted into the cabinet as a minister without portfolio in the hope of strengthening the government's economic team. The changes appear to be almost cosmetic - only low-level agencies are involved and, with the exception of Hau, the reshuffle seems like Taiwan's usual rotation of academics in and out of government. First impressions are, however, deceptive. The significance of the changes can best be seen against the events that led up to them and the past history of some of the new appointees. What this reveals is a government that is totally shambolic, incapable of standing firm and pushing forward its own policies, bullied into unwise counterproductive action by the opposition which dominates the legislature, and desperately trying to buy popularity by appeasing its most vociferous critics. The extent of this disarray is shown by a look at the newcomers and what they might mean to key policies. But also of concern is, who didn't go and the reasons for that, and, as a manifestation of the government's weakness, the fact that the reshuffle took place at all. Of the incomers, most notable is Hau at the EPA and Hu Chin-piao at the AEC. Normally relatively minor positions, these two slots become extremely politically sensitive in the wake of the government's effort to cancel the construction of the island's fourth nuclear power plant. The plant's cancellation was perhaps the only major policy initiative the government has tried to impose since its inauguration last May. Cancellation of the plant by the premier - at the behest of the president - last October plunged Taiwan into almost unprecedented political turmoil as the opposition-controlled legislature claimed the cancellation could not be achieved without its endorsement, which it was utterly unwilling to give. After four months, the cabinet was forced to back down and accept the right of the legislature to have a final say in the decision. The result was a humiliating climbdown. But the nuclear plant issue is not dead. Challenges remain to the status of the plant's environmental impact assessment (EIA) which stand a very good chance of being upheld by the nation's highest watchdog body. Should this happen, the EPA could declare the EIA void and revoke the construction license for the plant - a legal way of bringing building work to a halt, at least until another EIA is completed, which could take up to two years. Many of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's core supporters - who see the nuclear plant as a US$5.4 billion boondoggle for the corrupt cronies of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) - were hoping for a robust EPA stance on the legality of the EIA. Such hopes are in ruins. Hau, the incoming environmental protection administrator, made it a condition of his taking the job that he would do nothing to hinder the now resumed construction of the nuclear plant. Hau added on Wednesday that he would not challenge the power plant's EIA. On top of this, Hu Chin-piao, during a previous stint in his new job as head of the AEC, was the very man who issued the construction license for the plant - in March 1999 - despite knowing full well that the EIA was inadequate and invalid. Some commentators have lauded the appointment of Hau and Hu as a way for the government to put the nuclear power plant controversy behind it as quickly as possible. But core DPP supporters see it differently, as another example of President Chen Shui-bian's perfidy. After all, it was Chen who wanted the plant cancelled in the first place. Then after four months of political chaos - in which he had the option of holding a legislative election on the issue, as many in his party wanted him to do - Chen forced the premier into a humiliating surrender. This itself was widely seen as the president forcing Chang to pay for his own lack of political astuteness. The appointment of Hau and Hu is now seen as Chen's rubbing salt into the DPP's wounds. On top of this, Hau is a leader of the extreme pro-reunification New Party. His presence in a government led by the pro-Taiwan independence DPP is highly incongruous, and to many DPP supporters insupportable. This might be interpreted as the president reaching out across party lines to win more support in the legislature and facilitate more effective governance. But the New Party is insignificant in size, and events subsequent to the appointment of Tang Fei, a retired general and KMT stalwart, as premier in May last year showed quite conclusively that the elevation of one of their own to the cabinet will not win more gentle support from Taiwan's opposition. At least as interesting as the newcomers to the cabinet are those who were expected to be ousted but weren't. Foremost among these were Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Chu-lan, and Minister of Education Ovid Tzeng. The case against Tzeng was simple enough. He has been utterly wayward, showing no desire to work as part of a team in the cabinet, making policy in conflict with the ruling party's basic political line as well as having a nasty problem over dual nationality - something forbidden to high-ranking officials which Tzeng claimed conveniently to have forgotten. Tzeng kept his job however, apparently because the opposition parties in the legislature let it be known that they wanted him to do so and the premier - almost certainly taking his lead from the president - caved in to this pressure. As for the Transport Minister, Yeh was poised for the chop in the wake of the wreck of a Greek ship, the Amorgos, off a southern Taiwan nature reserve. The ship started leaking oil just as the Transportation Ministry closed down for the Chinese New Year holiday. When it came back to work, several kilometers of beaches around the nature reserve were devastated as was marine life. In the wake of the Amorgos fiasco, when President Chen announced five major criticisms of the cabinet's performance on February 25, three of them were of the Transport Ministry. Yeh offered her resignation but this was not accepted, although Lin Jun-yi, head of the EPA, who was not nearly as culpable for the fiasco - only wrecked oil tankers are the immediate concern of the EPA; the Amorgos was carrying iron ore - was sacked. It is not hard to see why Yeh stayed but Lin didn't. Lin was an academic, with no basis of political support while Yeh is wildly popular in the DPP, both in her own right and as the widow of a martyr of Taiwan's struggle for democratization. But the overwhelming impression left by Yeh and Tzeng's retention of their posts is that cabinet positions are matters of political expediency rather than administrative talent. That might be nothing new, since cabinet positions in previous KMT governments were largely a matter of status within the party, but it is a bleak reflection on the DPP government's inability to change Taiwan's political environment in any serious way in the last 12 months. That the reshuffle took place at all this month is further proof of the government's weakness. Originally it was planned for May, the first anniversary of the government's inauguration, for which President Chen had asked the cabinet to provide a comprehensive review of what had been achieved during the government's first year. That the shuffle was brought forward to March was, once again, entirely due to pressure from the legislature. Once again the cabinet's agenda seems to be out of its hands. But the most egregious omission from the reshuffle process was undoubtedly Premier Chang Chun-hsiung himself. Originally brought in to replace Tang Fei - another victim of the nuclear power plant dispute - Chang has seen his credibility utterly destroyed. His long service in the legislature failed to be of value in getting government policy through the opposition-dominated chamber, while in policy formation, Chang has appeared as the president's tool, less a premier and more of a chief of staff, only to see himself abandoned when the row he had caused on the president's behalf got too loud. It is fair to say that there is now no sign of policy being formulated and implemented by the executive in a planned and coherent way. Rather it is almost totally driven by crisis manufactured by the island's media which, almost without exception, support the KMT. As for Chang, the legislature plays with him as a cat does with a mouse. The problem now is that, after the president has shown some of the very worst qualities of leadership toward Chang, it is difficult to replace him; nobody from the DPP camp now wants such a thankless job. Not surprisingly, as the anniversary of the DPP's presidential election victory is imminent, Taiwan's op-ed pages have been flooded with analyses of the DPP government's failure. The dismaying thought for most Taiwanese is that this situation could last for another three years. ((c)2001 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

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