Editorial: Myth of administrative neutrality

Yesterday's appointment of Chao Yi (趙怡) to the post of Director-General of the Government Information Office came to us, as to most observers, as a surprise.

In the first place, Chao is the first GIO head in more than 20 years -- in other words, since well before the end of martial law -- who has not been drawn from the ranks of the senior civil service. His background includes party work (some of which, frankly, of dubious character), and also stints with several major media organizations, which makes him also the first GIO head to have had direct experience in the media business. The task before him now is to learn the new skill of representing the government, as opposed to the various particular interests -- the party, the military, and big conglomerates -- that he has served in the past.

Unfortunately, the tremendous contrast with his immediate predecessor, Chen Chien-ren (程建?H), an accomplished career diplomat, yields clues as to Chao's selection that are less than reassuring on this point. Chen, for all his professionalism, had been perceived as over-cautious, not active enough in putting a positive spin on the news, nor in developing relations with the press corps. Chao, by contrast, is renowned for his social skills, and he comes preloaded with a vast web of guanxi throughout the media world, notably including the bosses of the major conglomerates. It is apparent that the government hopes to use these assets to raise its stock value in the run-up to the presidential election.

But this also raises another question: Chao has always been identified as a follower of the old guard, for example General Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), one of his former employers. Since these "non-mainstream" figures are, almost to a man, staunch supporters of independent candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜), Chao's selection is distinctly curious, inevitably leading observers to speculate about the strategy being pursued by his new bosses.

And this brings us to the main point, which is that we are likely witnessing yet another step downward in the long debacle of the ceaselessly proclaimed "administrative neutrality." Whatever tactics are up the government's sleeve, no one doubts that Chao's mission is to help save the Lien-Siew (3s蕭) campaign.

As we have commented in this space before, administrative neutrality for political appointees is a chimera, fundamentally impossible to achieve in any country -- and where Taiwan does have room to improve, in the rank and file of the civil service, the lack of alternation of parties is an insuperable obstacle.

Perhaps it is inevitable that the member of the Cabinet specifically responsible for handling public relations for the government would be particularly unlikely to achieve "neutrality." If the GIO consisted only of the office of the spokesman, we might simply shrug our shoulders.

Sadly, the agency is also responsible for all the highly complex regulations of broadcasting and publishing, including such tasks as frequency licensing and censorship. Without even raising the possibility for conflicts of interest, it is unrealistic to suppose that any one individual could be competent at both spokesman and regulatory functions.

Many proposals have been floated recently for restructuring of the GIO, including creating a new agency or merging some departments with other existing ministries. Whatever the final solution, it is clear that, at the very least, the office of the spokesman must be separated from the rest.