It is uncertain whether the legislature -- whose new session began last week -- will pass the draft amendments to the Organic Law of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法), which are crucial to the nation's future competitiveness. Nevertheless, the possible effects of the government's attempt to kick the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) upstairs by placing it under the Premier's Office deserves our deep concern.
The outside world can hardly understand why the nation's China policy -- which occupied the most space in President Chen Shui-bian's (
For example, the government plans to keep the Council of Hakka Affairs and Council of Indigenous Peoples, and to establish a new maritime council.
Let us examine government officials' various views of the change, regardless of whether the MAC is demoted or promoted. Some say that national defense, diplomacy and cross-strait relations are all the president's duties, so the council is unnecessary. But we all know that the current threat to national security and international isolation is mainly the work of the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
Without stable cross-strait relations, we will get half the result with twice the effort regarding both diplomatic and national defense affairs. And both the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will remain under the Executive Yuan.
Some also say that the adjustment is modeled on China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO). But anyone with common sense knows that there is a huge difference in the significance of cross-strait relations to domestic policymaking in Taipei and Beijing. Besides, due to the Chinese Communist Party model of "having the party lead the government," the TAO under the State Council and the party's Central Office for Taiwan Affairs have been integrated into one organization.
In the State Council's 1998 streamlining plan, the TAO was not affected at all, while other agencies had their staff numbers cut by half. Today, the TAO even has a new building of its own. So how can we put the MAC on a par with the TAO?
Yet others say that since the nation's China policy is a job crossing several industries, the most important issue is coordination. Placing the new mainland affairs office under the Premier's Office will improve both communication and coordination. As readers may remember, the MAC was preceded by the mainland affairs task force, formed by the Cabinet in 1988 and headed by the vice premier. The government promoted the status of the team to strengthen its decision-making functions and efficiency.
Today, based on almost the same reasons, the agency is set to be placed under the Premier's Office. As the Chinese slang goes, "After years of great effort, we are back where we started."
Some government officials claim that the MAC's status will be promoted when being led by a minister without portfolio. But weren't former council chairmen Huang Kun-hui (
A council chairman must handle coordination, and also possess expertise and have specific duties. Since one person cannot simultaneously serve as premier and vice premier, the claim that a minister without portfolio doubling as director will promote the agency's status is dubious.
Others say that the government must streamline the council for the sake of its budget and personnel control and management. However, the budget of the council (including that of its offices in Hong Kong and Macau) accounts for merely 0.04 percent of the government's annual budget, and it only has about 200 employees. Compared to other agencies that are often criticized for their redundant personnel, this method of focusing on trivia while ignoring substance is indeed ridiculous.
I understand that it is necessary for the government to streamline some of its agencies under the current 17-ministry organizational framework, and that each agency is unwilling to accept cuts. Unfortunately, although only four councils can remain, politicians dare not publicly criticize the bizarre phenomenon of keeping the Hakka and Aboriginal councils -- instead of integrating them into a "council for ethnic equality" -- due to electoral concerns. The government's decision is difficult to understand until one realizes it has been made to attract votes.
But the adjustment of the MAC is very different from the organizational framework of similar agencies in East and West Germany in the past and North and South Korea today. The adjustment falls short of the expectations of the public, who hope that it will strengthen Taiwan's competitiveness and maintain peace and stability across the strait.
If cross-strait relations really do affect national security and public rights and interests; if China policy really does affect policy coordination between government agencies and implementation mechanisms; if the government really wants the new mainland affairs office to entrust non-governmental organizations with cross-strait negotiations after the year-end legislative elections, then we must look squarely at the possible consequences following a government adjustment to MAC.
I really do not believe that the MAC's status and functions will be improved after it is placed under the Premier's Office. Perhaps it is more realistic to say that the government is "picking the softest persimmon to eat," as the old saying goes, since it only dares to bully relatively moderate government officials and agencies that are unable to attract votes.
Andy Chang is a professor in the Graduate Institute of China Studies at Tamkang University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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