Despite various misjudgments by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, one of the elements that contributed to the poor handling of the catastrophic flooding in southern Taiwan following Typhoon Morakot was a huge lack of central-local, horizontal and inter-agency coordination. That inefficiency leads to slow and inadequate responses to natural disasters like this.
While criticism has focused on inappropriate and sometimes arrogant comments made by Ma and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) when they were questioned over the government’s incompetent reaction to the flood, Taiwan’s bureaucratic culture, little changed by its transition to the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government and back to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), should also shoulder political responsibility for the tragedy.
Buck-passing is a common phenomenon in this bureaucracy. As the president, Ma is no exception, especially given his long career in politics.
When the crisis first became obvious, Ma blamed the Central Weather Bureau for failing to make accurate predictions of the amount of rainfall. When interviewed by foreign press as to how such a calamity could occur, Ma blamed the people living in the disaster areas for not evacuating on time. Facing growing pressure and calls to declare a state of emergency so that the commander-in-chief could order the military to take over relief efforts, Ma insisted that the current natural disaster prevention system — which gave the Cabinet ultimate authority over the crisis — was good enough.
If the president is a conservative, inactive and overly cautious leader when it comes to decision-making, how can we expect the bureaucracy, including the National Security Council and the Cabinet, to come up with timely and aggressive policies to react to the crisis?
Therefore it is no surprise to see the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) accuse the Ministry of the Interior’s National Fire Agency of suggesting that foreign aid be rejected, while the latter denied that it had ever been consulted. In addition, the president and the premier denied that they knew of MOFA’s “individual” decision to turn down the offer of foreign assistance. This also explains why Minister of Defense Chen Chao-ming (陳肇敏) said that without a direct order from the top, the military could not engage in immediate rescue efforts, even though some of the military bases were close to the disaster area.
The bureaucracy knows what constitutes the top agenda for the president. Ma has spent most of his time in office dealing with cross-strait affairs and has hedged all of his bets on hasty economic integration with China. Diplomatically, Taiwan seeks a ceasefire with Beijing. Economically, the Ma administration considers the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) as the only solution to Taiwan’s fragile economy.
Because of this China-centric mentality and policy orientation, the military’s morale is down, while the Ma government simply overlooks Beijing’s continuous violations of human rights. Almost everything the government does now is for the sake of cross-strait relations, with the bureaucratic culture returning to the old days of having no incentives to change.
For more than 50 years of KMT rule, the bureaucracy in Taiwan developed a unique character of passivity. The hierarchical bureaucracy has not only produced a “red stamp” culture and unnecessary “paper traveling,” but also failure on the part of the government to react to public needs in a timely manner. Bureaucratic inefficiency was deeply rooted in the government when the DPP came to power in 2000.
Even though the DPP government made tremendous efforts to counteract bureaucratic resistance and streamline government organization, its lack of central governing experience constituted the main source of Cabinet inefficiency in the early years of the tenure of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
But the bureaucracy can adapt. Under Chen’s second term, when most government officials had gained experience and were willing to listen to the rank and file, the bureaucracy was more efficient in implementing policy. Particularly when it came to natural disasters, the bureaucratic coordination of the former government outperformed the current KMT government. Because DPP leaders emphasized the achievement of goals and overall performance, the bureaucracy had no choice but to live up to it.
As power returned to the KMT, bureaucratic culture returned to its old ways. The bureaucracy’s weapons to stifle change are truly intimidating. The first line of defense is usually delay and obfuscation. Bureaucrats also tend to use crises to block initiatives for change. Most importantly, they can’t see the defects in their systems. They are isolated from the public and do not acknowledge people’s frustrations.
A public official must see the permanent bureaucracy that surrounds him as the enemy of change. Otherwise he or she will be hijacked by the big and complicated government machine. Officials must realize that their appointees are easily captured by the permanent bureaucracy and turned against change. So if the national leader displays no strong determination for change and aggressive leadership, it gives the bureaucracy leeway to do what it wants.
Nevertheless, as the voters become more politically aware, no leader or political party can take the public’s patience for granted. Ma’s case illustrates not only his inability to introduce bureaucratic change but also a blindness to public need.
Liu Shih-chung is visiting fellow of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
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