The appointment of Armed Force Reserve Command (AFRC) Commander General Hsueh Shih-ming (
Vice Administrative Defense Minister Lieutenant General Chen Ti-tuan (陳體端) has been announced as the next commander of the AFRC, an arrangement that surprised many in defense circles.
According to the rules for selection of generals for important positions, Chen is not qualified to be the head of the AFRC, which is equivalent to the commander-in-chief of the armed services.
Chen, to be promoted to three-star general to be able to command the AFRC, lacks some important work experience required from the head of the armed services. He is however known as one of Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming's (
To qualify as an armed-service leader, a candidate is usually expected to have served in important positions such as a corps commander or deputy commander-in-chief.
But this experience is absent from Chen's resume. The appointment of Chen as the commander of the AFRC has thus prompted speculation that the move might have special significance.
Initial speculation about Hsueh's successor was focused on Military Police Commander Lieutenant General Yu Lien-fa (余連發), who is one of a few Taiwan-born generals who rose quickly in the ranks after the change of political power in 2000.
A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the appointment might be a gesture of goodwill from President Chen Shui-bian (
"The appointment of three-star generals is within the power of the president. Chen chose one of Tang's most trusted men to head the AFRC possibly for the purpose of persuading Tang to stay on at his post for even longer than he has promised," the official said.
Tang asked to resign after the March 20 presidential elections because of an eye disease and old age. Though quite determined to leave, Tang has agreed after persuasion by Premier Yu Shyi-kun to stay on until the new Cabinet is formed.
Tang has not given up, however, his plan to step down. Whether he might change his mind now about leaving has become a concern in defense circles.
Before he announced his resignation, Tang was widely expected to be invited by the Chen government to remain in the Cabinet for at least another year.
Tang's determination to quit his post posed a serious problem to Chen, who does not have many choices for a suitable replacement.
If Tang stepped down, the next defense minister was expected by many to be a civilian, not a retired general like Tang or most of his predecessors.
For the moment, civilians who are considered to be capable of leading the Ministry of National Defense are few. They include incumbent Defense Minister Lin Chong-pin (
The selection of any one of the three above the others poses a problem in itself and none of the three are accepted by the military, which places rank and seniority above everything else.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching