Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) is soon to become the youngest member of Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) new Cabinet.
The question surrounding the 35-year-old Cheng's nomination is whether she was appointed primarily because of her gender and youth.
Cheng's appointment as the future head of the National Youth Commission (NYC) did not come as much of a surprise. As a young woman with close ties to the Chen administration, she matches perfectly the profile that Chen had set for candidates for the NYC chair.
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
During a meeting late last month with representatives of students and young people, Chen promised that the new NYC head would be "the youngest person in the Cabinet" and, moreover, would be a woman under 35. Chen has said that he wants to make his Cabinet younger and more female-friendly.
Cheng is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Universite de Paris 10 in Nanterre, France.
She is also an executive officer at Taiwan Thinktank, a policy research institute composed of pro-DPP figures from politics, economics and academia.
Besides working at Taiwan Thinktank, Cheng has also been lecturing part-time on politics at Soochow University.
Because of Chen's age and gender requirements for the NYC chair, it has seemed to some that Cheng was chosen not on merit but only because she fit Chen's profile.
However, Cheng's friends say that her work attitude and previous experience in activism make her a good pick as NYC chairwoman.
Chen Po-chih (陳博志), Thinktank chairman and former head of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, was a key figure pushing for Cheng's appointment based on his knowledge of her work at the Thinktank.
"Chen wanted a young female for this position, but the truth is that the number of young people with sufficient ability is not large. I knew that Cheng would be a good choice and I strongly recommended her to the president," he said to the Taipei Times last week.
"She is a conscientious worker and a careful planner with good ideology," Chen Po-chih said.
Comments from Cheng's colleagues at the Thinktank indicate that she was a good administrator.
"Whenever the Thinktank did anything, Cheng was always the one in the middle who took care of all the details and wrapped up the work," said one co-worker who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) highlighted Cheng's experience as a student activist during the early 1990s with the Wild Lily Student Movement at National Taiwan University, where she was a student.
"The NYC position needs someone who is action-orientated and is good at policy implementation. Cheng is a radical who has creativity," he said, adding that he believed Cheng, as a young person herself, was a good person to lead the commission.
Regarding her appointment, Cheng said that she had always considered herself a behind-the-scenes operator, never a front-line leader.
However, after being encouraged to take the job by Chen Po-chih and Lin, she decided to do so.
The NYC has one of the smallest budgets and smallest staffs of all the Cabinet-level committees. Although the commission's stated purpose is to cultivate the spirit of optimism in youth and provide channels through which young people can contribute to society, under KMT rule, the commission was generally known as a breeding and training ground for future KMT elites, Lin said.
"The KMT used the NYC to control youth; now, the NYC is being redefined to teach youths how to lead the nation," Lin said.
Outgoing NYC chairwoman Lin Fang-mei (林芳玫) worked during Chen Shui-bian's first administration to redefine the organization's mission. Under her leadership, the NYC aimed to foster comprehensive youth development, with a focus on career training for young adults and women, volunteering among youth and the strengthening of the nation's NGOs and its international NGO profile.
"Because of its smaller scope, the NYC acts as an interface among various governmental departments, such as the Ministry of Education, the Council of Cultural Affairs, Council of Labor Affairs and the National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports," Lin said.
During comments to the press on Friday, Cheng said that she planned to use her position to open up communication between young people and the government by "listening to, encouraging and serving" the youth of today.
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