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Commission to hold first youth meet

In response to President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) post-election promise to invite greater participation by young people in national affairs, the Cabinet-level National Youth Commission will hold the country's first extraordinary Youth National Affairs Conference (青年國是會議) from Sept. 18 to Sept. 19.

Commission Chairwoman Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) yesterday delivered a progress report during the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Central Standing Committee meeting about organizing the conference. The conference will mark the first meeting held outside of the governmental system focusing on the participation of youth in deciding national policies.

The conference is the fruit of a meeting that occurred between President Chen and college students in April this year to deal with post-election issues such as ethnic division.

In April this year, Chen held a meeting with hundreds of university students in response to demands by some students, who staged sit-in protests in front of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to protest Chen's re-election victory, saying that it came at the expense of the country's ethnic harmony.

Chen yesterday said the conference will not only be a venue for young people to vent their dissatisfaction towards the government, but also to allow youth to put forth their suggestions in shaping the administrative policies.

"The first wave of Taiwan's democratization ensured the value of people power and Taiwan-centered consciousness, and the second wave of democratization will focus on building Taiwan as a civil society ... and at this juncture, young people are indispensable in the task of leading Taiwan into a mature civil society," Chen said yesterday.

Chen said the conference will aim to include the participation of young people from a diverse background and the discussion and advice of the meeting will be honored by the administration.

Cheng yesterday said that the meeting will proceed in the form of "deliberative democracy," a system in which political decisions are based on debate and consensus-building.

DPP Deputy Secretary-General Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said the Youth National Affairs Conference will be made in a documentary to provide a model for the practice of deliberative democracy to strengthen the country's public decision-making mechanism.

The conference will be held from Sept. 18 to Sept. 19 at Yangmingshan's Sun Yat-sen Hall (中山樓). Four preliminary meetings will be held around the country over the next two months prior to the convention of the September conference.

Cheng said young people will make up the main body of the meetings, changing the conventional way in which experts and scholars take the lead in policy discussion and decision-making.
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