Liberty Times (LT): What is the primary objective of national security at the moment?
Ting Yu-chou (丁渝洲): National security encompasses a wide range of complex issues, including national defense, diplomacy and cross-strait issues, as well as non-conventional national security issues. It is the maintenance of sustainable national strategic links, and is the responsibility and burden of all those in a position of leadership.
The government has to be able to keep tabs on potential sources of threats against national security, as well as knowing the level of threat they represent. The government must also understand its own strategic capabilities to be able to come up with effective counter-measures to deal with any change concerning our state of safety, providing the public with a stable environment.
At this juncture, what I feel is the most important and pressing point is the safety of our economy and our psychological state. Though psychological warfare is rather intangible, it is nonetheless ubiquitous, and if our psychological state succumbs to the other side, the results would be severe and the damage incalculable.
At present, there are a few items concerning psychological safety that must be addressed. Primary among them is the crisis of confidence in our leader of state.
With the rough-edged decisions on several important policies recently made by the ruling political party, the people do not know which voice to listen to. In addition, the government’s policymakers do not seem to be able to take into account the people’s feelings and so the people are beginning to turn on the government, causing the government to have low public approval ratings.
A government that has lost the support of the majority of the people will have to try twice as hard to promote certain policies, so the government’s priority right now is to figure out how to salvage its lack of public support.
That cannot be accomplished with just propaganda. The leader of the nation must show resolve and wisdom to slice through all the knots, lay to rest all the current problems and focus on pushing through reforms.
Second is the “unified front” psychological warfare rhetoric that China is using against us. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded 1927, “the united front” rhetoric has been its unfailing tool.
Not only is the CCP waging full-scale psychological warfare against Taiwan, the ever-expanding reach of the Internet also gives Chinese psychological warfare propaganda an ubiquitous presence.
The “three noes” policy — no unification, no independence, no use of force (不統, 不獨, 不武) —adopted by [President] Ma [Ying-jeou’s (馬英九)] administration as the guiding principle for China policy, also does not help because it causes the public to feel that we are living in peaceful times, causing lapses in security-consciousness from the government and its leader and also in society and civil servants.
Since the government does not seem to care about psychological warfare defense for its civilian population, it does not place any emphasis on conducting counter-psychological warfare, either.
How can we not be worried when the government completely ignores the security of the nation against [the threat of] psychological warfare?
Third, the security systems within the government are showing signs of failure. In earlier days, the Human Resource Department’s Second Office handled governmental internal security screening. Later, the task was turned over to the Ethics Offices.
With the Second Office now an empty shell, the government is riddled with security breaches and does not defend society. This leaves our government wide open to enemies and even friendly nations who use every mean possible to find the strategic information they need.
The government must acknowledge the gravity of the situation and resolve it as soon as possible.
After further observation of the higher echelons of the government, I hope that the government can follow the steps of other advanced countries and provide a periodic National Security Strategy paper to set the course for national security and intelligence units.
Such a move would also make government officials aware of our national security status and prompt a higher alert for maintaining security. I am here making a call for the Ma administration to establish a system in order to maintain an environment conducive to the nation’s long-term safety as soon as possible.
LT: Aside from the leadership, the current hiring of personnel is also a great problem [under Ma’s leadership.] What are your thoughts on the issue?
Ting: The choice of personnel by the Ma administration suffers from the common problem of always using the same type of people. The selection process also places an emphasis on having a balanced proportion of nationality and gender among personnel, and prioritizes those who have a doctorate or that know Ma.
Such an attitude toward personnel selection will usually limit the stock one can choose from. In particular, adopting such a method will make the critical error of not conducting the most basic check-ups on personnel.
The current nomination for the members of the National Communications Commission is one example of this error, and it is extremely puzzling how the government can keep making the same mistake.
The people these days are actually very practical and do not mind the matter of nationality that much. What they need is a person who is truly impartial and has the ability to serve the people and one whose nominated administrative officials not only have the integrity and the professional knowledge required for the job, but also have the strategic qualities of independence of thought, capability of forming policies, are skilled at problem solving and crisis management, adept at communicating, emphasize team spirit and have the resolve to see things through.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
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