After the excitement of last month's legislative elections, Taiwan is now gearing up for a Cabinet reshuffle. Speculation is rife in the newspapers that the reshuffle will affect everyone from the premier and vice premier to the heads of the "hot" ministries.
The replacements may be DPP county or city chiefs whose terms are expiring or who lost re-election bids. The incumbent ministers and vice ministers must be feeling quite uncomfortable. After all, no one can be sure what President Chen Shui-bian (
The KMT and People First Party (PFP) have refused to join the "cross-party alliance for national stabilization" (
Secretary-General to the Presidential Office Yu Shyi-kun recently related Chen's thoughts on the topic, saying, "In the future, even if some adjustments are made to Cabinet personnel, it won't be the result of poor policy administration or Cabinet members being uncooperative. Rather, [adjustments] will occur in response to changing times and shifting administrative priorities."
Chen appears to have already begun thinking strategically regarding the Cabinet reshuffle. His purpose is to forge a "strategic Cabinet" for the nation's future, that will enable him to realize the overall goals of his four-year term as president. The scope and direction of Cabinet personnel changes are reflections of this kind of strategic thinking.
First, Chen needs to establish what kind of Cabinet he needs. Will it be a multi-party "political Cabinet" that aims for smooth political administration? Or will it be a "financial and economic Cabinet" that puts all its weight behind economic development?
If it is the former, perhaps Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (
Second, the functions of the more "political" ministries need to be considered. What are the future goals of important agencies such as the Ministry of the Interior (內政部), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (外交部), the Ministry of National Defense (國防部) and the Mainland Affairs Council (陸委會)? Those in power should choose ministerial heads based on these goals.
Last, choosing Cabinet personnel requires understanding of candidates' talents. Having extensive professional experience and ability is standard for civil servants, but is often not necessary for ministers and vice ministers. Political appointees should possess skills such as versatility, leadership, political vision, management and the ability to handle crises. Only then will they be able to lead their ministries and create an outstanding administration characterized by quality and achievement.
The Cabinet reshuffle this time will coincide with a reshuffle of the top positions in the Examination Yuan (
There are also six Control Yuan (監察院) and grand justices vacancies that need filling. As a result, Chen has a fair number of bargaining chips and political space to work with as he arranges his new personnel scheme.
Chen can also encourage certain excellent, but not necessarily suitable, vice ministers and ministers to take up posts in the Examination Yuan or Control Yuan. This could reduce the resentment felt by these officials at being removed from their posts and give them an opportunity to make better use of their talents. Still, Chen must take care not to replace those in the Examination Yuan and other departments who are well-suited to their posts.
The Cabinet reshuffle is the most sensitive of political issues. Who will enter the new Cabinet? Who will leave politics for other professions -- or just sadly step down? Surprising changes may arise from Chen's strategic thinking.
Chen Sung-shan is a member of the Civil Service Protection and Training Commission under the Examination Yuan.
Translated by Scudder Smith
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
RSS