It takes time and resources to cultivate talent. The KMT was in power for more than 50 years. It therefore has a large pool of talent at its disposal after a long process of cultivation. As for the DPP, the party took power before the development of its elite was complete. To gain power in a country is one thing; to rule a country is quite another. Although the DPP has found itself obliged to borrow talent from other parties, it is crucial that the party come up with its own scheme to develop talent -- one that is able to ensure long-term peace and national stability.
I believe that the following characterize the DPP's current policy to develop talent:
First, it has recruited talent from everywhere except within. The DPP has only gradually cultivated its own government team while recruiting talent from all sides. After coming to power, the government suffered badly as a result of a series of internal and external matters, such as the disputes over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and working hours, the battles between the ruling and opposition camps, the record high unemployment rate, the international economic downturn and the relocation of Taiwanese businesses to China. As a result, the government has had no choice but to recruit talent from all sides while at the same time seeking to cultivate its own staff.
Second, it has grown in both its idealism and its realism. The DPP is certainly a party with aspirations. But many of its Cabinet members are inexperienced. The party's ideology, meanwhile, is not recognized by either the opposition parties or the Chinese government, for all President Chen Shui-bian's (
Third, the party is moving forward while learning how to control the government machine and realizing certain administrative goals. It has taken time for the government and the old bureaucracy to begin to operate in full harmony to achieve the DPP's goals. The poor performance of the Cabinet should surprise no one, since the government's leaders have had no time to train their colleagues.
The government can be expected to continue to borrow talent from all sides as it continues to develop its own staff. Indeed, it has no choice but to rely heavily on financial and economic talent from other parties as it strives for economic prosperity. But the most important task facing the DPP is to establish a scheme to develop talented figures in order to prepare itself for long-term governance. From the president down to each and every Cabinet mem-ber, the party should actively cultivate as many potential successors as possible, not just one or two. Any evaluation of the performance of a head of government should take account of the number of people he is actively cultivating for leadership positions.
Chen Ming-chang is a professor of business administration at National Taipei University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS