Five weeks after President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) confidant King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) took over as the secretary-general of the National Security Council (NSC), the Ma administration on Monday evening announced a new lineup of intelligence personnel, covering national security, investigative intelligence and homeland security.
According to the NSC, Deputy Minister of National Defense Lee Hsiang-chou (李翔宙) will be head of the National Security Bureau (NSB) after NSB Director-General Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝) resigned for health reasons.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice announced the ministry’s Investigation Bureau career veteran Wang Chung-yi (汪忠一) will fill the post left vacant by bureau Director-General Wang Fu-lin (王福林), who is retiring, and that Mo Tien-hu (莫天虎), currently responsible for bureau investigations into domestic security issues, will replace Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功) as National Immigration Agency (NIA) director-general.
Taking into account that in January a man rammed a 35 tonne truck into the main gate of the Presidential Office Building, the siege of the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber on March 18 and the various confrontations and clashes that followed, some have seen the reshuffle as a much-needed move to regroup and tighten up intelligence at all levels of the government.
Putting aside that the promotions of Wang Chung-yi and Mo disregarded rank and seniority — two essential elements traditionally respected by intelligence units — and that the NSC, which advises the president on security issues, overstepped the mark by announcing the NSB reshuffle, a matter that ought to fall under the president’s authority, a close look at the list of appointees is enough to raise eyebrows. Speculation has been rife that there is more to it than a reshuffle of personnel only relating to internal matters.
According to information from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), of the 260,000 Chinese married to Taiwanese nationals, 150,000 have obtained Republic of China citizenship. Some say that Mo’s past experience working on investigations on domestic security issues will allow the NIA, under his leadership, to better track Chinese espionage under the pretense of marriage. However, in view of the year-end seven-in-one elections, skeptics must wonder if Ma has something else in mind, for after all, the 150,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens could be mobilized to vote in a certain party’s favor.
Then there is Wang Chung-yi, who was formerly head of the Anti-Money Laundering Division. Wang Chung-yi is well-placed to monitor the capital flow of lawmakers, tycoons and those who aspire to run in the year-end seven-in-one elections or the 2016 presidential elections. The question is whether those who support the “Appendectomy Project” — recalling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and contributing to funding of over NT$11 million (US$366,000) — may also come under Wang Chung-yi’s monitoring.
As for Lee Hsiang-chou, his promotion is controversial, as he was one of the military officers reprimanded by the Ministry of National Defense in July last year over the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), and he is now being promoted to an intelligence post.
Granted, good intelligence is key to good policymaking and it is a matter of course for a government to seek competent intelligence services.
As such, the president certainly has the right to decide who he wants to appoint. The crux of the matter lies in how he chooses to use these intelligence services — for the good of the national interest or his own personal, partisan gains?
In the wake of the Sunflower movement, Ma has said that he and the KMT would engage in some soul-searching to better understand how to react to the public.
This ought to encourage humility, not a closer grip over the intelligence apparatus, in effect turning Taiwan into a police state.
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