Following Lin Chuan’s (林全) resignation as premier, William Lai (賴清德) formally took over the role on Friday last week.
Lin is an academic, a technocrat and a seasoned political adviser, whereas Lai, a doctor by profession, rose to political prominence during his tenure as mayor of Tainan. Lin is famously polite; Lai is known to be domineering.
When Lin assumed the role of premier, the media ridiculed his newly formed Cabinet as being “too old, too blue and too male.” Critics said that Lin should have given more Cabinet positions to younger politicians and that his Cabinet was not sufficiently wedded to the pan-green camp’s ideology to promote and defend government policy. There were complaints that its composition, which favored men over women, did nothing to further gender equality in government.
It remains to be seen whether Lai will be able to gradually remold the Cabinet into a more age, pan-green and gender-friendly collection of ministers.
Lin said in a statement after his resignation that he has fulfilled the tasks he set out to complete as premier. On that occasion, Presidential Office Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) gave a detailed account of what Lin had achieved — the list was quite long — during his 15 months in office.
Criticism of Lin’s Cabinet as lacking the ability to get the job done is not entirely fair. As is the case with many new administrations attempting to push through policies and reforms, while the motives behind the policies were not wrong, the government lacked preparation, mistimed the rollout of reforms and inadequately defended policies.
Simply put, the Cabinet was not working as one: Some members behaved like hyperactive children, while others carried out their briefs at a snail’s pace. Some of the more garrulous members were popping up left, right and center in the media, while others rarely made public appearances.
Taiwanese were left confused by an executive branch that appeared disjointed and out-of-step. Lin sometimes had to step in and fight fires on behalf of his Cabinet members.
The problem was that during the Cabinet’s first year in office, its policies were driven forward by ministers without portfolio, a process that undercut the authority of ministers who had not fully mastered their brief. People often made decisions on matters where they lacked expertise, causing efficiency to suffer. Ministers were unable to take command while departmental civil servants happily allowed ministers without portfolio to sound off, yet did not provide timely departmental backup to counter any loose talk.
Lai needs to have a frank discussion with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to immediately amend the government-by-committee policy implementation structure.
He also needs to dispel the idea among ministers without portfolio that they are on an equal footing with deputy ministers.
Full authority for the formulation of policy and overall government strategy must be restored to the Cabinet, and ministers must be held fully responsible for the initiation of policies and their subsequent success or failure.
Ministers without portfolio should be limited to coordinating policies through the inter-departmental decision-making process, to ensure a united government.
The regular Wednesday meeting between the heads of the four branches also requires changes. The premier must take the time to properly chair the meeting and he must be granted the leeway to put his stamp of authority — commensurate with his position within the hierarchy of the government — on the proceedings.
In these meetings the premier must ensure that each minister is fully cognizant of their brief and correctly understands their role. While one-to-one communication between the premier and Cabinet ministers is necessary, the collective strength of a dozen ministers getting together to thrash out policies is far more valuable.
As a former mayor, Lai has valuable experience in running a local government. He should therefore be able to master prioritizing the key tasks of government, a crucial skill to lead an effective administration.
An effective premier must keep his finger on the pulse of his Cabinet — knowing what the ministers are thinking, the goals they want to achieve and how they intend to achieve them.
Focusing on the major tasks without getting bogged down in trivial matters should be the order of the day, while “Don’t sweat the small stuff” should be the Cabinet’s watchword.
Conversely, if the Cabinet gives priority to insignificant policies while neglecting important tasks, it will expend political capital on trifling concerns for little or no long-term gain.
The premier’s position in government is akin to that of a company chief executive — academics are therefore likely to be unsuccessful.
Consultation with civic groups is an indispensable part of the decisionmaking process, but it must be sincere and genuine, not simply superficial window dressing.
Pro-China media in Taiwan and Taiwanese journalists working in Beijing are painting Lai’s replacement of Lin as a tweaking of the government’s cross-strait policy. This is a misreading of the situation, but also misplaced optimism on their part.
The Tsai administration’s cross-strait and foreign policies are supported by 60 percent of Taiwanese. Therefore, the government’s slump in opinion polls cannot be a consequence of these policies. Instead, the public is dissatisfied with the government’s methods and results in reforming domestic programs.
Moreover, in Taiwan’s system of government, the Presidential Office assumes overall responsibility for international relations and cross-strait policies, not the premier.
For this reason, Lai must conduct a thorough review of the Tsai administration’s domestic agenda, champion good policy and dispense with anything that is not working. He should also avoid getting in political fights and wasting any more vacuous platitudes on wooing Beijing.
At the news conference announcing that Lai would become her administration’s new premier, Tsai indicated seven important assignments with which Lai would be immediately tasked. They were all domestic tasks: industry, construction and growth, labor rights, non-nuclear energy, tax and pension reform, long-term care for older persons, childcare, national development strategy and financial matters.
Although Lai said that he would perform these tasks resolutely and unflinchingly, a premier has his own administrative priorities.
Lai must make it clear that he intends to focus on amending the government’s controversial package of labor reforms, starting by leading an internal discussion to determine how to untangle the government from its present bind. He must then successfully coordinate the passage of the required legislation through the Legislative Yuan.
Next, he must tackle pension reform, implement genuine tax reform, promote the transition and growth of domestic industry and reform the energy policy.
The most important task for the new Cabinet will be to send a clear message to Taiwanese that it will do things differently. It must display a new set of values, think things through before acting, display a greater degree of dynamism and, above all, have the courage to make difficult decisions while accepting the responsibility for them.
Michael Hsiao is a senior adviser to the Presidential Office.
Translated by Edward Jones
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