According to the NSC Organizational Law which took effect in 1994, the National Security Council (NSC,
Unfortunately, that all-encompassing catch phrase -- national security -- is still vague enough to raise concern among many in Taiwan who say it is a throwback to the days of martial law, when such agencies operated outside the bounds of normal administrative procedure.
As a result, the NSC's "legalization" has failed to dispel doubts over its real role within the government's policy-making apparatus, analysts and legislators say.
Much of the controversy surrounding the NSC has to date been focused on whether the council has indeed restricted itself to providing advice to the president or whether it has been superseding the authority of both the executive and legislative branches of government to implement the president's policies.
Its role and status has always been murky, of course, since the council was established by the late Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (
As military analyst Su Chin-chiang (
"Before the 1990s, it also developed certain major policies for the president, handing them down to the Executive Yuan for enforcement," Su said.
However, the council began to see its power wane under the Generalissimo's son, who ascended the presidency in 1978, three years after his father's death.
"The NSC started losing its influence around the time General Wego Chiang (
"The purpose behind the move was obviously to reduce the role and function of the NSC."
This process of marginalization apparently continued until President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) took over following Chiang's death in 1988.
And yet, despite the enormous democratic changes wrought by Lee since then, the NSC has actually seen its power increase again, critics say.
National Assembly deputy Yang Ming-hua (
He claims the NSC cannot be justified from a legal perspective since its operation is virtually impervious to monitoring by lawmaking bodies.
And besides, he says, the inclusion of the premier in a meeting of the council creates a natural conflict of interest with his constitutionally mandated role as the nation's chief executive.
How, for instance, can he sit in on an NSC meeting on an equal footing with his Cabinet members, then resume his normal duties as the superior of those same ministers once the meeting is concluded?
In the most recent issue of the ROC yearbook published by the Government Information Office, the NSC is described as "an advisory body to the president," and its main functions are "to determine the ROC's national security polices and to assist in planning the ROC's security strategy."
Minister of National Defense Tang Fei (
"If the NSC is a policy-making organ for the president, both the Executive Yuan and the legislature must be downgraded as a result," Tang admitted.
"But once a meeting of the NSC is called by the president, it turns into an emergency-handling mechanism. It will provide policy-making suggestions to the president as the basis for him to make the final decision," he said.
His explanation drew a measure of skepticism in response from Su and other well-known academics.
"From a legal perspective, the NSC is more than a consulting agency. Its role and function tend to change with its leadership. In other words, the agency is quite subject to human influences," Su said.
"When the NSC was under the rule of Ting Mao-shih (
"Now, with Yin Chung-wen (
Naturally, there needs to be some clout to go behind the pursuit of such objectives. "Authorization from President Lee Teng-hui is apparently behind it," Su said.
A clear sign of the council's re-emergence as a policy-making power was the controversy generated by President Lee's pledge of US$300 million in financial aid to Kosovo, analysts say.
Others say that Lee's "special state-to-state relations" statement in July, which so enraged China and shook up relations with Washington as well, bore all the hallmarks of the NSC's growing influence under Yin.
Indeed, the NSC's scope has broadened under Yin's leadership, covering even Taiwan's bid to enter the WTO, several analysts said.
Whether this will continue, however, is uncertain, as Yin, a retired army general, has been hospitalized since August for lung cancer treatment. His prede-cessor, Ting, has retaken his post temporarily.
It is also doubtful whether the NSC has much capacity for further wide-ranging work as it lacks personnel who are up to the task, analysts said. The council has only five full-time officials, who do not have a large research staff at their disposal. Other employees serve mostly administrative functions.
Given these circumstances, it is doubtful whether the NSC can fulfill one of its most important functions -- to provide crucial advice to the president so that he can decide whether to declare war, the analysts said.
One military analyst, who declined to be identified, said the dubious role of the NSC cannot be settled unless greater constitutional clarity is brought to the debate over whether the country is actually run by the president or the premier.
If the president is clearly defined as the head of the government, the role of the NSC will become less controversial, the analyst said, but if the premier is supposed to be the chief executive, disputes will naturally arise over whether the Executive Yuan should take instructions from the NSC or the opposite.
Under the present Constitu-tion, the Premier is appointed by the President, but he can be unseated by a no-confidence motion in the legislature.
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