President William Lai’s (賴清德) committee on civil defense is to convene on Thursday for the first time, focusing on utilizing civilian resources, maintaining energy infrastructure, emergency medical care and communications resiliency.
Lai announced the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee a month after taking office in May, along with the National Climate Change Strategy Committee and the Healthy Taiwan Promotion Committee.
A government source with knowledge of the matter said today that the committee would serve to extend the missions of the All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency established under former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Photo: Taipei Times
However, the committee is to focus primarily on budgeting and determining whether resources are sufficient to achieve stated objectives, they said.
The committee is to consist of four advisors and 23 members, 69 percent of whom would be from outside of government and 31 percent of whom would be women, the official said.
The members are to discuss civilian training and utilization; energy and critical infrastructure maintenance; medical care and evacuation preparation; and security of communications, transportation and financial networks, they said.
Representing civilian training utilization would be representatives from religious groups such as Yushan Baoguang Temple and the Presbyterian Church, as well as from defense-related organizations including the National Defense Education Association, the Forward Alliance and Puma Academy.
Representatives from the Tzu Chi Foundation, Taiwan Development Association for Disaster Medical Teams and Puma Academy are to provide insight on medical and refugee issues, the official said.
Tina Lin (林雅芳), a managing director at Google Taiwan, and Trend Micro manager for Taiwan and Hong Kong Bob Hung (洪偉淦) are to join as expert voices on communications and network security, alongside representatives from the Taiwan Network Information Center, Taiwan Space Agency and Association of Hackers in Taiwan, they added.
Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) is to chair the committee, with Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) and National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) serving as deputy conveners, and Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) and Minister Without Portfolio Chi Lien-cheng (季連成) serving as executive secretaries.
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