The full lineup of Premier-designate Chen Chien-jen’s (???) new Cabinet was unveiled Monday, with academics and ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) apparatchiks among those appointed to deputy ministerial positions.
From the world of academia, Roy Lee (??), a trade liberalization policy, WTO, services trade and regional integration professor, will serve as deputy foreign minister, incoming Cabinet Spokesman Chen Tsung-yen (???) told a press conference Monday.
Lee, currently the senior deputy executive director of the Taiwan WTO and RTA Center at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, will replace Tsai Ming-yen (???), following the latter’s appointment as National Security Bureau secretary-general.
Chen added that Wang Ya-fen (???), a professor at Chung Yuan University’s Department of Environmental Engineering, had been appointed the deputy minister at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Wang, the current head of the Sustainable Environmental Education Center and Taiwan Association for Aerosol Research, will become the first female deputy minister in the EPA’s 36-year history and replaces the retiring Tsai Hung-teh (???).
Meanwhile, Chen also announced the appointment of Deputy Secretary-General to the President Lee Chun-yi (???), a former DPP lawmaker, as deputy Minister of Labor.
In addition, former DPP Taipei City Councilor Ruan Jhao-syong (???) will serve as deputy minister for Overseas Community Affairs Council, while Chou Chiang-chieh (???) will become deputy minister at the Hakka Affairs Council.
At Monday’s press conference, incoming Executive Yuan Secretary-General Li Men-yen (???) noted that the number of women in the Cabinet had increased by three to seven.
Li said President Tsai Ing-wen (???) had tasked the new Cabinet with addressing four main areas — post-pandemic economic recovery, infrastructure, bolstering Taiwan’s social safety net and assisting the “six key strategic industries” of communication technology, information security, precision healthcare, defense, renewable energy and wartime necessities.
Earlier on Monday, ex-Premier Su Tseng-chang (???) led his Cabinet members to resign en masse, part of a reshuffle prompted by DPP’s bruising defeat in local government elections in November last year.
The 75-year-old Su, who has headed the executive branch under Tsai since January 2019, tendered his resignation on Jan. 19 after an earlier offer to resign was turned down by the president on election night.
Su is the longest-serving premier since Taiwan first held direct presidential elections in 1996.
The new Cabinet led by Chen Chien-jen, who served as vice president during Tsai’s first term from 2016-2020, will be sworn in on Tuesday.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel