US embassy cable - 04TAIPEI3116

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 003116 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS AIT/W 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/07/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PINR, CH, TW, Cross Strait Politics 
SUBJECT: MAC APPOINTS CROSS-STRAIT NEOPHYTE AS VICE CHAIR 
 
REF: TAIPEI 02074 
 
Classified By: AIT Director Douglas Paal, Reasons: 1.4 (B/D) 
 
1. (C) Summary: The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) announced 
October 1 that Academia Sinica Research Fellow David Huang 
would assume the MAC vice chairman position previously held 
by Alexander Huang.  A specialist in European local politics, 
David Huang has no experience in cross-Strait affairs, and 
has never worked outside of academia.  Huang readily admits 
that he knows little about cross-Strait policymaking and the 
role of MAC in this process, but said he took the job as a 
favor to MAC Chairman Joseph Wu.  While a respected political 
scientist in his own right, Huang is perhaps best known for 
being the son of former Central Election Commissioner George 
Huang.  End Summary. 
 
New kid on the block 
-------------------- 
 
2. (C) MAC Senior Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san announced 
October 1 the appointment of David Huang (Wei-feng) to fill 
the post of Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) vice chairman most 
recently held by Alexander Huang.  The post is the most 
junior of three vice chairman positions and is responsible 
for Hong Kong, cultural affairs, and liaison with third 
countries.  Huang is currently an associate research fellow 
at Academia Sinica's Institute of European and American 
Studies.  Huang told AIT that his appointment is still 
awaiting President Chen Shui-bian's approval, but reasoned 
that MAC Chairman Joseph Wu must have secured President 
Chen's consent before offering the job to him.  Huang 
admitted that he has no background on cross-Strait issues, 
but he agreed to take the MAC job in order "to help Joseph." 
 
3. (C) A specialist in European electoral behavior with 
degrees from MIT, Cambridge, and Oxford, Huang said that 
working at MAC would be a challenge for him.  Based on the 
briefings he has received from MAC, Huang told AIT that he 
could not determine whether MAC is a driver or merely an 
administrator of Chen's cross-Strait policy.  He said that 
MAC appears to be setting its agenda based mainly on public 
opinion polls.  Citing recent MAC polls, Huang said most 
Taiwan residents claim to strongly favor direct air 
transportation links with the Mainland.  However, equally 
large numbers of respondents say they want Taiwan to proceed 
slowly with direct links and express concern about security 
and immigration problems associated with closer ties with the 
Mainland.  Huang exclaimed, "With that sort of data, how does 
a government formulate policy?" 
 
4. (C) While Huang said he was still in a learning mode for 
his new job, he did offer personal views on cross-Strait 
policy that generally track with the Chen administration's 
stated approach.  Huang said that President Chen's offer 
early in his first term to pursue "political integration" 
with the PRC was an opportunity for meaningful dialogue. 
Huang said that Chen would be committing political suicide if 
he used the term "unification," thus the integration 
formulation was the best he could do politically.  If Beijing 
had acted on the offer, at least they would have opened the 
door to an institutionalized framework to pursue eventual 
unification, Huang assessed.  Huang added that he believes 
the United States should take a more active role in 
encouraging Taipei and Beijing to come to the negotiating 
table. 
 
Political Family 
---------------- 
 
5. (C) Although Huang has spent his entire career in research 
and has no government experience, he has observed "hometown 
politics" first hand as the son of former Central Election 
Commissioner George Huang (Shih-cheng).  The elder Huang is 
among the most astute and successful "dangwai" politicians of 
his generation, serving two terms as a non-partisan Changhwa 
County Magistrate during the era of KMT one-party rule. 
(Note: Huang's reputation, however, suffered a bruising in 
the sequence of signal switching the CEC sent concerning the 
conduct of the March 20 election and referendums.  End note) 
The younger Huang said his father did not join the KMT 
because of his distaste for the party's authoritarian rule 
and because he had his own ideas about how to govern.  George 
Huang's "distaste" for authoritarian rule, however, did not 
prevent him from befriending one of Chiang Ching-kuo's sons 
and forming a "blood brother" pact with him.  George Huang 
later won the political patronage of Lee Teng-hui -- some say 
through his sister, reportedly Lee's long-time mistress -- 
and has remained close to Lee to this day.  David Huang said 
that his father never shared the DPP's ideology or the former 
president's pro-independence stance, preferring to focus on 
the practical issues of local governance.  Ironically, the 
elder Huang decided not to cultivate his more 
intellectually-minded son for a political career.  That 
mantle has fallen to David Huang's younger sister.  A 
practicing attorney, she is currently running an independent 
campaign for the Legislative Yuan in Changhwa, the family's 
powerbase. 
Comment: Amateur Hour 
--------------------- 
6. (C) The 30-something David Huang was tapped for the number 
four slot in the MAC hierarchy after the job had by turned 
down by former People First Party International Affairs 
Director Raymond Wu (Reftel) and at least three other people. 
 Huang's appointment is yet another reminder of how thin the 
Pan-Green foreign policy bench is.  Lacking expertise in 
cross-Strait affairs and experience in government, Huang's 
main asset was a personal relationship with MAC Chairman Wu, 
a fellow cross-Strait policy neophyte.  While MAC's role may 
be only a shadow of what it was under Tsai Ing-wen, the fact 
that Huang will be tasked with explaining a policy he readily 
admits not understanding himself is a reminder that the DPP 
government remains an amateur operation in many ways, even 
after four years in office. 
PAAL