US embassy cable - 05TAIPEI3945

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 003945 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS AIT/W 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/23/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, TW, Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics 
SUBJECT:  THE INNER CIRCLE:  PRIMER ON POLICY MAKING IN 
TAIPEI 
 
REF: TAIPEI 3240 
 
Classified By: AIT Acting Director David J. Keegan, Reason(s): 
1.4 (B/D) 
 
1.  (S) Summary.  A close inner circle of trusted associates 
both advises Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian on foreign 
policy and has the most accurate information on those issues. 
 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the National 
Security Bureau (NSB) have been largely excluded from policy 
formulation and relegated to operational and informational 
roles.  The very limited nature of the decision making 
process, however, also inhibits the effectiveness of the 
resulting policy as, for example, President Chen's recent 
initiative to attend the APEC leaders meeting and meet Hu 
Jintao.  End Summary. 
 
Chen's Kitchen Cabinet 
---------------------- 
 
2.  (S) Last month, AIT telephoned National Security Council 
(NSC) Senior Advisor Lin Cheng-wei for information on 
President Chen's "Republic of China is Taiwan" statement 
(reftel) after finding other interlocutors unavailable.  Lin 
was able to supply the requested information within the hour, 
but he made a point at his next meeting with AIT of 
identifying the most appropriate officials to contact for 
such close-hold information.  There are five officials, he 
explained, who are closest to the President and most directly 
involved in decision making and who should be contacted for 
quick information giving or receiving needs.  (Note:  AIT 
regularly works, inter alia, with all five officials, but 
Lin's comments provide a useful codification of Chen's inner 
circle.)  These five officials are: 
 
(1) Ma Yung-cheng, Deputy Secretary-General, Presidential 
Office; 
 
(2) James Huang (Chih-fang), Deputy Secretary-General, 
Presidential Office; 
 
(3) Chiou I-jen, NSC Secretary-General; 
 
(4) Ke Cheng-heng, NSC Deputy Secretary-General; and 
 
(5) Lin Jin-chang, NSC Senior Advisor and presidential 
speechwriter. 
 
3.  (S) Ma Yung-cheng, Ke Cheng-heng, and Lin Jin-chang, Lin 
Cheng-wei told AIT, are three of Ma's closest associates, who 
have been by his side for many years.  (Note:  AIT has been 
told on several occasions by contacts close to the Office of 
the President that a fourth member of this most intimate 
group is Luo Wen-chia, who is currently campaigning for the 
important Taipei County Magistrate position in the December 3 
local elections.)  Chiou I-jen is an important DPP leader in 
his own right, Lin Cheng-wei continued, active in the 1970's 
anti-KMT (dang-wai) movement, one of the 18 founders of the 
DPP, and founder of the DPP's "New Tide" faction.  While 
President Chen is distrustful of New Tide, the largest DPP 
faction, Lin noted, Chen now believes Chiou has, as promised, 
withdrawn from active participation in New Tide.  Finally, 
Lin Cheng-wei told AIT, James Huang, the cautious and 
diplomatic former Taiwan diplomat, has steadily gained trust 
and influence with President Chen.  Huang, Lin said, is 
"solid, calm, and an excellent organizer."  (Note:  Huang 
usually stands or walks just behind the President through 
most of the President's overseas trips, including his 
just-concluded U.S. transit.  End Note.)  In a series of 
meetings with the Acting Director over the past week 
regarding President Chen's U.S. transit, Huang showed himself 
to be not only circumspect and cool in the face of high 
pressures, but also close and apparently indispensable to the 
President (judging by the number of times he was called in to 
see the President on both official and personal matters). 
 
Japan Addendum 
-------------- 
 
4.  (S) All the above said, Lin Cheng-wei hastened to add, he 
himself is the policy insider on Taiwan relations with Japan. 
 MOFA, he continued, has only five people in the East Asia 
and Pacific Affairs Division (Yadung Taipingyang Si) working 
on Japan, none of whom, he lamented, had much experience with 
Japan.  NSC SecGen Chiou, he explained, depended on him, Lin, 
to oversee and strategize Taiwan's Japan policy.  (Note:  Lin 
Cheng-wei, a U.S. Ph.D. and former professor at the 
University of Hokaido, said he caught Chiou's eye in the 
course of Chiou's visits to Tokyo during the first Chen term, 
when Lin was serving as Special Assistant to the Taiwan TECRO 
Representative in Tokyo.) 
 
MOFA, NSB, and Organizational Lacunae 
------------------------------------- 
 
5.  (S) President Chen, Lin Cheng-wei continued, has come to 
rely on -- and trust -- less and less the two other major 
foreign affairs organizations:  MOFA and NSB.  Lin explained 
that he himself had found he cannot depend on MOFA, which is 
very thinly staffed with officers who have limited reporting 
and analytical abilities.  Most are nose-to-the-grindstone 
bureaucrats or ideologues with agendas.  Lin noted that he 
has largely stopped reading MOFA reporting cables and NSB 
reports, because they convey little more than newspapers. 
SecGen Chiou has come to the same conclusion, Lin continued, 
based on an earlier experience in which an academic foreign 
policy specialist turned out consistently more accurate 
analyses and forecasts based on open sources than did the NSB 
with its retinue of analysts and information sources. 
 
Comment:  Inner Circle Liabilities 
---------------------------------- 
 
6.  (S)  Comment.  While functional government agencies take 
the lead on specific issues, such as the Mainland Affairs 
Council (MAC) on day-to-day cross-Strait issues, the most 
important policy issues are decided by the President himself 
surrounded by a small coterie of advisors.  This can be 
problematic, since it restricts the amount and variety of 
information and advice available to the President.  From 
conversations with some NSC staffers, it is clear that the 
President and his small group decided to move quickly forward 
via the media on his proposal to attend the November APEC 
leaders meeting in Pusan, catching MOFA and other agencies by 
surprise.  The close-hold nature of the initiative, James 
Huang later acknowledged to the Acting Director, had 
prevented any effort to prepare the way with host Seoul, with 
the U.S. and other APEC members and, most importantly, with 
Beijing.  As a result, what might have been an interesting 
long-shot ended a non-starter. 
KEEGAN