The Typology of Civilian Control
3.2.2. Intra-civilian rivalry
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3.2.2. Intra-civilian rivalry
Following the legislative election in 2001, Taiwan political scene was divided into two major camps: the pan-blue and the pan-green. There were four major parties in Taiwan politics following the 2001 election (and kept the same following the 2004 election). Those are DPP (87/89 seats), KMT (67/79 seats), the People First Party (PFP – 45/32 seats), and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU – 13/12 seats).57
Chiung-chu Lin writes that two issues are particularly important in understanding Taiwan political polarization and Taiwan political parties’ vote-gathering strategy.
The pan-blue camp consisted of KMT and PFP and DPP and TSU formed the pan-green. The two camps’ core difference is over the issue of national identity and Taiwan’s China policy. There is a simplified tendency when one discusses Taiwan politics to identify pan-blue as pro-unification and pan-green as pro-independence or pan-blue as Chinese and pan-blue as Taiwanese. These identifications are neither fully flaw nor correct.
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57 The first number indicates each party’s seats after 2001 election while the second indicate those of 2004 election. The data is taken from Chia-lung Lin and I-chuang Lai, “Taiwan’s Party Reallignments in Transition” in Hsin-huang Michael Hsiao, Ed., Asian New Democracies: The Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan Compared, Taipei: Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, 2006, p. 257, 264, and 266.
Those issues are the unification vs. independence issue and political stability vs. political reform. Civilian camp in Taiwan is divided over these two issues in which pan-blue tends to prefer unification over independence and the pan-green is on the opposite. Meanwhile, on the issue of political stability and
58 Chiung-chu Lin, “The Role of Issue in Taiwan’s Politics, 1996-2004” in Issues and Studies 44: 1 (March 2008), pp. 71-104. Lin also covers other two issues which are economic development versus environmental protection and expansion versus contraction of social welfare program. Those two issues play a more limited role in comparison with the other two mentioned here.
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political reform, the mapping is a little bit different. Lin argues that it is only KMT that can be regarded as supporter of stability while the other three major parties advocate reform.59
The opposite camps in Taiwan politics define the other as rival in almost all issues, including on security affairs. The rivalry between pan-blue and pan-green appears in policy making of any affairs, including defense affairs. The problem with Taiwan defense policy making lies more on intra-Taiwan relations instead of Taiwan extra-relations.
The role of the later issue –political stability versus political reform– is somehow limited in comparison with the former –unification versus independence. That is why Taiwan political landscape is identified as two confronting blocs that divided over the identity line.
60
Taiwan experience represents case of attempts to establish civilian control in a society with deep cleavage over national identity. The establishment of civilian control is taking place in a society which has not yet done with its nation building process. In such case, the possibility that threat perception will be defined by an internal interest rather than external is high. This is exactly the case in Taiwan.
The issue of identity always appears in all subjects as a tool to garner voters.
The differentiation between us and them is apparent. Identity issue is considered as the highest priority that debates over any issue is regarded as second priority. Tzeng
59 Ibid, p. 83.
60 The problem also occurs in the other sector of society life. In the area of foreign policy, Eugene Hung-chang Kuan also makes a similar conclusion. His work on Taiwan’s UN policy indicates that the most influencing factors that drive Taiwan’s UN policy is not diplomatic needs or national interests but domestic politics. See Eugene Hung-chang Kuan, “Domestic Politics of Foreign Policy: Explaining the Formulation of Taiwan’s ‘Participate in the U.N.’ Policy” in Issues and Studies 42: 1 (March 2006), pp.
137-162.
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shares similar conclusion when he writes that “the interlocking connections between national identity politics and national security is very likely to place strategic doctrine, arms procurements, military training, education, and diplomacy in deadlock caused by identity contestations in political and civil society.”61
One example that shows the negative impact of rivalry over national identity to the establishment of objective civilian control is the debate over Taiwan arms procurement program. In April 2001, the Bush government offered to sell arms package to Taiwan that included 8 diesel-electric submarines, 12 P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, an integrated undersea surveillance system, 4 decommissioned KIDD-class destroyers, and some other items. In late 2001, the second offer came that include tanks, helicopters and PAC-3 missile defense system (for detail see Table 3.3).62
The debate between pan-blue and pan-green soon took place following the US announcement. DPP government wanted to purchase the weaponry system while KMT and its associate in the pan-blue rejected the idea. Both camps argued over the utility of these weapons for enhancing Taiwan security. After several debates and adjustments over the list of weaponry systems to be purchased, in June 2004 Chen’s government put forward a proposal for special defense budget. Michael Chase argues that the decision to use the special defense budget instead of place it in regular yearly budget plan was to avoid the debate over guns versus butter and due to the high cost that the government needed to pay to purchase these already adjusted weapon
Those were items that Taiwan asked for.
61 Yisuo Tzeng, What’s in a Name? Identity Politics and Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan paper prepared for MPSA 2006, April 20-23, 2006 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
62 Michael S. Chase, “Taiwan’s Arms Procurement Debate and the Demise of the Special Budget Proposal: Domestic Politics in Command” in Asian Survey 48: 4 (2008), pp. 703-724.
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Table 3.2. Arms package offered to Taiwan in 2001
The DPP was known as a strong advocate of welfare system. Such debate over guns versus butter would harden their own position in politics.
Source: Chase, “Taiwan’s Arms Procurement Debate and the Demise of the Special Budget Proposal,”
p. 706
Item Quantity
Diesel-electric submarines 8
P-3C maritime patrol aircraft 12
Mark-48 anti submarine warfare (ASW) torpedoes 54 Harpoon submarine-launched anti-ship cruise missiles 44
M109A6 Paladin self-propelled howitzers 144
AAV7A1 amphibious assault vehicles 54
An/ALE-50 towed decoys for F-16s --
MH-53 minesweeping helicopters 12
KIDD-class destroyers 4
Integrated undersea surveillance system --
M1A2 SEP Abrams battle tanks --
AH-64D Apache or AH-17 Super Cobra attack helicopters At least 3
SIGINT aircraft 4
PAC-3 missile defense systems 6 new fire units (and upgrade of
Taiwan’s 3 existing Patriot batteries)
Note: the last 4 items were those that offered later in 2001.
For comparison see Shirley Kan, Taiwan: Major US Arms Sales since 1990, Washington DC.:
Congressional Research Services, 2005.
This decision to use special defense budget created an even more heated debate. Pan-blue objected to this proposal for at least five reasons, as indicated by Chase, which include: the political cost in term of cross-strait tension that might came as result of this procurement, the high-price of the weapons and at the same time Taiwan was not in a good economic condition, the operational utility of these weapons in term of their capability to create sort of balance in cross-strait military capability, the use of special budget mechanism which pan-blue considered as inappropriate way of cutting of the regulations, and the huge amount of spending would not bring benefits to Taiwanese economy or create jobs at home.64
63 Ibid, p. 703.
The bottom
64 Ibid, pp.710-712.
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line of those arguments was actually due to political rivalry between the pan-blue and pan-green in which the pan-blue wanted to deny political victory to the pan-green.65
In conclusion, the rivalry within civilian camp during Chen Shui-bian era did exist. This rivalry was due to ethnic polarization which directly related to Taiwan’s China policy. This rivalry was one of the obstacles for the implementation of objective control.
3.2.3. Interpenetration
The study of civil-military relations is usually more focus on the issue of military penetration rather than civilian penetration. Military intervention is considered as something that must not be done. Military intervention would endanger the attempt to establish civilian control. In fact, sometime, military intervention is regarded as the failure of the establishment of civilian control. However, small attention has been given to civilian penetration. On my opinion, civilian penetration should also be considered as an important obstacle to the establishment of civilian control. The term civilian control does not necessarily means civilian controlling the whole activities of the military. There must be a balance role and power between civilian and military.
Military penetration to civilian area in the case of Taiwan under Chen Shui-bian era did not exist. There were some cases where the military, or to be precise, group or officer within the military, disagree with civilian authorities over certain issue. However, these disagreements could not be considered as crossing the line that separating military and civilian roles. On the other hand, I find several cases that I
65 Ibid, p. 704. See also Mark A. Stokes, “Taiwan’s Security: Beyond the Special Budget” in AEI Outlook 2 (2006), p. 1 and Justin Logan and Ted Galen Carpenter, “Taiwan’s Defense Budget: How Taipei’s Free Riding Risks War” in Policy Analysis of CATO Institute 600 (September 13, 2007), p. 4.
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would indicate as civilian penetration to military area. One of them is related to personnel policy. Personnel policy, on my opinion, should be on professional basis apart from the top rank generals which should be handpicked by the President. The overt involvement of the civilian authorities in personnel policy could disrupt internal control of the military and hence jeopardize military professionalism.
According to a KMT legislative member, Chen’s government used the personnel policy as political tool to create military loyalty to him and his government.66 He notes that from 20 May 2000 to 20 May 2008 Chen Shui-bian promoted 732 generals (558 to Major General, 147 to Lieutenant General, and 27 to General) in which during the same period there were only 677 generals retired from the military.67 According to him, this was a clear indication that Chen Shui-bian used personnel policy for his own interests. The personnel policy was used as a tool to create loyalty to Chen, his government and his party. Furthermore, there were several posts that were held for less than 3 months, which according to regulations are
“inappropriate.”68
66 An interview with a KMT legislative member. See also Tzeng, Civil-Military Relations in Democratizing Taiwan, p. 162-163. On p. 162, Tzeng writes that” President Chen frequently came under attack for his personnel selection because of the fast-track promotion of his alleged “Bian Family” faction within the armed forces, which occurred through the distortion of personnel regulations and norms.”
A short period of tour of duty indicated a highly politicized personnel policy.
67 Meanwhile, Wei-chin Lee counts that from July 2000 to January 2007, Chen promoted 487 officers to Major General, 129 to Lieutenant General, and 12 to General. See Wei-chin Lee, “The Greening of the Brass,” p. 215.
68 York Chen makes an excellent table indicating the changing of personnel for several important posts in the military and defense establishment such as Secretary General of NSC, Defense Minister, Vice Defense Ministers, CGS, Commander of the Army, Commander of the Navy, and Commander of the Air Force. See his appendix. Chen, Fragile Partnerships, p. 66.
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Another case that indicates civilian penetration in defense affairs was the debate over military doctrine. Civilian authorities do hold right to build defense policy but it must be noted that civilian must listen to military suggestion in decision making process. The debate over military doctrine started before Chen was elected as President. In his presidential campaign in 2000, Chen introduced the concept of
“decisive offshore battle” to replace the previous concept of “effective deterrence, resolute defense” adopted during Lee’s era. In short, the Chen’s doctrine would require Taiwan military to be able to fight the war as far as possible from the island.
Thus, the military must rely on the capability to paralyze enemy’s war-fighting capability.
The idea, which then was presented early during his presidency period, created a double rivalry, within civilian and military camps. A KMT legislature member told me in an interview that Chen Shui-bian purposely aired the doctrinal change issue to gain control over the military.69 Putting such a plan would mean a new and more important role for the Navy instead of the Army which was known as the politically strongest service. It was Chen’s attempt to limit the political role and power of the Army and give the Navy a more dominant role since the Navy is considered as having lower hatred toward the DPP.70 The change within the military would also bring advantage to Chen’s government since there would be new personnel to be co-opted.
Chen was not only being attacked by his civilian opponent but also by several figures within the military such as General Tang Yiau-ming.71
69 Interview with a KMT legislative member.
The kind of divide-and-rule
70 The DPP-Army resentment came from their political differences that centered on the issue of Taiwan independence. It is known that during the period under martial law the Army which was the major power in the military always considered Taiwan independence and communism as the enemy of the state.
71 Chen, Fragile Partnership, pp. 23-24.
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tactics used by Chen Shui-bian clearly indicated the subjective control. This divide-and-rule tactic, which aiming at weakening the military political position by creating division within the military, according to Feaver, is an indication of a subjective type of control.72
A counter argument, off course could also be presented to defend Chen’s decision. Chen’s strategy could be interpreted as attempt to cut the KMT-military connections which previously took place. This strategy was part of the de-politicization of the military. Even with such effort the DPP could not build strong tie with the military as the KMT previously did.73
The two cases explained above indicate that civilian penetration did take place during Chen presidency. Military penetration, on the other hand, did not take place.
3.3. Conclusion
The assessment over the three indicators of civilian control indicates that Taiwan during Chen Shui-bian era did not enjoy objective civilian control. Attempts have been made to establish democratic, which also similar to objective, civilian control.
Taiwan military has already possessed their autonomy with the introduction of the new set of national defense laws. These laws provided clear boundaries between civilian and military areas. One particular problem with the new established boundaries was the over concentration of civilian power.
The existence of clear boundaries per se would not necessarily lead to the establishment of objective control. The case of Taiwan during Chen’s period indicated that the intra-civilian rivalry was both evident and persistent. The intra-civilian rivalry was the major cause for the failure of objective control. The problem grew bigger
72 Feaver, “Civil-Military Relations,” p. 228.
73 Chen, Fragile Partnerships, p. 60.
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with the existence of civilian penetration to military area which was clear from the assessment over personnel policy and doctrinal change. The military penetration to civilian are, however, did not take place. The reason for the existence of civilian penetration lied in the new established boundaries that showed concentration of civilian power. The balance of role and power between civilian and military was rather too much tipping toward the civilian.
Table 3.3. The assessment on the type of civilian control Integral institutional
boundaries that clearly segregated the military from the society (military’s autonomy)
Rivalry within civilian camps
Military or civilian penetration into area other than their designated area
Result
(objective/subjective control)
Exist Exist Exist Taiwan under Chen
Shui-bian era:
subjective control Does not exist
Does not exist Exist
Does not exist
Does not exist Exist Exist
Does not exist Does not exist Exist
Does not exist
Note: Subjective control
Objective control
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