The Kids Are In The House
Taiwan's NSC Politicized
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8 September 2025 (Monday)
The Kids Are In The House
Taiwan's NSC Politicized
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德
TAIPEI - Taiwan’s National Security Council (NSC/國家安全會議) now has three Deputy Secretary-Generals under 40, none of whom are intelligence or military professionals.
On 1 September, Taiwan’s Presidential Office announced that President William Lai (賴清德) (Democratic Progressive Party, DPP) had ordered personnel changes at the National Security Council (NSC), with the replacement of two of the three current Deputy Secretary-Generals.
Taiwan’s presidents conduct foreign and national security policy through a central yet discreet institution within the Presidential Office: the National Security Council (NSC). Unlike its US counterpart, Taiwan’s NSC wields significantly greater power than the White House NSC.
Taiwan’s NSC functions as a “government within the government” under the Presidential Office, allowing the NSC to dominate national decision-making, including on domestic affairs. The US NSC only offers consultative or consideration of national security, military, and foreign policy matters.
Taiwan’s NSC assumes broader and more distinct responsibilities.
Since the democratic reforms of the 1990s, Taiwan’s National Security Council (NSC) has taken a more central role than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and, in some respects, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) in shaping the island’s foreign and national security policymaking.
Today, President Lai has treated the NSC as a photo-op tool, leaving control of national security to the purview of its director. The current NSC Secretary-General is Wu “Joseph” Jau-shieh (吳釗燮).
In October 2024 after China launched military exercises, Lai convened an NSC meeting, with photos distributed afterwards to demonstrate a president and NSC members at work. Similarly, in February 2025 an NSC meeting was held to discuss US-Taiwan relations, the semiconductor industry, and China-Taiwan relations, with photos again distributed afterwards.
The NSC is also the parent agency of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB). Unlike, the CIA, the NSB’s role includes both domestic and foreign intelligence collection and operations.
In fact, the NSC commands not only the NSB but also has significant influence over the MND headquarters, the MND Military Intelligence Bureau (MIB), MND Communications Development Office, the MND Military Police Command, the Ministry of Interior National Police Agency (NPA), Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB), and the Ocean Affairs Council’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA). The MJIB is similar to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In addition, the President and Vice President’s protection detail is composed of NSB personnel, as opposed to locating the protection unit within Ministry of the Interior’s National Police Agency (NPA) or the Ministry of National Defense’s Military Police (MP), though both NPA and MP personnel protect the exterior of the Presidential Office and presidential residence.
The NSB has a Director-General, who reports to the NSC’s Secretary-General, and ultimately, to the President. Despite the importance of its work, the NSB has faced numerous controversies in recent years.
In the summer of 2022, the then Director-General, a political appointee from academia named Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) was implicated in a thesis plagiarism scandal in which he supervised a master’s thesis submitted by a DPP politician, which the university determined was plagiarized.
In September 2022, documentation including hotel bills from a trip Chen took to Thailand were published on the Internet, evidencing a significant penetration by China into Chen’s whereabouts.
Chen kept his job until he quietly resigned in January 2023. Other recent disciplinary problems at the NSB include sexual harassment incidents in 2017, 2020, 2024, and 2025, prosecutions of NSB personnel who tried to smuggle cigarettes into Taiwan when traveling with President Tsai on an overseas trip in 2019, and the alleged misuse of funds meant to be for payments to intelligence sources.
Joseph Wu has served numerous powerful positions under the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP). When Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) became president in 2016, Wu held several senior positions: NSC Secretary-General (2016–2017), Presidential Office Secretary-General (2017–2018), and Minister of Foreign Affairs (2018–2024). When Lai took office in 2024, Wu returned to the role of NSC Secretary-General.
Wu is a controversial figure. Earlier this year, a longtime political appointee aide of Wu’s was indicted on charges of spying for China. Subsequently, legislators have requested that Wu appear for oversight committee questioning, and Wu has refused multiple times. Legislators are now seeking to pass a resolution to demand his resignation.
Recently, media speculated that Wu wanted to be appointed as Taiwan’s de-facto ambassador to the United States, but that the Trump administration refused to agree. The NSC issued a statement denying that Wu had sought the job.
The new lineup of NSC Deputy Secretary-Generals is: