In today's rapidly changing era, who can say what the Republic of China will look like twelve years from now. A blueprint for the twenty-first century was presented by Premier Lee Huan at the 84th session of the Legislative Yuan on September 19 of this year. It gives Chinese a clear and vivid sketeh. "The administration of the government must have fervor; only then can it cope with the challenges of the era." With this view, Premier Lee Huan presented the report on the work of the government administration to the Legislative Yuan, giving voice to President Lee Teng-hui's prior directives.

First, let's look from the point of view of the weight of the report. Because Premier Lee has taken quite seriously this first "report card" since his assumption of office three and a half months ago, he collected the main points of administration and future direction by exhaustively surveying each government ministry and base level unit. Wang Chaoming, secretary general of the Executive Yuan, Deputy Secretary General Hu Kai-cheng, and Ma Ying-jeou, chairman of the Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission, completed a 38-page oral report, and a collection entitled "National Construction Marching Into the Twenty-First Century" (including 12 volumes of programs, to serve as a supplement to the premier's report on administration). Further, the Government Information Office set to the task of editing a special volume "So Proudly We Hail! Salute to the 21st Century." (See the pevious article.)

It is known that in the process of preparing the report, Premier Lee burned the midnight oil to personally review in detail the drafts prepared by staff, and to personally revise them and make corrections. He included in it his own knowledge and administrative ideals. Therefore, this twelve-volume collection of administration programs not only creates a precedent in the history of reports by the premier on administrative work, even more it has few politicized slogans and includes the personal innovations and concepts of Premier Lee. Now let's take a brief look at the contents of the special 12-volume collection:

It is pointed out in the collection that among the work being currently done by the Executive Yuan, there are four hundred long range plans and thousands of annual administrative programs. This collection, prepared on the basis of the premier's directives and the eleven main items of administrative work raised in the oral report, is a selection of items of special concern to the people or which require farsightedness. The volumes are entitled: Editor's Explanation and General Index, Raising the Quality of Society, Improving Social Welfare, Maintaining Social Order and Prosperity, Developing Education Technology, Strengthening Economic Construction, Improving Communications and Transportation, Improving Environmental Protection, Protecting the Rights and Interests of Labor, Improving Production and Sales in Agriculture, Developing Diplomacy and Overseas Chinese Affairs, and Strengthening National Defense. This issuing of the twelve-volume collection along with the report on administration earned good critiques from many legislators and attracted the interest of the media. Once the twelve volumes were laid out, there was nothing left for the legislators to say! Supplementary legislator Jaw Shao-kang indicated that the contents of this report are vast, the scope broad, with eleven main items, and nearly covering everything in administrative work, plus detailed processes and plans; this reveals that it is extremely complete and realistic.

[Picture Caption]

This twelve-volume set is a comprehensive handbook of government administration plans, setting a new precedent in administrative reports by the premier. (photo by Vincent Chang)