DEFENSE/Taiwan military to get its first female Political Warfare Bureau chief

Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) Taiwan's military will soon welcome the first female chief of its Political Warfare Bureau following the promotion of Lt. Gen. Chen Yu-lin (陳育琳) to head the agency, a military source told CNA on Monday.

Chen, currently the director-general of the Army Command Headquarters' Political Warfare Department, will officially take up the post as head of the Ministry of National Defense's Political Warfare Bureau on Oct. 1, according to the unnamed source.

She will fill the vacancy left by Lt. Gen. Yang An (楊安), who will officially retire on Oct. 1, the source said.

The decision will make Chen the first woman to head the Political Warfare Bureau, which is responsible for psychological warfare to counter the Chinese Communist Party's decades-long efforts to gain influence over elites and organizations inside and outside China, including in Taiwan.

Chen, who graduated from the military's Political Warfare College in 1988 and later became the country's first two-star female general, has been the first female to hold a number of important positions in Taiwan's armed forces.

She was the first female political warfare department chief on an outlying island (Matsu) and the first female to serve as a political warfare department head at an Army Corps (the 6th Army Corps).

She was also the first female dean at the Political Warfare College and first deputy director-general of the Political Warfare Bureau.

Meanwhile, Chen's current post will be assumed by former military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shih Shun-wen (史順文), who currently heads the 6th Army Corps' Political Warfare Department.

Because the position of chief of the Army Command Headquarters' Political Warfare Department is reserved for a two-star general, Shih will soon be promoted to two-star general, the source said.