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For him, it was a culture that was making the system unaccountable to the public, inefficient, unresponsive to social needs and at the mercy of political appointees. This desire by younger members of the civil service to reform from within gave way to the formation of the TCSIC.

One such group has been the Taiwan Civil Service Innovation Coalition (TCSIC翻譯社 公事革新力

One video clip published on Facebook outlines the convoluted and closed-off process of policymaking.

He said that following a recording of a televised debate on a political commentary show翻譯社 Lee Lai-hsi (李來希)翻譯社 a prominent critic of pension reform, called him an idiot (Lin said he responded by calling Lee "very smart for having manipulated public opinion").

Finding Middle Ground

In TCSIC's first press conference in January, many members wore surgical masks out of fear of being identified and targeted at work.

▲圖／翻攝自中國郵報

Lin called on the new government to not only tackle pension reform but change the culture of the public bureaucracy.

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But Lin and like-minded members of the bureaucracy face an uphill task in mobilizing support among both colleagues and the public.

Chou, whose own family includes retired civil servants was initially asked why he wanted to involve himself in the issue.

Members of the TCSIC have powered their message of questioning business as usual in the public sector through social media.

"Traditionally, the only thing demanded of civil servants was that they follow orders. But we think that new modes of politics should be more bottom up in order to benefit the system as a whole. The TCSIC provides civil servants the space for policy discussions翻譯社 skills training and a channel for voicing their opinions翻譯社" Lin told The China Post.

Just before the new government took power, Lin Yu-kai (林于凱), a young civil servant who had served for five years, drafted an open letter to then-Premier-designate Lin Chuan.

The group say they want to make policymaking more transparent and streamlined, moving away from bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake.

Galvanized by Lin's open letter to the Tsai administration, Chou later became the organizations' spokesman for government-held discussion panels on pension reform.

A main area of contention has been the pace of which reforms are to take place. For example, Lin fears that the gradual pace proposed by the government may not translate into a sustainable system, describing it as a temporary solution at best.

"Other young civil servants wanted a more radical approach: a clear division along generational lines to pursue reform objectives. But our viewpoint is different: a country's pension system is built on generations paying into it to support the next — so when we hear these opinions we have to take them into account and make adjustments accordingly翻譯社" he said.

"For me, it's understandable that older colleagues who are about to retire want to take a position of resisting the government's reforms," Chou said.

The Elephant in the Room

TAIPEI翻譯社 Taiwan -- No recent social issue has better demonstrated the fracturing potential of Taiwan's economic woes, its looming demographic crisis and its generational divide than that of pension reform.

Faced with impending bankruptcy翻譯社 the issue of propping up the convoluted funds has been framed across party lines as a ticking time bomb.

Politicians in the past balked at diffusing the crisis, aware their policy choices could very well blow up in their face.

Whereas older civil servants and retirees rally easily to the call of resisting cuts to their benefits, for many young people, the pension issue seems like a distant problem full of obtrusive technical terms and legalese.

"While they can't agree completely with our position, when I explain our predicament of high contribution rates翻譯社 delayed retirement age and the looming threat of bankruptcy, they can start to at least sympathize with our dilemma." Chou added that he was surprised when older superiors showed support and encouragement for the group's mission to institute changes from within.

"There are deliberate moves by some to frame this as a 'political stocktaking against civil servants' in order to frame this as an ideological issue involving the pan green and pan blues. This has transformed an issue about systemic problems into a war of words."

He said he found it surprising how the "relatively well-educated civil servant cohort does not have the good judgment to stand up to fake news or rumors."

But flying under the media's radar has been a younger generation of civil servants, who not only want pension reforms to proceed翻譯社 but also changes to the very definition of public service itself.