In any democratic country, launching a public policy has never been an easy job. The authorities need to move slowly, solicit stakeholders' input at every stage and pay careful attention to public interest, aiming at making their concerns about the prospective policy all the more remarkable.
The backing-off by financial regulators last week from considering a proposal for splitting the single stock-trading session into two -- one in the morning and the other in the afternoon -- was an example of not only how reckless financial regulators are in their approach, but also how there seem to be less and less debate over public policy these days.
The whole fiasco started with a poll conducted by the Taiwan Securities Association (
The proposal to extend trading hours was a simple matter of technical adjustment, but it deserved a good discussion over what impact it could have on local capital markets, on the process of stock delivery and on the ceiling of daily stock movements. However, brokerage workers' immediate opposition to the proposal and their threats to stage protests and mass rallies forced financial regulators to abandon their plan on Thursday, leaving no real and constructive room for public discussion.
The local bourse wasn't always restricted to a single trading session. In 1962 when the Taiwan Stock Exchange opened, it adopted a system of two stock-trading sessions on weekdays and only the morning session on Saturdays. It continued this system for almost two decades through 1984. In July 1984, the regulators decided to pursue a single-trading-session system between 9pm and noon daily, and extended the hours to 1:30am in 2001 after the nation began a new working-week system (Saturday off every other week).
Although local investors and securities companies said they are accustomed to four-and-a-half-hour sessions and rejected the change, if trading hours were adjustable in the past for various reasons, what's the reason now that they cannot be changed back? That's debate No. 1.
Secondly, financial regulators claimed that a longer session would generate more turnover. Are trading hours really a matter influencing stock turnover? That's debate No. 2.
Taiwan's stock market is known for being dominated by retail investors, who complained that extended trading hours would affect their living habits, as they might have to spend more time paying attention to stocks and this would result in less productivity in their own businesses. But if the government really meant to encourage more participation by institutional investors who are better equipped to make investment decisions for retail punters such as housewives and retired citizens, isn't it true that extended trading hours could be the only effective way to force retail investors into seeking the advice of institutional investors? This is debate No. 3.
Lastly, financial regulators said the purpose of extending trading hours was aimed at connecting with international stock markets and to compete with exchanges in countries such as Japan or Hong Kong, where there are two trading sessions daily. Shouldn't we ask whether the development of the local stock market is more relevant to our economy, the governance of listed companies and stock market regulations, than the simple issue of trading hours?
If the market is well developed, foreign investors would flood in even if investors are allowed to trade just one hour a day.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers