Former Department of Health minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) went out with a bang when he revealed that the last official document he signed before stepping down on Monday last week was a lawsuit against TV pundits for allegedly spreading false comments about the A(H1N1) flu vaccine.
As the legal action was filed in the department’s name, Yaung’s move marked the first time TV pundits have been sued by a government agency. This, coupled with the online auction of Yaung’s autographed briefcase for charity — which drew a winning bid of more than NT$5 million (US$169,500) from Taiwanese tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘) — allowed Yaung to exit in style.
President Ma Ying-jou (馬英九) has lauded Yaung, while Gou said he joined the auction to show his admiration for Yaung’s courage in defending his health policy and his love for the underprivileged. However, a closer look at Yaung’s 18-month in service leaves some wondering whether he has lived up to these comments about his strength of character — or whether it’s nothing more than political grandstanding.
Yaung has described the TV pundits’ discussions about the vaccine as sensationalism and cited them as a reason many Taiwanese are reluctant to get vaccinated. He also said the “vaccine does not differentiate between blue and green,” referring to pro-administration and opposition forces. That was a strange comment, coming from someone who rejected the invitation of those pundits, generally perceived as being pro-green, to go on their show to elaborate on the department’s vaccine policy.
Many may also recall the pledge made by Yaung when he became minister in August 2009. He said then that seeking payment from the Taipei City Government on the debt it owes to the National Health Insurance System was high on his agenda.
“The Taipei City Government must pay its debt or the National Health Insurance’s finances will collapse sooner or later,” Yaung said, adding that the city’s debt was the National Health Insurance Bureau’s biggest problem.
However, not only did Yaung shy away from going after Taipei’s debts, the department also remained silent when then-premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) waded into the controversy and said it could not seize the landholdings of local governments to pay for their insurance subsidy debts.
So much for one who prides himself on “sticking to his guns.”
Yaung has won accolades for donating the NT$5 million his briefcase drew, in addition to a personal donation of NT$500,000, to a special account set up by the Bureau of National Health Insurance to help those who cannot afford to pay their insurance premiums.
While the gesture is commendable, hasn’t Yaung thought of how much more he could have done if he had come up with more concrete and timely measures when he was in office to help those in need — some of whom lost their lives because they couldn’t afford to pay their health premiums and seek medical assistance?
On Tuesday, the Control Yuan censured the department for downplaying a probable case of death from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease last year. Asked for comment, Yaung said: “I can’t be bothered [by the Control Yuan’s report].”
This coming from someone praised by Gou as a public servant who is full of “courage and love.”
Indeed, Yaung has left his public service career with a bang, but it was a hollow bang that continues to be the subject of heated debate.
Taiwan should reject two flawed answers to the Eswatini controversy: that diplomatic allies no longer matter, or that they must be preserved at any cost. The sustainable answer is to maintain formal diplomatic relations while redesigning development relationships around transparency, local ownership and democratic accountability. President William Lai’s (賴清德) canceled trip to Eswatini has elicited two predictable reactions in Taiwan. One camp has argued that the episode proves Taiwan must double down on support for every remaining diplomatic ally, because Beijing is tightening the screws, and formal recognition is too scarce to risk. The other says the opposite: If maintaining
India’s semiconductor strategy is undergoing a quiet, but significant, recalibration. With the rollout of India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0, New Delhi is signaling a shift away from ambition-driven leaps toward a more grounded, capability-led approach rooted in industrial realities and institutional learning. Rather than attempting to enter the most advanced nodes immediately, India has chosen to prioritize mature technologies in the 28-nanometer to 65-nanometer range. That would not be a retreat, but a strategic alignment with domestic capabilities, market demand and global supply chain gaps. The shift carries the imprimatur of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, indicating that the recalibration is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), during an interview for the podcast Lanshuan Time (蘭萱時間) released on Monday, said that a US professor had said that she deserved to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize following her meeting earlier this month with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Cheng’s “journey of peace” has garnered attention from overseas and from within Taiwan. The latest My Formosa poll, conducted last week after the Cheng-Xi meeting, shows that Cheng’s approval rating is 31.5 percent, up 7.6 percentage points compared with the month before. The same poll showed that 44.5 percent of respondents
China last week announced that it picked two Pakistani astronauts for its Tiangong space station mission, indicating the maturation of the two nations’ relationship from terrestrial infrastructure cooperation to extraterrestrial strategic domains. For Taiwan and India, the developments present an opportunity for democratic collaboration in space, particularly regarding dual-use technologies and the normative frameworks for outer space governance. Sino-Pakistani space cooperation dates back to the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, with a cooperative agreement between the Pakistani Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, and the Chinese Ministry of Aerospace Industry. Space cooperation was integrated into the China-Pakistan
RSS