The Taipei 101 skyscraper has become an internationally recognized a symbol of Taiwan.
How can we allow a defining landmark to be associated with a scandal-ridden company whose lack of business ethics — exposed by repeated cooking oil scandals — has tarnished the image of both the nation and the made-in-Taiwan label, as well as possibly putting consumers’ health at risk?
The effort on Tuesday to oust Wei Ying-chiao (魏應交), chairman of the scandal-ridden Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團) from his posts as president and vice chairman of the Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFCC), which owns Taipei 101, appears to be a prime example of the government acting in response to public outrage, since the government controls the majority of seats on Taipei 101’s board of directors.
However, did President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government truly act tough and push Wei out? While Wei did, in the end, give up his two TFCC posts, a closer look at the day’s events indicates that the government should not be claiming any credit.
The government holds a 44.35 percent stake in TFCC, while Ting Hsin has a 37.17 percent share. The remaining shares are held by Cathay Financial Holding Co, CTBC Financial Holding Co, Shin Kong Life Insurance Co and another firm.
The government’s stake gives it control of six of the 13 board seats. CTBC Financial, which holds one seat, had pledged its support beforehand for whatever decision the government-backed board members made. So the government certainly had a strong voice to demand that Wei withdraw from Taipei 101’s management team.
Wei was defiant before Tuesday’s board meeting, saying that he respected, but would not comply with the government’s calls for him to step down.
No concrete decision was actually reached during the board meeting, which left the Ministry of Finance to say afterwards that it would hold a provisional meeting in two weeks to deal with the matter.
It was not until two hours later that Wei announced that he would tender his resignation to TFCC chairwoman Christina Sung (宋文琪), thereby averting a showdown with the ministry.
One has to wonder what happened during those two hours that made Wei change his mind. Was there any sort of negotiation between Wei and the government, was some sort of deal reached?
Such doubts are natural, given the government’s wimpy attitude in its dealings with Wei, which stand in stark contrast to the way it dealt with former TFCC chairwoman Diana Chen (陳敏薰) in 2009 amid concerns about her competence. Chen was quickly ousted and replaced by Harace Lin (林鴻明) — although he ended up being indicted on embezzlement charges in January last year in connection with his Jin Shang Chang Development Co.
Rumors that Ma received NT$1 billion (US$33 million) in political donations from Ting Hsin and that he has served as a “patron” of the group have also clouded the issue.
So can the public really be declared the winner in the “fight” against Ting Hsin now that Wei has quit his Taipei 101 management posts? Maybe not.
Not only does Ting Hsin still hold a big stake in TFCC, it is seeking to acquire cable television operator China Network Systems, which serves nearly 30 percent of the nation’s cable TV subscribers. Can such a company be trusted with managing important and influential media enterprises?
The government has much to do and needs to prove that there is no room — either in the business world or in politics — for such “black-hearted” conglomerates in Taiwan.
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past