DPP legislator Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday lashed out at new bills he says are guilty of the outdated idolization of political figures.
The central bank is to issue new NT$100 bills in July. Bills with the new face values of NT$200 and NT$2000 will be released in January and July 2002 respectively.
Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese revolutionary leader, will be portrayed on the new NT$100 bills as on the current NT$100 bill. The new NT$200 bills will feature the figure of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), the KMT dictator and former ROC president.
Cho blasted the idea of using political figures on bills saying it was against the evolution of society.
"In today's modern world, we should not encourage political totems, which originate from feudal times," he said.
Cho said it is "tolerable" to see Sun on bills because "he is the only father of China." But he said that choosing Chiang's portrait for the new bill was unreasonable.
"Do we have to have all the presidents printed on our bills in the future? The decision [to have Chiang portrayed on the new bill] is solely to fulfil the requests of certain political powers," Chou said.
Cho said new bills are to be used for roughly two decades, "therefore, we should make use of the opportunity and abandon the outdated political concerns of authoritarianism."
The lawmaker said he has received complaints from a number of people, including staff of the central bank, about the new bills.
Other bills to be issued are designed to depict Taiwan's achievements in technology, education and conservation.
Wu Shaw-chii (
He said the adoption of both modern images of the country and also of portraits of political figures is "a compromise."
The central bank said the printing of the new bills has started and cannot be suspended as Cho suggested.
Cho also said it was inappropriate to issue the new NT$2000 bill, will become the highest value bill in circulation, because it may trigger inflation.
Cho claimed that the government's promotion of e-commerce would reduce the need for high-value bills, while holders of such bills would suffer greater losses in the event of a robbery.
Wu, however, said issuing the NT$2000 bills was a move to meet users' needs as well as being a global trend. "Currently, more NT$1000 bills are issued by far than all the other bills combined.
He also listed high-value bills of other countries to show consumer needs for higher-value bills. "US$100 is equivalent to over NT$3000; 500 French francs is over NT$2000; 1000 deutsche marks is about NT$15,000," he said.
"Taiwan's highest-value bill is only higher than that of Korea."
He said that only a small number of NT$2000 bills will be issued initially and will not cause inflation.
Certain revised bills issued last year featured subtle but significant changes and the modifications will be applied to other new bills.
Meanwhile the central bank -- the Central Bank of China (CBC) -- has replaced the Bank of Taiwan as the currency-issuing bank in order to make the New Taiwan Dollar the "national" currency.
The CBC had, since its establishment, issued bills for China. Taiwan suffered from serious inflation after the Nationalist withdrawal from the mainland in 1949. Therefore, the Nationalist government declared in the "Temporary provisions effective during the period of national mobilization for suppression of the communist rebellion" (
But when the provisions were made ineffective in 1991, the ROC lacked a legal national currency until last year, when the CBC replaced the Bank of Taiwan in issuing New Taiwan Dollar bills. In other words, the New Taiwan Dollar was upgraded to become the ROC currency.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS