DPP legislator Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday lashed out at new bills he says are guilty of the outdated idolization of political figures.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new bills are to be used for roughly two decades, "therefore, we should make use of the opportunity and abandon the outdated political concerns of authoritarianism."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.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
HIGH-TECH DEAL: Chipmakers that expand in the US would be able to import up to 2.5 times their new capacity with no extra tariffs during an approved construction period Taiwan aims to build a “democratic” high-tech supply chain with the US and form a strategic artificial intelligence (AI) partnership under the new tariffs deal it sealed with Washington last week, Taipei’s top negotiator in the talks said yesterday. US President Donald Trump has pushed Taiwan, a major producer of semiconductors which runs a large trade surplus with the US, to invest more in the US, specifically in chips that power AI. Under the terms of the long-negotiated deal, chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) that expand US production would incur a lower tariff on semiconductors or related manufacturing
RSS