A group of lawyers and civic groups yesterday said that if the “cronyism in the finance sector and judiciary” that began under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) persists, young people — who are facing the concentration of capital, impoverishment and a low birth rate — risk becoming a “crumbled generation.”
Lawyer Fan Jen-yu (樊仁裕) said that the finance sector has hired people from the former administration to be their “door gods.”
For example, Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川) has been the vice chairman of CTBC Financial Holding (中信金控) since resigning as Executive Yuan secretary-general during former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) first term in 2009, former Mega Financial Holding Co chairman Mckinney Tsai (蔡友才), who resigned in April, became one of Cathay Financial Holding Co’s board of directors (until he resigned on Aug. 23), Catherine Lee (李紀珠), the chairperson of state-run Taiwan Financial Holdings until the end of last month, was formerly the president of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co, Fan said.
He also called on Tsai’s administration to hold former Mega Financial Holding Co chairman Shiu Kuang-si (徐光曦) — who resigned on Thursday — accountable for breaches of US money laundering rules rather than “keeping him at large because he is central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan’s (彭淮南) sister-in-law’s husband.”
The composition of the Committee of Illegal Party Asset Settlement, Tsai’s grand justice picks and the members of the Executive Yuan’s monitoring taskforce overlooking the Mega Bank incident are all in one way or another related to a particular law firm and the Judicial Reform Foundation, Fan said.
Northern Taiwan Society Chairman Chang Yeh-sen (張葉森) said that there have been a string of financial malpractice cases but the government has not demonstrated “resolve” in dealing with them.
National Taiwan University professor of law Chen Chih-lung (陳志龍) said economic crimes and serious corruption are rarely prosecuted, making Taiwan a “haven for economic crimes.”
Wang Yi-kai (王奕凱), who was an active participant in the Sunflower movement protests, said the economy has fallen into the hands of “crony capitalists... to the extent that, according to The Economist, Taiwan is even worse than China in this respect.”
“Taiwan is also relying far too much on an ‘insubstantial economy’ that puts too much emphasis on land speculation and financial exchange and is a breeding ground for political nepotism,” he said, calling on the government to support startups by providing information on the needs of the global economy and promoting value-added production.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
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