Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) could turn out to be a “bad apple” that brings down President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) approval ratings, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said yesterday.
Hung was referring to a question-and-answer session on Friday at the Legislative Yuan, during which KMT Legislator and former FSC chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) “quizzed” Koo, asking him to explain three financial terms: initial public offering, secondary public offering and initial coin offering.
Koo, a lawyer, stuttered and appeared stumped while answering Tseng’s questions and Premier William Lai (賴清德) had to tip him off about one of the terms, the translation of which was shown on a screen on the podium.
Lai made only two new appointments after he took office last month, including tapping Koo, who formerly headed the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, to run the FSC, which “raised many eyebrows,” as Koo has no financial background, Hung said on Facebook.
The Democratic Progressive Party either lacks financial talents or is attempting to deal with the financial sector in the way Koo dealt with the KMT’s assets, Hung said.
Neither would bode well for the financial sector, as both would suggest that the Tsai administration did not consider the sector’s needs when it appointed Koo, making it difficult to promote collaboration with the financial sector and help it generate more profit, he said.
Koo at a pre-inauguration news conference told the media that it is common for former financial supervisors to assume managerial posts in the financial sector, making it “rife with malpractice,” and asked people to “give him some time,” so that he could familiarize himself with his new job, Hung said.
A month has passed since Koo made those assertions and he should clarify what the malpractice he alluded to was, or his remarks would just be “hot air,” he said.
It was clear from Koo’s showing at the legislature that he needed more than a month to bring himself up to speed, but “how many months does the financial sector have?” Hung said.
“Koo has been struck out. Taiwan’s financial sector cannot afford another whiff,” he said.
“Koo did not even get a passing grade, as he did not even know the financial ABC,” Hung said.
“It was fine for Koo to be struck out by Tseng’s three questions, but if his batting average remains zero throughout the season and in turn causes Tsai’s poll numbers to plunge, he will not be treated kindly,” he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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