After Premier Su Tseng-chang's (
But few people have noticed that there's another concern which makes this personnel change seem even worse -- the lack of corporate governance.
In their struggle to grab control of the company, neither Fan nor Huang wanted to give an inch. Ever since their appointments in October 2003, policies they implemented ran counter to each other. They were primarily selected for the positions as a part of the Chen Shui-bian (
But the most worrisome issue is the obvious lack, over the last three years, of accountable records kept by Council of Agriculture, Financial Supervisory Commission and Executive Yuan officials responsible for supervising the company's management team and ensuring shareholders' rights and interests.
Some people attributed this insufficient supervision to infighting between different political factions within the government. Others said it was due to the government's shrinking ownership in Taiwan Fertilizer after the government sold another 20 percent stake last year, reducing its holdings to 24 percent, with foreign investors owning about 47 percent.
Theoretically, Taiwan Fertilizer has been a private company since 1999. The reason that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government could select both Fan and Huang to manage the company in 2003 was because the government still enjoyed a majority 44 percent stake at the time. In this respect, there's no difference between the DPP and its predecessor Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT): They both like to put their own people in posts at state-controlled companies in order to serve their own political will.
If appointed candidates prove their ability to guide state-controlled companies to prosperity, the government could better legitimize its political dominance. But the selection of those candidates ran counter to principles of good corporate governance, as they were widely criticized for their inexperience and lack of industry-specific backgrounds.
Consider the example of the Taiwan Sugar Corp, which has had four chairmen in the last five years. The company has continued to suffer losses and has only managed to cut its losses by selling its massive land holdings.
In the case of Taiwan Fertilizer, the Executive Yuan last week appointed Lee Ching-lung (
It might seem that Lee's horticultural background makes him an appropriate choice. But will the reshuffle at Taiwan Fertilizer lead to a personnel selection process that would allow the most suitable candidates to take the helm of state-controlled companies?
The government's relatively weak stakeholding in the company has become a potentially sensitive issue in view of the annual shareholders' meeting in October. Will the government implement better corporate governance to help the company seek appropriate external candidates to serve on the board, and thus safeguard the company's most valuable land assets?
It's not a simple task. But if the government can achieve it, it would mean a lot for the firm's corporate governance and for the country's broader democratic development.
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS