Ma speaking nonsense
Following former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) remarks at Soochow University on Monday, when he said that whether the two sides of the Taiwan Strait should be unified should be decided by people on both sides of the Strait, Johnny Lin (林琮盛), one of the Democratic Progressive Party’s spokespeople, said that Ma’s statement runs counter to mainstream public opinion in Taiwan.
Lin pointed out that shortly before Ma’s meeting with then-chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) in November 2008, Ma had stated categorically that Taiwan was a sovereign and independent nation, and Taiwan’s future would definitely be decided by Taiwanese.
On reading about Ma’s latest statement, I felt that Lin phrased his response rather too mildly. One cannot help but remember how, in June 2014, then-China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Fan Liqing (范麗青) said that Taiwan’s future “must be decided by all Chinese people, including Taiwanese compatriots.”
At the time, her remarks stirred up a strong backlash and harsh criticism.
Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), one of the leaders of the Sunflower movement, shot back at the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), saying: “It’s none of your business.”
Ma’s recent statement not only runs counter to mainstream public opinion, but is exactly what the former TAO spokeswoman said, except in slightly different words.
We are supposed to be respectful when talking about former presidents, but frankly what Ma said on Monday was a load of crap.
Chang Hui-ho
New Taipei City
Work-life balance questioned
I am visiting Taipei from Canada for a month, reading the Taipei Times daily. I was interested in the article on Taiwan’s ability to keep and attract economic talent (“Taiwan’s global talent ranking unchanged at 23rd,” Nov. 22, page 1).
I think that Taiwan would improve its ranking if it changed its policies on work-life balance. Taiwanese work much longer hours than professionals in other developed nations.
Time off, whether at weekends or paid holidays, is not valued. Making up a day off for New Year by working on a Saturday is an illustration of that value.
I am sure that this attitude leads many Taiwanese professionals to move to other countries like my own and deters talent from other countries from moving to Taiwan. Time for family and leisure activities is valuable to job and life satisfaction.
It is also significant to note that when the workweek is shortened and paid vacation time is lengthened, productivity is not decreased and is often increased.
The Netherlands, a prosperous nation, has a workweek of 30 hours. Perhaps Taiwan could modestly begin to move to a 40-hour workweek and add a week of paid vacation time to what is already available.
It would be interesting to see if this made a difference to its global talent ranking, but Taiwan does have a long way to catch up.
Jennifer Birtwell
Vancouver
Meet the microbank
Resona Holdings — Japan’s fifth-largest bank — in May opened a microbranch staffed with only three employees on the second floor of a commercial building near the west entrance of Tokyo’s Shinjuku train station.
This tiny outpost, which takes up only 60m2, has no service window for deposits or other standard banking services, and only provides residential loans and asset management services.
Operating hours are from 1pm to 9pm on weekdays and from 10am to 6pm on weekends.
Apart from New Year’s Day, the branch stays open all year round and operates on a reservations-only basis.
Compared with other Resona Bank branches, where only 30 percent of the customers are between 30 and 50 years old, at the micro branch, this age bracket is a much higher at 70 percent.
Mizuho Financial Group, another Japanese bank that operates in Taiwan, last week announced that it would reduce the size of its workforce, including part-time employees, from 39,000 to 60,000 by 2026.
Additionally, it said it would reduce the number of its retail bank branches, trust banks and asset management banks from 500 to 400.
With the popularization of the Internet, there is an oversupply of brick-and-mortar bank branches. When combined with the Bank of Japan’s negative interest rate policy and other factors, the Japanese banking industry’s profit base is rapidly eroded.
Taiwan’s banking industry is facing a similar challenge. Resona’s microbranch strategy could be a way forward for Taiwan’s banks and warrants further analysis.
Liu Chen-kan
Taipei
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