The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?”
Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society.
In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data. An authoritarian regime just needs one command to make someone economically disappear.
During Hong Kong’s anti-extradition bill protests, demonstrators’ credit card records became clues to track them. In China’s Xinjiang region, even buying fuel with cash can raise suspicions.
When China’s central bank first began promoting its digital yuan, it sounded quite appealing — counterfeit-resistant, convenient and secure. The reality is that it is a state-level financial surveillance system. Every transaction can be tracked in an instant and anonymity is virtually nonexistent.
The government can impose time limits, regional restrictions and usage conditions, and subsidies can only be spent within a specified time frame or area. Such currency is no longer circulating money — rather, it is a management tool.
Documents state that the digital yuan could help achieve social governance and macroeconomic control. It could be frozen, revoked, flagged or punished — erasing a person’s economic existence in the blink of an eye. The more efficient digital currency becomes in the hands of the regime, the faster freedoms die.
While Taiwan’s banknote redesign might seem traditional, it is actually quite avant-garde. By choosing to update its paper currency, Taiwan is refusing to be ruled by algorithms. Cash allows the public to preserve their privacy. The redesign is more than just an anti-counterfeiting measure — it is the most basic pledge of freedom that could be made in a democratic society.
China’s move to eliminate paper money reflects a power grab, while Taiwan’s banknote redesign is a choice rooted in trust.
Shen Yan is a political commentator.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
RSS