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.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
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