Central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) yesterday said the bank would remove authoritarian icons from the nation’s currency if explicit orders were given by the transitional justice promotion committee to be established by the Executive Yuan.
Yang made the remark at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee, after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) asked whether the passage of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) would prompt changes to the design of the nation’s currency.
Although the act was promulgated last year, the central bank cannot make changes before the transitional justice promotion committee specifies which banknotes or coins contain authoritarian imagery, Yang said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The act stipulates that the Cabinet is to create the nine-member transitional justice promotion committee to oversee the removal of authoritarian icons, the declassification of state archives and the rehabilitation of victims of persecution.
The committee is to be disbanded upon completing a full report on those tasks, the act says.
“Should the transitional justice promotion committee order a change to the design of the New Taiwan dollar, I believe we will have to discharge our duties according to the law,” Yang said.
Lai then asked Yang whether his comments could be interpreted as an unwillingness to follow the policy of his predecessor, former central bank governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南).
Lai also asked Yang whether he agrees that changing the design of the currency — which Lai said would cost NT$50 billion (US$1.7 billion) — would be a waste of taxpayer money for political purposes.
Yang responded to both questions in the negative, saying that the central bank decided during Peng’s tenure as governor that it would not change clearly apolitical and nonauthoritarian design elements of the currency.
In response to a question by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國), Yang said that the central bank does not currently have, or has ever had, a fixed limit on the upward movement of the NT dollar versus the US dollar.
Monetary policy observers have long called the exchange rate of NT$28.5 per US dollar the “Perng Fai-nan Line,” Li said, before asking Yang where he would draw the line on the NT dollar’s appreciation.
“I have followed Perng for a long time and I have never heard him say that we should hold this or that line in defense of our currency’s exchange rate,” Yang said.
The central bank would intervene and keep order if and when abnormal fluctuations occur in the market, he added.
Trying to reverse significant exchange rate fluctuations by force is counterproductive, Yang said, adding that the central bank favors a flexible approach to monetary policy.
The market yesterday appeared to respond to Lai’s comments by testing the central bank’s bottom line, with the NT dollar appreciating NT$0.057 to NT$29.200, its highest level since Jan. 31, when it reached NT$29.150.
The NT dollar yesterday opened at NT$29.245, moving between NT$29.180 and NT$29.250 before the close.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat