Loosening currency exchange rate controls, reducing dependence on China and privatizing state companies were some of the items on former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) prescription list to help the nation’s ailing economy, which he discussed in recent interviews with the media.
In interviews with the Chinese-language Journalist and Wealth magazines, published on Wednesday and yesterday respectively, Lee shared his views on the political and economic situation in Taiwan as well as his observations on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
The 89-year-old, an expert on agricultural economics, paid special attention to the economy and said Taiwan should keep the exchange rate of New Taiwan dollar against US dollar at about NT$33 or NT$34 to increase the competitiveness of Taiwan’s exports, rather than insisting on a rigid forex policy.
Social wealth is expected to increase after the stimulation of exports, he said, and the currency exchange rate could then return to current levels to stem inflation.
“The exchange rate, as well as policies, should be always flexible,” Lee said.
In general, Lee said he was gravely concerned with two elements of the economy — an overdependence on imported energy and the Chinese market.
On energy, Taiwan should be able to develop biomass energy by utilizing idle land and lands released by state-controlled Taiwan Sugar Corp to grow yam and sugar cane, which would also revive local agriculture, Lee said.
Taiwan should try to bring back its businesspeople in China since the second-largest economy in the world has been having troubles increasing its domestic consumption, but this could not be done without solving labor and wage issues, he said.
Turning to politics, Lee said that as a former president, he had been reluctant to criticize Ma, but Ma has not handled his policies on fuel and electricity price increases and the capital gains tax proposal well.
He ridiculed both Ma’s “one country, two areas (一國兩區)” proposal and the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) rhetoric on Taiwan independence at the same time.
Ma’s proposal is basically a lie because it could not be implemented and his citing of the “two areas” design in the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) as the basis for his argument was “a misinterpretation of the Constitution as well as a failure to distinguish the difference between the situation in the 1990s and today,” he said.
“Cross-strait relations have always been state-to-state relations: We are the Republic of China and they are the People’s Republic of China,” Lee said.
With the dynamics of global politics rapidly changing, the DPP’s call for Taiwanese independence is meaningless, he said, adding that the focus should be on the nation’s transformation from the past authoritarian regime into a full-fledged democracy.
Taiwanese can rest assured that the US would not abandon the nation, given that Taiwan’s strategic importance in geopolitics would only increase after US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy shift from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region, he said.
“And if you know that the Taiwan Relations Act is listed as a US domestic law, you would understand the delicacy of the US’ views on Taiwan,” he said.
Lee, the first directly elected president in the nation’s history, said he favored a parliamentary system and thought that there could still be a president who would be directly elected, but that person would only function as a titular head.
“The [parliamentary] system requires more debates and deliberation during the policy-formulation process, which would better represent the public’s voice,” he said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS