If you had to choose a Taiwanese bank to hold a bunch of assets, maybe foreign currency, maybe gold, which bank would you feel would be able to protect your assets the most in the event of Chinese take over of Taiwan? I’m of course talking about a theoretical scenario where China comes and seizes as much as they want. There must be some Taiwanese banks that are really cosy with China and would be able to shield their customers somewhat from having their assets seized.
We don’t need to turn this thread into another “Is China going to invade?” discussion, or a discussion on whether or not China would seize assets, let’s just discuss how close Taiwanese banks are to China and how well they can actually protect our assets during a takeover.
I don’t think you will have any problem in the way you think. CCP is not going to randomly seize peoples money. But NTD would be worth less than the paper it’s printed on when and if that happens.
How about using a non-Taiwanese bank / broker for these purposes (if that’s your main concern)? Lots of banks in Europe / US / Singapore / …
For example, you could open an account at Interactive Brokers (they support opening an account for people residing in Taiwan even if they’re not US citizens). Then you can buy all the stocks, currency, precious metals, … you want and they’re safe even if all banks in Taiwan go bust for whatever reason.
If you have enough money, from what I understand, Singapore is also popular destination for banking for people based in Taiwan.
Then I think @Whatevah 's point should be more of your concern rather than the choice of the bank. Doesn’t matter what kind of bank it is if the currency loses its value.
Swiss franc isnt the easiest to get back in physical form though. Probably USD and Yen are more common nation wide. Our bank only Carrie’s 4 currencies for example. Be worth thinking about (even though I wouldnt want money in usd as an investment, just an emergency). Even if you local banks have francs, they might likely run out very quick which would cause going somewhere else I could see less common currencies running out quickly.
I would think that they would offer a “special” exchange rate with the RMB to ensure that there isn’t too much discontent. Still you’d lose a bit. However I think the concerns are a bit overblown
Realistically speaking, no bank here will be able to shield its customers from an authoritarian regime takeover like you described.
I think the only viable option is an off-shore bank where the Chinese can’t reach it.
I’m tagging this under China Invasion only so it will come up when people use that tag. I agree that it doesn’t have to debate the likelihood of asset seizure. It’s interesting to speculate which banks may be better or worse positioned in a post-invasion scenario
Better positioned: Bank of China
Worse positioned: Any Taiwanese bank.
Given the nature of the Chinese regime, its highly unlikely they will allow an independant banking infrastructure here. If we are talking invasion and occupation - Taiwan banks will not be in operation any longer.
I have wondered about that bank as well. Is that the same one that says “chinese” as in the person in mandarin?
Are they actually a chinese bank or just an old school unfortunate artifact oftaiwans history being called Chinese? Like the gas stations.
I also wonder how one would even know without being on a meet the family each weekend with the top folks of the company. How would one go about finding out outside of them saying something silly publicly?
