Twenty years and four days ago, I took office as the head of Taiwan’s central bank – a formidable task at a crunch time. The Asian financial crisis was wreaking havoc across the region, battering South-east Asia before raging towards South Korea. The economies that were affected suffered massive capital outflows, precipitous declines in their currencies, liquidity shortages, sharp rises in interest rates, and deep recessions. The damage inflicted on Asian economies was so far-reaching that