Taking a bird’s eye view of the ongoing process of merging and upgrading cities and counties, the government seems to have handled the matter in a manner completely lacking an academic basis. First, as urban development is irreversible, indivisible and unpredictable, it must be carried out in accordance with a plan rather than through trial and error. Next, the arrangement of three metropolises in the country, in my opinion, is not likely to achieve the desired result of balanced regional development.
Statistical research that I have conducted on the size and distribution of the populations of Taiwan’s rural and urban townships over the last three decades shows that the phenomenon of urban polarization has become increasingly serious.
The next issue is the question of what cities the population has gravitated toward. If we look at how the number of companies have increased in the four major planning divisions — northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan — we find that companies have “homed in” on the north. In other words, whether we like it or not, under current conditions, the greater Taipei area has been, is and will continue to be the region where companies are concentrated, and this will lead to a natural increase in the local population and economic activities.
My conclusion is therefore that it will be hard to resolve the problem of unbalanced development between the south and the north by upgrading and merging counties and cities.
Some may argue that the increased budgets allotted to the upgraded counties and cities will promote local infrastructure and development as well as attract new residents, but my research shows that the budget allocations will not influence population distribution.
Regardless of politics, the entire county and city merger and upgrades plan betrays the government’s hasty, arbitrary and dictatorial streak in drawing up policies for national land-use planning. It is extremely risky that such an important guideline for national construction has not been publicly discussed and instead was decided by a few review committee members. Furthermore, it will have an impact on the lives of Taiwanese for the next several decades.
These few committee members decided on which counties and cities should be merged and upgraded within a short period, but they have not given the public a full and transparent explanation of their decision-making process.
Such a top-down approach to deciding important national policies, which completely ignores public opinion, does not conform to democratic procedures.
If this kind of decision were to bring about a positive outcome, it could only be attributed to pure luck. What can be anticipated is that the framework of three metropolises will remain the absurd wishful thinking of the government, as the population of Taiwan will continue to gravitate toward the Taipei metropolitan area.
Lai Shih-kung is a professor in the Department of Real Estate and Built Environment at National Taipei University.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not