This time every year the press decide on one word that best represents the previous 12 months. They have yet to come up with one for this year, but here is one for the coming year: chaos.
Taiwan now consists of five special municipalities and 17 counties, with 60 percent of the population living within the former. The implications for how finances are to be divvied up are horrendous. The newly-elected mayors of these municipalities inherit huge debts, and to fulfill campaign promises they are going to need to go cap in hand to the central government for cash, personnel and other resources. The 17 counties will be allocated a smaller portion of the pie and will see their subsidies fall. The five municipalities already exist, but the legislation concerning the allocation of finances, namely the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) and the Public Debt Act (公債法), are held up in the legislature, waiting for amendments. This means a worsening of the disparity between urban and rural areas, and between rich and poor.
The mayors of the municipalities all have mandates of a million or so votes, second only to the president, so they don’t have to pay much mind to the premier, who lacks any such mandate. They also have more resources and personnel under them than government ministers, and there is going to be little political interaction between the national Cabinet and the Cabinets of each municipality.
With the exception of Taipei, there are going to be huge administrative challenges in the municipalities: the name changes, the reorganization of local districts and government offices, and job restructuring. Every new official position created will affect thousands of public servants and families. People will need to find out where the new government offices are for public services. Questions such as how resources are going to be fairly allocated to places like Banciao (板橋), where the population is 500,000, and Wulai (烏來) or Pingsi (平溪), where the population is measured in the thousands, remain unanswered. The Ministry of the Interior has yet to approve the proposed English name for what was previously Taipei County. The mayors are going to find everything up in the air when they turn up for work on their first day. It’s going to be an administrative nightmare.
The new mayors are going to have more responsibilities than before. They will all have their own support staff and teams of advisers, and will need them as they address how to make their cities more international, how to interact with other cities and how to promote their creative industries. They will have to devise their own models for attracting business and these will naturally involve cross-strait relations. If the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) charges ahead in this regard, they will leave behind those municipalities with mayors affiliated with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). This will lead to rivalry between the municipalities, and, if the central government fails to get the balance right, it will find itself competing on cross-strait policy with the municipalities.
There is also going to be uncertainty for the 17 less well-resourced counties. Are Hsinchu, Miaoli and Taoyuan to merge and become upgraded? How about Hualien and Taitung? Will Keelung become a part of New Taipei City (新北市, the proposed English name of the upgraded Taipei County)? Then there is the question of whether the adjacent municipalities of Taipei and New Taipei City will eventually be further consolidated into a Greater Taipei. Unfortunately, nobody is being very forthcoming on these things.
This chaos is likely to go on for at least a year. And then there is the turmoil surrounding the coming presidential and legislative primaries.
Remember: chaos. You read it here first.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to bully Taiwan by conducting military drills extremely close to Taiwan in late May 2024 and announcing a legal opinion in June on how they would treat “Taiwan Independence diehards” according to the PRC’s Criminal Code. This article will describe how China’s Anaconda Strategy of psychological and legal asphyxiation is employed. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) conducted a “punishment military exercise” against Taiwan called “Joint Sword 2024A” from 23-24 May 2024, just three days after President William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in and
Former US president Donald Trump’s comments that Taiwan hollowed out the US semiconductor industry are incorrect. That misunderstanding could impact the future of one of the world’s most important relationships and end up aiding China at a time it is working hard to push its own tech sector to catch up. “Taiwan took our chip business from us,” the returnee US presidential contender told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview published this week. The remarks came after the Republican nominee was asked whether he would defend Taiwan against China. It is not the first time he has said this about the nation’s
In a recent interview with the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called President William Lai (賴清德) “naive.” As always with Ma, one must first deconstruct what he is saying to fully understand the parallel universe he insists on defending. Who is being “naive,” Lai or Ma? The quickest way is to confront Ma with a series of pointed questions that force him to take clear stands on the complex issues involved and prevent him from his usual ramblings. Regarding China and Taiwan, the media should first begin with questions like these: “Did the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
The Yomiuri Shimbun, the newspaper with the largest daily circulation in Japan, on Thursday last week published an article saying that an unidentified high-ranking Japanese official openly spoke of an analysis that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) needs less than a week, not a month, to invade Taiwan with its amphibious forces. Reportedly, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has already been advised of the analysis, which was based on the PLA’s military exercises last summer. A Yomiuri analysis of unclassified satellite photographs confirmed that the PLA has already begun necessary base repairs and maintenance, and is conducting amphibious operation exercises