Taichung last week became the nation’s second-largest city by population and as a growing city, it proves that the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program needs to be passed to support continued growth, Taichung-based Deputy Legislative Speaker Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said.
The Ministry of the Interior on Friday published its newest statistics, which showed that by the end of last month, Taichung’s population exceeded Kaohsiung’s by 309 residents, officially becoming the second-largest of the six special municipalities.
New Taipei City had the biggest population at 3.9 million, while Taichung and Kaohsiung both had about 2.7 million, Taipei came in fourth at 2.68 million, Taoyuan had 2.1 million and Tainan was the smallest, with 1.8 million inhabitants, according to official statistics.
Photo: Su Chin-feng, Taipei Times
The nation’s total recorded population was 23.55 million, an increase of 40,000 from last year, ministry data showed.
Tsai, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said that Taichung, long ignored in the national distribution of funds, spent longer coming into its own compared with Taipei and Kaohsiung.
The Forward-looking Program would give Taichung a chance to lead instead of remaining a forgotten rural backwater, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yan Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) said Taichung surpassing Kaohsiung was not a coincidence, as the city is home to both a seaport and an airport, and a decreasing crime rate adds to its appeal.
Local industries should ponder how to attract investment and create jobs, and both the municipal and the national government must give attention to falling birth rates if they wish to be “forward looking,” Yan said.
The establishment of special municipalities in 2010 was not the only impetus for Taichung’s growth; the policies of subsequent mayors also played a great role, Yan said.
Kaohsiung, the former second-largest municipality, should give due thought to what Taichung did right, he added.
Meanwhile, DPP Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟), whose constituency is in Kaohsiung, congratulated Taichung, but said his city’s residents would undoubtedly have experienced mixed emotions upon hearing the news.
Kaohsiung’s failure to change its industry mix from petrochemical factories to new technology and science parks directly contributed to the city developing more slowly over the past four decades, despite an initial population advantage, Chao said.
Chao added that Taichung had seen a more balanced development, whereas in recent years, the population in Kaohsiung’s Fengshan District (鳳山) increased by 40,000, whereas the former city center’s population, as well as that in Gangshan (岡山) and Cishan (旗山) districts had declined.
Industry and urban development should be given equal weight in the debate about Kaohsiung’s future, he said.
KMT Legislator Chen Yi-min (陳宜民), who represents another Kaohsiung constituency, said the city’s relative stagnation was hardly a shock.
A city’s competitive edge is maintained by creating an atmosphere of a city on the rise, he said.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) is hardworking, but judging by the city’s modest population increase over the past 11 years, net decrease over the past two years and net emigration, other city mayors had outperformed her, he said.
Chen Yi-min also pointed to a failure to shift away from petrochemical industries as the main reason for Kaohsiung’s stagnancy.
The gradual phasing out of the petrochemical cluster and lack of new businesses means a net decrease of jobs and a decreased ability to retain students that have come to Kaohsiung to study, and does not encourage former Kaohsiung residents to return, Chen Yi-min said.
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
China is likely to focus on its economy over the next four years and not set a timetable for attempting to annex Taiwan, a researcher at Beijing’s Tsinghua University wrote in an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday. In the article titled “Why China isn’t scared of Trump: US-Chinese tensions may rise, but his isolationism will help Beijing,” Chinese international studies researcher Yan Xuetong (閻學通) wrote that the US and China are unlikely to go to war over Taiwan in the next four years under US president-elect Donald Trump. While economic and military tensions between the US and China would
RSS