I was born in Yunlin County, where the number of deaths has exceeded births for 16 consecutive years. The population has been declining since 2008. This reflects a trend where young people, after finishing school, do not stay in Yunlin. Instead, they head to cities like Taipei or Taichung for job opportunities and a more vibrant lifestyle.
A friend of mine faced the dilemma of not finding suitable employment opportunities in her hometown after graduating from university. She hoped to find a job related to her profession in Yunlin County, but job opportunities there were limited. She had to leave her hometown and seek better career prospects in Taipei. Such stories are not uncommon in Yunlin County, as many young people confront similar dilemmas.
Taiwan faces an increasingly severe demographic challenge. The population is concentrated in urban areas, while rural areas are grappling with labor shortages and an aging population.
To tackle the issue, the National Development Council announced the Regional Revitalization Policy in 2019, aiming to encourage proactive thinking at the local level to boost regional industrial development. The goal is to attract younger people back to rural areas, promote internal migration within Taiwan and alleviate the excessive population concentration in cities.
The regional revitalization policy has been in place for six years, and the government has invested a significant amount of money, yet there have been no major results. Most young people still choose to work in cities. Successful projects are highlighted by the government, but more often they have fallen short, and the underlying issues remain unresolved. Why are young people unwilling to return to their hometowns? Is it due to flawed policies, or are there other factors at play?
Policies designed to address immediate social issues tend to be reactive. The current approach is more proactive, focusing on setting goals and a vision for what needs to be accomplished in the coming years. However, these policies still prioritize short-term interests and lack continuity. When a project ends, there is often no one to continue the work. Most rural residents focus on just getting by. The poor do not have the luxury of focusing on regional development.
Autonomous community organizations and enterprises are typically less powerful and have less resources. The government sector tends to have plenty of resources, but often lacks long-term planning and continuity, focusing solely on immediate and achievable goals. Cross-sectoral collaboration remains mostly theoretical and idealistic and is rarely put into practice.
Long-term and sustainable development of a region requires community engagement to be succesful, and complemented by support and assistance from the public sector.
However, issues in Yunlin County have led me to question whether Taiwanese genuinely care about the nation’s welfare. Would young people continue to move away from their hometowns in pursuit of higher salaries and better living conditions? Are the hyped slogans just blueprints that would never be achieved?
What is happening in the private sector is instructive. Corporations prioritize economic development over environmental concerns, resulting in pollution and damage to the environment.
Do Taiwanese sincerely love their homeland, or are they primarily concerned with accumulating wealth over the deeper welfare of the nation? Successful policy implementation might not be sufficient to arrest the decline unless Taiwanese begin to truly value their home.
Before we make the place, we need to love the place.
Wei Jung-shu is a student in the Department of International Affairs at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS