The fundamental problem with the forced demolition of houses in the Wenlin Yuan (文林苑) area of Taipei City’s Shilin District (士林) has been the questionable legitimacy claimed by the government to intervene in the decision of landowners on whether to participate in an urban renewal project.
After the Wenlin Yuan incident last month, netizens compiled a map of urban renewal projects in Taipei City. This showed that most projects are concentrated in the Zhongzheng (中正) and Da-an (大安) districts, where land prices are high. Fewer projects were in older districts, such as Datong (大同) and Wanhua (萬華), that are perhaps more in need of urban renewal, and where land prices are much lower.
As such, one apparent consequence of the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) is that the authorities seem to be reinforcing, rather than challenging, existing economic inequality. In other words, the state’s legislative controls on urban renewal run counter to the justice principle proposed by liberal egalitarians such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin.
Not only is the increased floor area ratio of urban renewal projects not a public good, but house owners often make excuses to occupy green space, parking areas and other public spaces provided by developers. In addition, it has been pointed out that the blueprint for the Wenlin Yuan project violates fire safety regulations and could thus result in negative externalities for neighbors.
That means that it also contradicts the efficiency principle proposed by some economists. Furthermore, even if the public believes urban renewal requires a certain degree of regulation, individual actions could still be constrained by collective will through private means, without government intervention.
The government intervenes in people’s lives in many ways, whether through the requirement to wear a crash helmet when riding a scooter or motorcycle, the mandatory use of a seatbelt in the backseat of their cars, or the fines imposed on those caught idling their cars for longer than three minutes.
More onerous regulations include the Ministry of Education’s demand that National Taiwan University manage the opinions posted on its PTT, Taiwan’s largest bulletin board system, while other laws restrict people’s freedom of assembly and deny homosexuals the right to get married.
Perhaps it is the mindset of the authoritarian era that causes the government to instinctively want so much control over people’s lives.
Confucius said: “The people can be made to follow a path of action, but they cannot be made to understand it.”
It is this herd mentality that causes those being led to sometimes accept the legitimacy of those doing the leading without ever asking why. That is why so many fail to question or protest the fact that their freedoms and human rights are being eroded.
Hopefully, the example of the Wenlin Yuan urban renewal project will trigger greater discussion on housing justice and a critical review of rights and obligations in the relationship between the state and the public.
The outcome of such a discussion should be proper limitations and restrictions on government authority.
Jui-Chung Allen Li is an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Ahead of US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) meeting today on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea, an op-ed published in Time magazine last week maliciously called President William Lai (賴清德) a “reckless leader,” stirring skepticism in Taiwan about the US and fueling unease over the Trump-Xi talks. In line with his frequent criticism of the democratically elected ruling Democratic Progressive Party — which has stood up to China’s hostile military maneuvers and rejected Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework — Lyle Goldstein, Asia engagement director at the US think tank Defense Priorities, called
A large majority of Taiwanese favor strengthening national defense and oppose unification with China, according to the results of a survey by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). In the poll, 81.8 percent of respondents disagreed with Beijing’s claim that “there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China,” MAC Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference on Thursday last week, adding that about 75 percent supported the creation of a “T-Dome” air defense system. President William Lai (賴清德) referred to such a system in his Double Ten National Day address, saying it would integrate air defenses into a
The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?” Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society. In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data.
RSS