There have been calls of late for merging Chiayi county and city, as well as Hsinchu county and city, although in both cases, the mayors and county commissioners have different opinions on the issue. These calls may be the result of politicians planning for the next elections and their own future career goals, but they will have an impact on the healthy development of the nation’s regional structure.
The nation’s regional structure has always been flawed with its focus on the north, while giving less importance to the central and southern areas. Academics think it more appropriate to structure the nation into a northern, a central and a southern region.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) transformed Taipei County into New Taipei City, enlarged the special municipality of Kaohsiung by merging it with Kaohsiung County, and created two other special municipalities with the mergers of Taichung and Tainan city and county.
This was followed in 2014 by the upgrading of Taoyuan County into the Taoyuan special municipality, with Taoyuan City becoming a district of the special municipality. However, these changes have widened regional imbalances and resulted in an even more unfair allocation of government revenues and expenditures.
If Chiayi city and county, and Hsinchu city and county were merged to create two more special municipalities, there would be a total of eight special municipalities in Taiwan. This would have an unparalleled negative political, economic and social impact on the nation.
Taking the construction of a balanced regional framework into consideration, the Cabinet has in its Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program proposed to allocate NT$424.1 billion (US$14.1 billion) for the construction of 38 railway projects across the nation — almost half of the program’s budget. If the annual budget is added to this amount, it would total more than NT$9.5 billion — no small sum.
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Lin Cho-shui has said that during the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the government built many airports and local cultural centers that were left unused and are popularly referred to as “mosquito buildings.”
Because the construction of railway systems is costly and the economic returns are low, the Taiwan Railways Administration has been in the red for several decades, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp is operating at a loss and the Kaohsiung MRT’s results are also less than stellar.
Cities large and small now want to invest in railway construction. Is that really something a nation with an aging population needs? Can we be sure that all these railway solutions will not become “mobile mosquito halls,” as former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) has said?
It seems that the Cabinet wants to transplant the success of light rail system construction in Europe in the 20th century to Taiwan, but has it taken into consideration Taiwan’s geography and regional structure? Has it considered the future impact of electric, driver-less vehicles on transportation?
What Taiwan needs right now is a complete overhaul of the system — including transformation of its industrial, regional and income structure — rather than throwing more money at unhealthy structures and making things even worse.
Lin Terng-yaw is a lawyer.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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