The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday urged the government to establish an agency to address the problem of a falling birthrate.
At a news conference in Taipei ahead of Children’s Day on Sunday, KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) said that the number of births in the nation hit a record low of 165,249 last year, citing government statistics.
The low number is “a very serious problem ... that everyone should pay attention to” as it might cause a “national security crisis,” Wang said.
The decline “has a lot to do with the president’s attitude,” she said.
When the number of births reached a low of 166,886 in 2010, then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) treated it as a national security crisis, Wang said.
Ma addressed the problem and promoted many policies to tackle it, she said, adding that the number of births rose to 196,627 in 2011 and 229,481 in 2012.
Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in 2016, the number of births has continued to decline, Wang said, citing statistics showing 208,440 births in 2016, 193,844 in 2017, 181,601 in 2018 and 177,767 in 2019.
The number of births might fall below 150,000 this year, said James Hsueh (薛承泰), a sociology professor at National Taiwan University who served as a minister without portfolio in Ma’s administration.
The birthrate is declining, while the population is aging, Hsueh said.
In 2000, people older than 65 made up about 8.6 percent of the nation’s population, and that figure rose to 16.1 percent last year, he said, adding that the rate could climb to more than 30 percent in 2040.
The government should set up an agency to address the problem as soon as possible, the KMT said in a statement.
It should also respond to calls from children advocacy groups and establish an agency dedicated to children’s cybersecurity, the KMT said.
Separately yesterday, the KMT-affiliated National Policy Foundation called on the government to extend compulsory education for five-year-olds.
Under the Primary and Junior High School Act (國民教育法), children aged six to 15 receive compulsory primary and junior-high school education.
The government’s policy on preschool education is primarily focused on tuition subsidies, creating quasi-public kindergartens, it said.
The government should also guarantee the quality of preschool education to protect the rights of parents and children, the foundation said.
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.