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.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas