Should Taiwan Adopt Large Regional Governments?

This is a translation from the Chinese original “如果台灣是六個新加坡，民主分權還是要民主集權？” originally published in SOSReader. Translation by Tim Smith.

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City planning, national planning, and administrative divisions of labor are all interconnected.

In democratic, yet centrally concentrated countries, the civil workforce in capitals tend to be over-inflated. We can look at both Tokyo and Taipei as good examples.

In the case of Taiwan, out of the 159 universities and colleges, 49 of these institutions are located in the greater Taipei area. Top-ranking universities are even more concentrated in central Taipei. After students graduate from their programs in Taipei, they tend to stay in the area for work. This kind of magnetism leads to a concentration of human resources within the capital.

The capitals of democratic separation-of-power countries, for example, America and Germany, don’t have this kind of pressure from over-concentration. Many elite universities are spread out across the east, west, south, and mid-western parts of the US. MIT is located in the east. Cal. Tech is out in the west. Harvard is in the east. Stanford is in the west. U-Chicago is in the Midwest. Both Texas A&M and the University of Texas are located in the southern U.S.; California has Silicon Valley and New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Houston, etc. each have their own paths towards growth and development.

In countries that are not democratic, yet divide power, the banking centers aren’t completely concentrated into one area. For example, in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, each city has its own specialties and competitive industries, yet China’s most famous universities are spread about in the north, northeast, south and central parts of China.

We often bring up new insights and innovation. However, in countries with democratic, centrally-concentrated power, many policies end up being a one-size-fits-all solution because it’s decided by the central government. Under democratic systems, every interest group and area of society will put forth different ideas, revisions or disagreements, which creates a massive transaction cost when these opinions must be consolidated into a single policy.

Innovation necessitates the burden of risk; this includes testing new ideas in education and technology. Often in Taiwan, new policies are applied nationwide, but the resulting risks are often much greater than we anticipate. The success or failure of just one part of project can float or sink the entire policy This includes financial services, tax services, as well as the entirety of our national planning; these areas all need much further, deeper discussion.

With a distribution of power and responsibility, we can better spread the risks. For those willing to innovate, they can try their hand in a separate market or jurisdiction to establish a starting point. After some success, other jurisdictions can then imitate those first successes. If we fail, then other markets or jurisdictions can learn lessons and avoid pitfalls.

The current government personnel loss is massive. Over the past 17 years, we’ve already undergone the resignation and replacement of over 300 cabinet ministers and 13 premiers. Local county magistrates and mayors oversee an impressive list of unrelated errands, yet they do not have the same authority as American state governors to make comprehensive decisions for their jurisdictions.

For example, city and county governments all have education bureaus, yet university resources are sourced from the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education. Even though there are colleges in each area of Taiwan, there’s no way they can retain talented graduates after those students have studied for four years. Science parks aren’t managed by the cities or counties they are located in; these tech park campuses are even segregated by electrified barbed wire fences. Rights, powers, and responsibilities aren’t clear-cut, and talented bureaucrats cannot receive comprehensive training.

In the past, there have been administrators who come into government from the world of academia. Even if they have experience managing a university department, they often come face to face with a bloated bureaucracy at a cabinet ministry. Some other cabinet ministers who were former governors or mayors fare better because they have experience with coordinating various government functions, but because of our nation’s system of concentrated power, these department heads are unable to come into contact with different ministries for the economy, industry, foreign affairs, education, trade, or disaster and emergency relief and create a planned cohesiveness. This is absolutely pitiful.

In the U.S., there have been 17 presidents who were state governors. Despite being the governor of Arkansas, generally considered a small state, former U.S. President Bill Clinton needed to create a plan for his state that could work across different industries and areas of governance, a treasury that could manage itself, and a government that could implement governmental goals and prospects. Taiwan currently has six direct cities, three provincial level cities, and 11 counties, but how many has a solvent and self-sufficient treasury? Is any of them able to effectively implement governmental policy? Education, economy, taxation, technology, and even the police policies are all disjointed.

In Nantou, the city planning division consists of 30 people; but in Taipei, the urban development bureau has a staff of more than 800 people, not including additional case by case appointments. In Nantou, 30 people manages and plan for an area spanning 4,106 square kilometers; but more than 800 people plan the entire area of Taipei, only about 200 square kilometers. Given the current disparity in prestige and ranking between bureaucrats in Taipei and a rural area, even a section chief in Taipei wouldn’t go to Nantou to head up a bureau.

When everyone only wants to work in Taipei, everyone looks to Taipei’s opinions. The entire nation is reduced to the perspective within 200 square kilometers.

Under this kind of framework, ordinary government employees look no further than Taipei’s experiences, such as costs of living, property prices, infrastructure, and resources, as the basis for policies that encompass the entire country. When it comes to enacting policies for outside the capital, these bureaucrats will not have the sensitivity to the unique problems of these other areas, and are incapable of responding appropriately.

Even the news media overwhelmingly skew towards news from Taipei, while other local news consists mostly of footage from traffic cams, sponsored content, or low cost tabloid gossip?

However, if we divide the country into six large regions, each region can consolidate all of the governance divisions of labor and resources more than any single county can currently achieve. Similar to the six “states” under Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s, or “Six Singapores,” as former Taiwan Stanford Alumni Association president Mr. Huang Chih-yuan puts it, regional independence is an important model to consider for Taiwan. Taking the powers and responsibilities of the national government and delegating them to newly created regional governments fully authorized to make decisions on tax, administration, and resource management, is an opportunity to restructure Taiwan’s governance for the better.

If it’s worth doing, then we must do it.

Note: This article is the result of a talk with the former head of the Stanford alumni foundation, Mr. Huang Chih-Yuan. He is a graduate student in the economic engineering department at Stanford University, and studied engineering at Arizona State University as well as his undergraduate degree in the department of engineering and science at Chenggung University. He once proposed a national spatial development plan titled “If Taiwan were Six Singapores.”