North–South divide in Taiwan

In Taiwan, the North–South divide (Chinese: 重北輕南; pinyin: Zhòng Běi Qīng Nán; lit. 'Heavy North', 'Light South') refers to the uneven distribution of resources in regard to political, wealth, medical, economic development, education and other aspects across the country over past decades that has drawn the social and cultural differences between Northern Taiwan and Southern Taiwan today.^[1][2]

Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan

Development

The divide has often been attributed to government bias. Following its defeat by the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War and the Nationalists' subsequent flight from the Chinese mainland, the Kuomintang relocated its headquarters to Taipei in the north of Taiwan.^[3][4]

Since the Nationalist government's retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Kuomintang has held power for more than 60 years non-consecutively (1945–2000, 2008–2016), compared to the Democratic Progressive Party's 14 years (2000–2008, 2016–now). Owing to the Kuomintang's long-standing bias, especially over the White Terror period, the gap between the north and the south in terms of social and economic development has gradually widened. The KMT was alleged to have concentrated investment in technological fields in its base in northern Taiwan, especially in Hsinchu and the Greater Taipei Metropolis area, while investment in the south of Taiwan was mainly in industry. As industry relocated to Mainland China over the past decades, leading to slower growth in southern Taiwan, there has been a brain drain of younger, college-educated Taiwanese from the South to the North where higher-paying service and technology industries are located.^[5][6][7]

From 1990–1998, the Mayor of Kaohsiung, Wu Den-yih, frequently criticized the KMT-led central government for its bias in favor of the north and against the south.^[8]

Ethnic divisions

See also: Demographics of Taiwan

Historical tensions within Taiwan between ethnics mainlanders, Hoklo, and Hakka groups factor into the north–south divide in Taiwan.^[9][10][11]

Taipei

Tianlongguo (天龍國; 'Celestial Dragon Country', also Tianlong) is a pejorative term referring to Taipei residents' apparent nobility or aloofness. The term is based on the Celestial Dragon characters in the Japanese manga One Piece.^[12]

Differences

Political alignment

 

2012 Taiwanese presidential election results

  Kuomintang candidate

  Democratic Progressive Party candidate

Traditionally, southwestern voters have favored pan-green parties such as the Democratic Progressive Party while northern voters prefer pan-blue ones such as Kuomintang.^[13][14] "Most outlets in Taiwan are either aligning themselves with the pan-Green camp that traditionally supports Taiwan's independence or the pan-Blue camp that traditionally advocates Taiwan's unification with China", said a Swedish reporter in Taipei.^[15]

The data of historical elections show a divide between urban versus rural voters, and northern versus southern Taiwanese.^[16][17] For instance, voters from municipalities in northern Taiwan were more inclined to support same-sex marriage legalization. Among the top ten cities in favor of same-sex marriage were the far northern cities of Taipei, New Taipei, Hsinchu, and Keelung.^[17]

Landform

See also: Geography of Taiwan

Northern Taiwan accounts for just about 20% of the total area of Taiwan but hosts virtually half of Taiwanese population, intimating Taiwanese people are exorbitantly gathering in northern Taiwan,^[18][19] leading to problems of overpopulation and slow growth of regions other than northern Taiwan.^[20]

An article published in a demographic and land economics journal by National Chengchi University suggested that the rising housing prices in northern Taiwan were simply a result of the central government's bias towards northern Taiwan because it implemented an array of projects that created a lot of position vacancies in the north areas the treatment of which is in a sharp contrast to central and southern Taiwan.^[5] This has led people to pursue real estate in an area the land supply of which is limited owing to geographic reasons, as there is more mountain, high land, and Table (landform) than plain in the northern part of Taiwan.^[5]

Population

As people in Taiwan continued to migrate to northern Taiwan, the number of seats in the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan representative of northern Taiwanese kept rising. Many worry about this deepening the unequal pace of development between the more urbanized northern Taiwan and the rural south.^[21]

Life expectancy

Residents in the northern part of Taiwan generally live longer than those in the south. Hsinchu and Taipei areas enjoyed highest life expectancy over the average of 80 years old.^[22]

Tainan and Kaohsiung, two major cities in southern Taiwan, had average life expectancy below 80 years old while other major cities in central Taiwan and northern Taiwan such as Taichung, Taoyuan, New Taipei, Taipei, Hsinchu all had the average life expectancy above 80.^[22] This is believed to be one of the outcomes of disparity in such factors as access to medical resource, quality of life, personal fitness and others.^{[22][23][24][25]}

According to the scholars' statistics, there are 12 medical schools in Taiwan as of 2019 and over one-half of them are located in northern Taipei, intimating that medical services and education available in Taiwan are inordinately concentrated in northern Taiwan. Graduating 400 physicians per year, only 32 of them opted to serve in Kaohsiung in 2018 which exposed a severe undue medical service capacity between northern and southern Taiwan.^[26] "The central government hasn't even hosted any public-funded medical school across Kaohsiung, Pingtung, Penghu and Taitung yet!", said the dean of National Sun Yat-sen University in 2019.^[26]

According to Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the occurrence of lung cancer in southern Taiwan is now 15 times greater than that in northern Taiwan, which contributes to southern Taiwan's shorter life expectancy.^[27][28]

Education opportunity

Over half of the enrollees of National Taiwan University come from Taipei City and New Taipei City.^[29]

See also

• Global North and Global South
• Northern and southern China

References

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2. 趙曉慧 (14 May 2015). "打破重北輕南 蔡英文：執政後3個月內 成立南台灣總統辦公室". Yahoo奇摩新聞、鉅亨網 (in Chinese). from the original on 10 May 2018. Retrieved 23 December 2017. 打破重北輕南：民進黨2016年總統參選人蔡英文今(14)日到高雄參訪，她表示，希望能翻轉南部，變成下一個世代經濟發展的領頭羊，要擺脫「天龍國觀點」、「從台北看天下」，若能順利執政，將在3個月內成立南台灣總統辦公室，領導政府全力推動南部再生。 蔡英文表示，一旦民進黨重返執政，會將南北均衡發展，作為國土發展的首要政策；而且也將重新定位南台灣在國際分工的積極角色，至少有3個具體策略，可以用來發展南部的經濟。
3. 台北更獨 ／南綠北藍 另有真相. Liberty Times 自由時報. 20 November 2007. from the original on 28 March 2016. Retrieved 10 January 2016. (in Chinese)
4. . 國立政治大學 (in Chinese). 11 January 2014. Archived from the original on 17 December 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2017. 造成北部房價高漲原因，不外乎政府長期重北輕南之經濟政策
5. . 國立政治大學 (in Chinese). 11 January 2014. Archived from the original on 17 December 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2017. ......然南北城鄉的租稅負擔更隱含租稅之不公平。舉例而言，根據本年 7、8 月份屏東市、台北市及高雄市於內政部房屋實價登錄網站資料，相同樓高及類似區段的大樓產品，成交總價分別為 320 萬元、3,100萬元及 512 萬元，平均單價則分別為每坪 58,000 元、708,000 元及 134,000元，如以房屋稅占分算房屋賣價之租稅負擔率分別為 0.39％、0.35％及0.31％，看似負擔率相當，但加計該負擔之地價稅後，情形便大不相同，租稅負擔率分別為 0.29％、005％及0.17％，顯示屏東縣民同樣擁有大樓房屋之租稅負擔率竟高於台北市或高雄市居民 6 倍及 2 倍，此種扭曲的不公平稅制實有違量能課稅之基本財稅理論，也是財政當局尤應正視之處。造成北部房價高漲原因，不外乎政府長期重北輕南之經濟政策，人口高度集中都會區，南部鮮少重大建設提供就業機會，自然使得多數人去競逐供給有限的不動產，尤其土地資源不可增加及不能挪移的特性，更推波助瀾這股沛然莫之能禦的漲勢。
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20. 在胡寶林（1998）《都市生活的希望-人性都市與永續都市的未來》一書中，台北都會排名29，人口至1995年底約為6.2百萬。
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27. Tseng, Chien-Hua; Tsuang, Ben-Jei; Chiang, Chun-Ju; Ku, Kai-Chen; Tseng, Jeng-Sen; Yang, Tsung-Ying; Hsu, Kuo-Hsuan; Chen, Kun-Chieh; Yu, Sung-Liang; Lee, Wen-Chung; Liu, Tsang-Wu; Chan, Chang-Chuan; Chang, Gee-Chen (2019). "The Relationship Between Air Pollution and Lung Cancer in Nonsmokers in Taiwan". Journal of Thoracic Oncology. 14 (5). Elsevier BV: 784–792. doi:10.1016/j.jtho.2018.12.033. ISSN 1556-0864. PMID 30664991. S2CID 58552202.
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29. Lee Hong-Yuan [李鴻源] (10 September 2019). 台灣必須面對的真相 [The harsh reality Taiwan ought to confront] (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Taipei. ISBN 978-957-13-7938-8. OCLC 1127057496. Archived from the original on 29 January 2020. Retrieved 29 January 2020 – via ウェブ魚拓. 在我小的時候，台灣很窮，但我們一直相信只要努力用功，就會有機會，就能出人頭地。前教育部長吳京從小在台東長大，前台北市副市長、曾任高鐵董事長的歐晉德也是來自台東。再看看台大，和我年紀相近或是較長的教授，超過一半都來自中南部，這意味著，在過去不論是來自台灣的東南西北，機會是屬於努力的人。走到今天，台灣的城鄉差距愈拉愈大，從台大即可一窺一二。現今的台大學生大部分都來自雙北，他們的父親出生地卻多是雲林、嘉義等地，意味著人口逐漸往台北傾斜，城鄉差距愈拉愈大，教育資源錯置從未解決，......{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)