In the 1990s, when I was living outside Kaohsiung, the locals sardonically summed up the central government’s regional policies with a play on the term for male chauvinism: “Stress the north, ignore the south.”
It’s now been over a decade since Tainan, Kaohsiung city and county, Taichung and Taipei County were upgraded to special municipalities in December 2010, with Taoyuan following suit in 2014. At present, some two-thirds of the population is contained in these six large administrative areas.
After the change, some 61 percent of the central government funds for local areas went to the municipalities, with the share
Anthem, constitution changes proposed
CLEAR NATIONAL IDENTITY: DPP lawmakers told a public hearing that major advances would be made in the next legislative session regarding constitutional amendments
By Chen Yu-fu
and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
At a public hearing at the legislature yesterday on “normalizing” the nation, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators proposed changing the national anthem and the Constitution.
DPP lawmakers who hosted the hearing all belonged to the supposedly disbanded faction headed by Legislative Speaker You Si-kun.
DPP Legislator Chen Ou-po (陳歐珀) said that major progress would be made on constitutional amendments in the next legislative session, adding that he had already held numerous conferences on the amendments in Yilan County.