Right now we are very familiar with what we call Six Capitals. In fact, we only have one capital, that is Taipei City. But why we say six capitals? Actually, six capitals mean six directly-controlled megacity. 六個直轄市 right now. It originated in the constitutional text of the 1946 Constitution. When the national risk government moved to Taiwan, they continued to use this system. Notwithstanding that Taiwan is small. It's only in China, you need to control some major cities from the central government. That's why you need that directly-controlled megacity, that kind of system. But when they moved to Taiwan, they continued to use that system, resulting in the disparity of Taipei and Kaohsiung city with other local governments. Taipei enjoy all kind of privileges in terms of financial resources, in terms of job opportunity, in terms of development opportunities. In the end, also bring about the north and south divide. Local issues, of course, are at the same time national issues. Lots of policy was trying to launch to breach that gap of geological divide. It happen in the area of election and also in the area of routine daily puppy policy, including the budget, including the national programs, and also local opportunities and local developments. In the end, there is a incentive for all cities and hsien to so-called upgrade to directly-controlled megacity. The first group of hsien under cities want to upgrade is Taichung and Taipei county. They both would like to enjoy the same status in Taipei and Kaohsiung. Because the formula for allocating budget to the local city from the central government is privileged for Taipei City and Kaohsiung city, according to many observers. They like to have that status. In the end, not only Taichung, and Taipei county, now we have six jointed by Tainan, Taoyuan, these are also two major ones aside from Kaohsiung, Taichung, and two Taipei. That is Taipei City and New Taipei City. But it's very intriguing to ask. What are the criteria? What would be the future landscape? The future may be that all the hsiens would like to become this upgraded to this big city. Can they do that? Well, we upgrade one by one. Then the landscape will be very disoriented. It may take sort of merge and combine, and we define a boundary. This is going to be a very difficult political engineering. But this is something stand in front of us. The issue is like that. Otherwise, we see the disparity of development and opportunities, and also resources among local governments. Because we have different local government. We have like Taoyuan city, small. We have big city like Taipei. We also have agriculture city like Chiayi and Yunlin. In terms of development and opportunity and also budget and financial, or location, there are problems ahead. Then comes to my final point about Local Essential relations. That is when you have a dispute between central government and local government, how are we going to resolve that? I'm going to mention two cases for that. The first case is National Health Insurance case. That is judicial interpretation number 550. We all know we are proud of our national health insurance. This is a very good program. But who's going to pay that? Of course, the government has to pay some. Aside from citizens they also pay their due, but the government pay some premium. But when it comes to local central relations, the question is whether the central government will pay at all or the local government should also pay. The issues was exactly like this, Taipei City, according to the formula established by central government, need to pay some. This some maybe order by more than other local governments. Taipei City was not happy about that. At that time, Ma Ying-jeou, who is about to run for president, was the mayor of Taipei City. There were sort of tension between the central government and the local government, particularly the Taipei city government. It happened exactly about that national health insurance issue. Taipei City government refused to pay the premium, resulting in fines, penalties from the house department. From a central government. Taipei City continued to refuse to pay and that number accumulate to more than, say, 30 million or about that. Then in the end, the court will have to deal with the issue. It's very interesting. The court say, we are not going to come up with the allocation of the premiere for you. We will say that both national government and local government, all need to shoulder there obligation. Because national health scholar is such an important public policy for the general public. So the court confirm that local government also need to pay. But exactly how much a local government need to pay? We would respect you to talk about it. But when the central government is doing this formula, you need to involve local government in the decision-making process. That means you need to consult, and that Taipei City to join that discussion. Is a very pro-dialogue in our strategy. As I mentioned in judicial review part, the court, again, adopt this kind of pro-dialogue approach. This is a very typical case of dispute between local and central government. The second one, was about, also happen in Taipei City, between Taipei City and central government. That is about the decision to postpone the local election. About Li and Lin, Taipei government decided to postpone that election, because there is a reorganization that redraw all the boundary of Li and Lin in Taipei City. But according to the law, they should send that for the approval of the Ministry of the Interior. Ministry of the Interior found there were no reason to postpone that election. In the end, they settled that in a court and a Court render decision, judicial interpretation number 553. The court later confirmed it is a matter of constitutional significance in terms of local autonomy. By in essence is about statutory interpretation which the Supreme Administrative Law should handle a case not a constitutional court. But the court signals very strongly that the central government should involve local government in the resolution of this matter. Once again, the court come up with the pro-dialogue one. The court while stick into some norms and some rules, but at the same time, try to enhance the dialogue between local and central government. I find that a court had a reason to do that. Because during the course of democratization, political parties began to compete, particularly in the field of presidential election, political party compete so fiercely. There we're chances that the governor, or a mayor of the Taipei City and the president, the incumbent president, they may compete, or there party may compete in the next election. That competition may translated into local central dispute resolution. When the court come up with a tone, that is, local central governments should try to talk to each other. There is a way you pro dialogue to enhance the discussion and negotiation between central and local governments. This all happened against the backdrop of democratic transformation particularly when we have two kinds of version of local central relations. One is in the constitutional text, one, is in practice, supported by many quasi-constitutional statutes and also judicial interpretations about primarily, its own practice, in tandem with the tempo of democratic transition. That's central local relations.
