Why stay in Taiwan?

It's the little things...or is it?

You probably don’t care about my life, but here’s the deal. I’ve had a somewhat tumultuous week professionally, although nothing that ended up being terribly deleterious. I don’t want to say too much about it, but I’ve been feeling frustrated about the limitations of teacher training opportunities in Taiwan for residents like me, despite how much we can help in the face of Taiwan’s push for internationalization. 

I have no desire to discuss the details behind this; it’s insider beef that you really don’t need, and might be wrong of me (or at least harmful to me) to divulge. 

I've also been feeling more frustrated than usual about Taiwan's naturalization laws. Nothing has changed since the 2007 reforms, opening up a pathway for magical stardusted special and senior foreign professionals, basically saying most foreigners who call Taiwan home -- whether they're white collar like me or blue collar like most immigrants here -- are garbage. Not worth caring about. 

Yes, the road to dual nationality may be narrow now, but there's room for it to expand. But I fear it will happen when I'm too old for it to matter. I'm not sure exactly how I will grow old in Taiwan as planned, because I can't get a mortgage and don't have local family, but landlords don't like to rent to the elderly. What am I supposed to do when I'm 80? If the law changes when I'm 60, that's a little too late to fix the problem. 

There's something to be said for fighting for something so that the next generation can enjoy fairer access. And yet, recently I've been wondering if this is enough. Wondering why I bother. 

With all this in the background, I’ve been trying to blog about politics to get my mind off it. Nothing comes out right, though. I have a few half-finished posts that I might wrap up and publish anyway, or perhaps not. We’ll see. Maybe I just need to not with the politics right now. 

Instead, I thought I'd examine something else. I know perfectly well that I'm not actually going to leave Taiwan (which, to be honest, is part of the problem. Maybe I should be more open to doing so). So rather than stewing in my own angry juices over this, perhaps I should talk a bit about why I stay. 

People love to ask why I moved to Taiwan. That story isn't very interesting. Studying in India made me want to learn more about Asia in general. I spent a year in China and didn't love it. And yet, I still felt there was a lot for me to learn, and I like the general feel and pace of life in large Asian cities. So, I came to Taipei mostly out of curiosity. I certainly didn't know much about it. 

Why I stay, though? Maybe that's worth discussing. I've been here for 18 years now. The pay isn't that good. Career opportunities are middling at best. I do have a fantastic local network, but most of my close family live on the other side of the world. Nobody loves Taipei's weather. My apartment is nice, but apartments in Taiwan generally aren't. There's the ever-looming China threat (though I imitate local residents in living my life as though that's not a thing). 

And yet here I am. Still. I've been thinking about this for awhile -- it's easy to rattle off reasons to leave. Any article about the "ghost island" can do that. The more fruitful area to examine is why I stay.

I've identified five very generalized reasons why, despite its faults, Taiwan is the country I chose to call home. These are five things that I think are important for any country I might live in long-term, and Taiwan happens to excel at them.

For my own reflection as much as yours, here they are: 

1.) Generally good infrastructure, including (most especially) public transit

Not all of Taiwan has good public transportation, but Taipei does, and it's fairly easy to get to any other town you might want to visit. Getting around that town might be a challenge, but you can always get there. I live in Taipei, though, and this city has some of the best public transit in the world. In general, I appreciate infrastructure that works. That includes buses that run on time, a clean metro system, convenient trains.

Compare that to the US, where the only city that has public transit that comes close to meeting my standards is New York. That also happens to be a city where I couldn't possibly afford to live. I tried living in Washington DC for seven years without a car. People say transit there is good. I say it's a nightmare. 

Still, assuming I'd never move back to the US, I could enjoy good public transit in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore. If we're talking inter-city, even Vietnam. Europe, too, but there aren't really good jobs for me there. China, generally, has reasonable public transit. What could knock some of those countries off the list?

2.) An open and democratic government

Well, there goes Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong. China is an obvious no-go. I once considered moving to IstanbuI, but I can't get past the importance of a reasonable system of government. I might not have the right to vote, but it's important to me that my local friends do; I would find it very hard to exist as an admittedly privileged American in a country where I could send my ballot back every few years, but locals I knew wouldn't have access to human rights that I consider fundamental. 

For myself, well, I like to opinionate. It's important to me to live in a country where I can do so without fear of government retribution.

Beyond that, there's just something depressing about living in an unfree society. You may or may not have access to good journalism. Random bullshit things may be banned. Your friends can't say what they really think; you may not even know what they really think, depending on how severe the repression is. 

Being in Taiwan for two -- soon to be three -- presidential handovers, countless protests, a legislative occupation, and all manner of public debates? That may seem unimportant or ineffable to some, but it matters to me. Taiwan's democratic society is a big draw. 

South Korea and Japan are democracies too, though. Why not move to one of those?

3.) An acceptable level of gender equality

I'm not saying Taiwan doesn't have sexism and misogyny. Of course it does. The gender pay gap is still above 15%. But, compared to the rest of Asia, I daresay it's doing fairly well. 

Brendan has told me stories about Korea, where he would see job ads that openly offered men and women disparate pay for the same work. 

I know someone in Japan who once detailed many little ways in which women face discrimination; she once saw a pregnant woman stand up on the train for a salaryman! Discussing why that would happen, locals told her that the pregnant woman has an easier, more restful life while the salaryman is tired from hard work, so of course he should get the seat. I don't know that this happens frequently in Japan, but that it happened at all tells me that it may be a fine country to visit, but it's not a place where I think I'd be very happy living. 

Everything from work culture to beauty standards feels so much harsher in those countries. The fact that women make up such a small percentage of the workforce in Japan and are deeply underrepresented in politics are other strikes against it. I'll take the country that elected a woman twice, thanks. 

Korea is similar; the gender wage gap there is astounding (Japan is almost as bad). I've enjoyed visiting both countries. As a woman, I want to live somewhere with more equality. 

That brings me to my next point. 

4.) A high level of public safety

It's not just pay, work, politics and beauty standards. All three countries have very high levels of public safety, including for women. As an American, this matters to me. It wasn't fun growing up in a country where it wasn't safe to be outside alone at night. But Taiwan manages the high public safety with a whole lot less of the ridiculous discrimination.

This matters not just for me, but for my LGBTQ+ friends. South Korea, for instance, is not a very safe place for many people dear to me. Public safety isn't just about whether or not you're likely to get mugged or pick-pocketed. It is also deeply related to who you are. I wouldn't want to live in a country where I might be targeted because I'm a woman, or where my friends might be targeted for being gay, nonbinary or trans. 

This, of course, knocks many countries off the list -- including the United States. 

I considered adding "a high level of overall development" to this list, because so many of my points are oriented around that. Advanced economies are more likely to have good public transit and safety, higher levels of gender equality and functional democratic governments. 

But not always -- the United States fails on most of these counts. Plenty of countries that aren't rich do have democratic governments. Besides, I don't think anyone wants a middle class white lady to prattle on about how she wants to live in an advanced economy. In fact, it's not actually one of the key criteria.

Instead, my fifth point is more specific but is still related to overall development markers. 

5.) National! Health! Insurance!

As an American, I cannot express how much this matters to me. I spent the first half of my twenties kinda miserable because I needed to see some doctors, but couldn't afford any of them. My lack of access to affordable health care in the US is directly responsible for the back surgery I needed during my first year in Taiwan. 

This really matters! Health insurance alone is enough to make me forsake the US forever. 

That said, this point has been bugging me recently, because I'm in the middle of a tooth implant that isn't covered by Taiwan's NHI. All told, it will cost me about NT$87,000. The dentist has been clear that for me, it's a necessity (another one of my crowns is in danger if I don't get a tooth put in next to it). And yet, it's entirely out of pocket. 

I think NHI should cover it. After all, it's an absolute necessity for me unless I want to literally be toothless in a few years. 

But, all of that aside, I'm grateful that the many times I've needed to see a doctor in this country, that I could actually afford to do so. 

I'm still not feeling entirely all right about the state of my life in Taiwan these days. It hurts to want to commit to a place, without seeing a clear future there, especially in old age.

There is another reason I stay, but it's intensely personal: I truly believe in what Taiwan stands for. To me, Taiwan means standing up to a dictatorship that landed on your soil and tried to force you to submit, turning the country instead into a functioning and peaceful democracy. It means refusing to shatter under the constant threats from yet another dictatorship that wants to annex you by any means necessary. It means building one of the more advanced and liberal societies in Asia -- if not the most liberal -- on the back of a tragic and bitter history of colonialism and oppression.

That, to me, is worth fighting for. It's worth staying for. It's not on the list because it's not a specific thing Taiwan has, it's more of a narrative that Taiwan embodies.

It does help, however, to think through the reasons why I've stayed, and run through the possibilities of other countries where I might relocate. None quite hit the five criteria -- gender equality, health insurance, democracy, public transit and public safety -- that Taiwan does. Most countries can be exciting, interesting, historically noteworthy, or absolutely lovely. 

But I can't think of another one that actually meets these five benchmarks, all of which are crucial to me. Can you?

The reasons for Taiwan’s low birth rate remain simple

I was in Tainan over the weekend — I have no specific post about it because I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but I’ll share a few pictures. A lot of the temples there have those wooden plaques you can write a wish on, pray, and then hang your wish on a board or tree. If you actually stop to read other people’s wishes (and I do), you’ll notice that one of the most common is to “marry and have kids” or “have a little treasure as soon as possible”. Health, peace, love, family and career/financial success are also popular, for obvious reasons. 

But it struck me — for a country with a population that the news keeps saying doesn’t want to procreate, a lot of people sure do want to procreate. 

In fact, recent statistics show that Taiwan’s birthrate has continued to fall, remaining at or near the bottom of global fertility rankings. There’s some variation, with numbers being higher in Changhua, the outlying islands, Taoyuan and to a lesser extent, Hsinchu.

I wrote about this a very long time ago. The article probably sucks and I don't feel like going back to read it again, but I think it’s time to take another look. Mostly, I want to point out that people do want to have children. The question isn’t how to change people's attitudes; it’s how to make what most people already want possible. Shaming them simply won't work, as this Taipei Times article rightly points out.

Tricky Taipei has already published a good piece focusing on the availability of fertility treatments to unmarried people and same-sex couples, so I won’t cover that here. (I also hit this topic in 2016, so there's no need to repeat). The gist: anyone can freeze their eggs, but one must be legally married to a person of the opposite sex to pursue treatments like IVF. That’s not right and it really must change.

For those who aren’t seeking fertility treatments, however, the reasons why the fertility rate is low should be pretty obvious. Here's a brief recap:

1.) Salaries are too low

When you think about the cost of having children compared to Taiwan’s famously stagnant salaries, would you want to constantly worry that you can’t pay bills or raise them the way you want? 

2.) Housing costs are too high

It’s not unusual to want to own your own home before starting a family, or be close to that goal. Although it feels like new apartment complexes are going up constantly, they’re often half-empty, with many units acting as tax shelters or investment properties, not living spaces. Everyday people can’t afford enough space to raise a family comfortably close enough to work and school, so they delay having children. 

3.) Working hours are too long

In other words, when you’re grinding yourself to a pulp a hundred hours a week for some crappy boss, you just don’t have the energy to bone down.

In addition, if you're a double income household but don’t have family who can help, but both parents work, childcare is expensive. This is probably why so many parents pay for cram schools: most of the time, it feels like fancy daycare because that’s exactly what it is. 

4.) Straight-up sexism

Adding to this, a lot of Taiwanese women describe the country’s pretty strong maternity leave policies as “看得到但是吃不到” — we can see it, but we can’t eat it. In theory it's guaranteed, but we can’t access it. I work with a lot of career-minded professionals and over and over, the women tell me that they absolutely face passive-aggressive (or just plain aggressive) repercussions at work for taking their full allotted maternity leave, or are discriminated against in hiring because employers fear they’ll have children soon. 

And, of course, the gender wage and work gaps don't help. Taiwanese women still earn less than men and typically 'female' jobs tend to be lower-to-middle white collar. Women who feel satisfied with their pay and career trajectory are probably more likely to feel ready to have children. 

5.) People are marrying later

Single parenthood is fairly rare in Taiwan, although of course it happens. The government actively discourages it -- the abortion laws are intentionally eugenicist, not egalitarian.

With people mostly intending to have children after marriage, getting married later means fewer years to have children. That's a good thing. Personally, I don’t think my sense of self was fully settled until I was over 25, and I was closer to 30 before I felt mature enough to actually make a marriage work. There's even research backing this up, so it's probably true for a lot of people. In the past this could be papered over somewhat with traditional gender and family expectations, though I would bet just as many marriages were what we’d now call ‘failed’ in the past, even if divorce was not accessible.

6.) Lifestyles are changing

This isn’t a bad thing. It’s not wrong to want to live in a desirable area near work and school, with enough space, near but not with family, as Taiwanese youth are coming to realize the benefits of some privacy. It’s not wrong to want some of the trappings of a good life for your family — everything from travel to new clothes when you need them to not stressing about bills to sending your kids to good schools. Stagnant salaries mean fewer children, period.

7.) Gender roles are changing

Women have known for awhile that having more children means more work for them, if their husbands don’t step up. This is especially true if your support network can't step up to help. Some women have the desire and ability to be stay-at-home mothers, but even for families who can afford it, not every woman wants to give up her career, even if the hours are punishing. Can you blame them for not wanting to take on more in a society with this kind of work culture, where men still do far less housework than women?

This is also why people are marrying later: in the past perhaps one didn’t get as much of a say over what their married life would look like, because expectations were so set. Men earned money, and women could work (often running the most important parts of the family business) but had to do all of the traditional ‘women’s’ work, too. Even the Taiwanese feminist movement of the 1970s accepted this. Now, people want to marry a partner, not a role.

An interesting aside: the birth rate doesn't seem to be affected that much by educational attainment. There's a  drop-off in bearing children between female Master's and PhD holders, and a dip for women with Master's degrees in their twenties, but otherwise, the birth rate for women with Master's degrees in their 30s and 40s exceeds those with college degrees. This is likely because they delayed having those children, so the uptick in births appears in higher age categories.

This explains a lot

This is probably why Changhua and the outlying islands and, to a lesser extent, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, have higher fertility rates. I can't prove this, but in my experience the outlying islands are more conservative generally, so expectations of gender roles and family life may not have changed as much. Plus, young people who stay instead of moving to Taiwan likely live near family.

Changhua has some good things going for it, and the Taichung job market isn’t far away. And, again, if you’ve decided to raise a family in Changhua, it’s likely because you want to be near your own family support network. Hsinchu has comparably lower housing costs relative to higher science park salaries, and Taoyuan is commutable to both Hsinchu and Taipei, as well as being its own logistics hub due to the airport.

So what can we do?

Personally, I’m not sure constantly growing the population is the best way forward. Taiwan has limited space, and it’s already densely packed. Other solutions to deal with a super-aged society until population can level off would probably be better, but I don’t have any to offer beyond increased assistance to seniors. 

And of course, the statistics could be improved immediately if we just created a path for dual nationality for all immigrants, including the majority who are workers from Southeast Asia. 

But let’s say we do want more babies in Taiwan. How do we get people to have them?

Family subsidies are an acceptable start, but they are insufficient and don't seem to be working well. Measures to promote increased wages and lower work hours — yes, both of these, at the same time — would have a stronger impact, but it's hard to say what would achieve this and how enforceable it would be. Crappy bosses wouldn't like it because they would have to hire the number of people actually needed to get the work done and pay them fairly, but the goal would also be to reduce the number of bosses who can get away with being crappy. 

Affordable housing is something that can be addressed immediately. Instead of big infrastructure projects (I’m looking at you, F***ing Taipei Dome and every unnecessary new "Aerotropolis" and science park plan) while greenlighting housing  nobody can afford to live in, why not focus on affordable housing, renovate unoccupied urban structures and incentivize (not force) private construction companies to build human shelter, not tax shelter? At the same time, create or expand a mortgage or deposit subsidy for people with dependent children that can help them buy a first or larger home. 

Affordable childcare would help too. France has a subsidized “crèche” system; why can’t Taiwan? While we're at it, increase the availability of low-cost or free public pre-school, and create more engaging after-school programs for children that don't involve sitting at a desk for a few more hours memorizing facts to regurgitate on tests.

Finally, the government can and must listen to gender equality thought leaders. With progressive laws that don’t stigmatize or render inaccessible single or same-sex couple parenthood, enforcing gender equality laws and a strong “step it up, men (and bosses)” message, chances are we can make Taiwan a society where having more children is once again an appealing choice for women. 

Some of these changes would be complex and difficult, but others would be relatively straightforward. Some do require an outlay of political capital: reasonable work hours and pay will anger employers used to exploiting workers, and some of those companies skate by on razor-thin margins. Homeowners and development companies won't want to see the value of their properties decrease as housing becomes more affordable.

While I do understand the reasons behind such push-back, the changes that would actually solve the birth rate problem will also result in greater socioeconomic and gender equality. A robust middle class creates appealing conditions for people to grow their families. Funny how that works, eh? I'm not particularly sympathetic to those who resist because they thrive on inequality, keeping salaries low and housing prices high.

The government has a choice here: either take the necessary steps to actually address the low birth rate and face the inevitable resistance head-on, or don't -- but then don't whine that young people aren't having children because the financial and housing security they need is out of reach.

Most people do want children. There is no problem with young people’s attitudes and even if there were, they’re not going to change so all we can do is work with them. So we need to look at society for what it is and create targeted solutions that actually address the underlying issues that cause people to decide against having more children.

The case for why Taiwan is the best of the 'Asian Tigers'

I needed a cover photo that screamed 'Taiwan' so...here you go. 

As we enter the 2020 election season in Taiwan, I've been hearing a common sentiment from people I've talked to  - not just friends but students and random people I chat with in my daily life. Anecdotally, support for Tsai's re-election is strong, but there's a general sense that the economy is 'bad', and Tsai hasn't done that much about it. I've also picked up on a sentiment that Taiwan continues to lag behind the other 'Asian Tigers' - while nobody is jealous of Hong Kong these days, there is some envy of its status as an 'international city', and I hear jealous yearnings to be as well-off and nice as South Korea and Singapore.

It's easy to see why, on the surface. Let's be honest - South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong all look so much...shinier. The public spaces and roads look better-maintained. It just feels like there's more money floating around. 

This is reflective of two pieces from 2018 and one from 2016). So while I can't measure the strength of this sentiment, I can say with confidence that it's a thing. 

But you know what? I just don't think it's true.

It's not that the data are wrong. Salaries are in fact low. Business do take conservative investment approaches (and I personally feel that they do not invest nearly enough in talent, nor do business owners trust the talent they hire to innovate.) I'm not sure that Taiwan's GDP per capita is lower than the other Asian Tigers as CommonWealth claims - at least in this data, it beats South Korea. And none of this from the Today link above is wrong, per se:

But Taiwan did not woo multinational companies to set up facilities, as Singapore did. It did not develop a financial centre like Hong Kong’s; or establish large conglomerates or Chaebols, the way South Korea did. 

Instead, Taiwan is home to many small and medium enterprises, known as original equipment manufacturers (OEM), making devices at low cost for brand-name companies. The island became a high-tech powerhouse in the 1980s on the backs of these OEM manufacturers.... 

Today, young Taiwanese face dim job prospects. They have been dubbed the “22k” generation — a reference to their minimum monthly salary of NT$22,000, which works out to just over S$1,000. Youth unemployment is more than 12 per cent [I checked that number, and this website confirms it as does Taiwan Today and the government], and many young Taiwanese are disillusioned.

But I'm just not buying that this makes Taiwan 'the worst' of the Asian Tigers or somehow 'left behind'. Here's why.

First, the same things have been said about Hong Konger, South Korean and Singaporean youth - 'bleak prospects', 'disillusioned', 'low salaries', 'can't afford to buy a home', 'no future'. Salaries for young workers are low around the world - Millenials everywhere can't afford to buy property at the rate their parents and grandparents did, and Taiwan (and Hong Kong, and Singapore) is no exception. Taiwan's economy is slower than it once was, but that's true everywhere. 

Yes, a crude comparison of salaries shows higher pay in the other Asian Tiger countries, but Hong Kong and Singapore suffer from such high living costs that I doubt youth - or people of any age - who get jobs there actually enjoy a higher living standard.


Poverty and Inequality

In some metrics, Taiwan actually wins out over every other Asian Tiger. Looking at wealth inequality, Taiwan's GINI coefficient is 33.6 (the lower the number, the better). South Korea's is 35.7, Singapore's is 45.9, and Hong Kong's is a whopping 53.9. Although the numbers are getting a bit dated, Taiwan's poverty rate is stunningly low, at 1.5% (though I wonder how much of that is massaged by people of meager means living with family). In contrast, South Korea's is 14.4% and Hong Kong's is 19.9%.

Singapore doesn't provide data (seriously, check that link above). Thanks to journalist and Twitter buddy Roy Ngerng, however, I was able to find a few reliable sources that estimate poverty rates in Singapore to be a whopping 20-35%. 

Yeah, and for the low-income in Taiwan, easily among the bottom 30% to 40%, their standard of living is also better than the standard of living in Singapore. The poverty rate in Singapore is estimated to be 20%-35%. The government doesn't release statistics. Because if it did...

— Roy Ngerng (@royngerng) August 29, 2019

Yup. 

So hands down, Taiwan wins on equality - despite lower salaries, you've got a much lower chance of ending up indigent. Given the lower cost of rent in Taiwan than Hong Kong and Singapore, even if you do end up struggling financially in Taiwan, you can live a little better. There is no way, as a teacher, that I could afford the three-bedroom downtown flat I have in Taipei if I lived in any other Asian Tiger nation.

Although there's some contradictory info on purchasing power coming up, I'd also argue that the overall lifestyle in Taiwan is simply better. Coffin homes are not a thing, nor are cage homes. All of these countries have inexpensive food if you eat like a local,  but I've found that you can get more value for money in Taiwan (with South Korea as a close second). Overall, those little things that make life easier when you're broke are just a bit easier to come by here.

Is that not worth the trade-off of a few unsightly buildings? Would you not give up your glass skyscraper dreams to have more flexibility in your lifestyle? Just because a city looks a little ganky around the edges doesn't mean it's not wealthy.


Healthcare

I also want to take a look at healthcare - a lot of my data comes from here. Hong Kong's public hospitals have preposterously long wait times for procedures you can get done quickly and cheaply in Taiwan. The only way around them is expensive private hospitals, which not everyone can afford. South Korea's benefit package is quite narrow; a great deal of medical services are simply not covered. Singapore went through a process of privatizing hospitals, with mostly negative consequences, including increased cost to patients. Out-of-pocket expenses in Taiwan are similar to Hong Kong's (for better service) - they're higher in South Korea (due to so many uncovered services) and far higher in Singapore (due to privatization of hospitals, I suppose). While Taiwan does have a fairly high rate of private insurance, mostly purchased by wealthier people to supplement NHI, this doesn't make up for differences in out-of-pocket expenses.

After putting all that together, I'm gonna call it: Taiwan's got the best cost-to-benefit ratio of health coverage among the Asian Tigers. You won't be worrying about uncovered services like South Koreans, waiting years for basic tests like Hong Kongers or paying out-of-pocket like Singaporeans, and this is all despite having fewer doctors per 10,000 people than any of the other three countries. 


A free society

There are also personal freedoms to consider. Although I can only speak anecdotally, living in a society as free as Taiwan's counts for a lot. Again, South Korea is the closest comparison here. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is simply neither democratic nor free. Aside from the recent protests, the government is ultimately beholden to Beijing, and activists, publishers and journalists disappear (or are attacked or murdered) on the regular. In Taiwan, activists are mostly free to agitate for change. In Hong Kong, you're brought to trial and found guilty. Attend a protest - exercising your basic right to free speech and assembly - could get you fired. Singapore isn't wracked by protests (at the moment) but is absolutely an illiberal state where peaceful assembly and freedom of speech are so strictly controlled as to not exist.

If you're not a political activist, you may not think this is particularly important, but just try having a dissenting viewpoint one day, and realizing you can never voice it without potentially dire consequences. What if you want to be a journalist, political analyst, writer, artist or even academic, and find that your ability to speak truth to power is limited or outright censored? It does matter. 

South Korea offers similar freedoms - public demonstrations are popular there, as they are in Taiwan.


Work culture

When I first visited Seoul in 2003, I stayed with my now-husband in his (paid-for) flat in a nondescript building, in a nondescript part of the city. The buildings stretched on and on, and they all looked basically the same. They had huge numbers painted on them so you could differentiate your building from the others at a glance. It was all a bit sterile. These days, I'm given to understand that many companies provide identikit housing for their employees. When we returned in 2014 for a visit and had to catch an early shuttle to the airport, I noted as the bus snaked through downtown Seoul that the streets were full of Korean men in identical black suits (with the occasional navy-clad rebel), carrying similar briefcases, with similar haircuts, going to similar jobs in similar cubicles in similar office buildings for similar companies, and they were all made out of ticky-tacky and they all looked just the same. 

In other respects, I love visiting South Korea. I have to admit that Seoul went from a city that looked a little, shall we say, crumbly around the edges (sort of the way Taipei looks now) to something more similar to Tokyo between my two visits. People certainly revert to expressing individuality outside of work hours. But I think this samey-samey work culture would just destroy me.

Looking at numbers, Hong Kongers work about 50.1 hours/week on average, or 2,296/year according to a UBS study. Singaporeans clock in at 2,334 hours/year, or 45.6 hours/week. The results here don't quite add up as some say Hong Kongers work longer hours, and others say Singaporeans do (and neither yearly average matches 52 weeks of work at the weekly average). In any case, both are higher than Taiwan.

I can't find weekly averages for South Korea, but they appear to be at the top as well, at 2,069/year. Taiwanese are right to complain about their long working hours, but they're actually lower than the other Asian Tigers (2,035.2/year). 

Sure, just as the quote far above points out, Taiwan did not turn itself into a financial center or international business center like Hong Kong and Singapore  - but its wealth inequality is lower, which is quite possibly a direct consequence. It did not set up chaebols (massive conglomerates) the way South Korea did. But I've spent a lot of time in corporate offices in Taiwan and I can assure you that, while there is a standard 'corporate' mode of dress, that the level of conformity expected among office workers is nowhere near the level of what I saw in Seoul. I would not wish that identikit lifestyle on Taiwan; while some people might be willing to slog through such a work culture for a better paycheck, I suspect a huge proportion would chafe against it. Taiwan's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may not have brought in the big bucks the way Samsung and Lotte did for South Korea, but what they contributed to Taiwan's cultural landscape is a net positive, I think, and should not be underestimated. 

Brendan's oft-repeated comment about his long-ago move from South Korea to Taiwan is that "Taiwan has long work hours, maybe as long as South Korea. Wages are lower. But people just seem more chilled-out. You don't pass drunk salarymen passed out on the sidewalk who will get up and go to work the next day. Everyone seemed so stressed in Korea. People here just seem...more relaxed." And it's true - on my brief visits to Seoul, even I saw those passed-out businessmen. I've never seen that in Taiwan, though I routinely pass groups of friends enjoying dinner and drinks - beer or Kaoliang - on folding tables on the sidewalk, keeping the local gossip machines going and looking, well, just more relaxed.

I wonder how much the chaebol vs. SME culture divide plays into that. No idea, but it's a thought. 


Gender parity

It also seems to me - and Brendan concurs after living there - that South Korea has a much bigger problem with sexism than Taiwan. Every culture in the world struggles with sexism (yes, all of them), but Taiwan arguably has the best gender equality in Asia. For some hard numbers, the gender wage gap in South Korea is the biggest of all OECD countries (34.6%), and Brendan recalls seeing job advertisements that blatantly offered more to male candidates for the same work. Taiwan's gender wage gap is 14.6% - on par with a lot of Western countries and not great, but also a huge improvement.

Hong Kong's gender pay gap is 22.2% as of 2017. Singapore's is a bit lower than Taiwan.

There's more that I might include about gender equality in the four Tigers, but the wage gap really says it all. 


The bad news

I don't want to wax rhapsodical about how Taiwan is better than the other Asian Tigers in every way, implying that there's no data to suggest it's not true. So, let's take a look at what's not going well for Taiwan.

Just looking at unemployment, Taiwan looks a little less lustrous. In South Korea and Taiwan unemployment rates are similar, at 4.4% (a rise from 3.8% in December 2018) and 3.7% (average 2018) respectively. Rates are lower in Hong Kong and Singapore, at closer to 2-3%. Youth unemployment in South Korea is around 10.4%, for Hong Kong it's about 9.4% and Singapore is lowest at 5.2%. As above, Taiwan's is in the vicinity of 12%. There's no getting around it - Taiwan's unemployment looks low by European standards, but it's not as robust as its Asian Tiger peers. 

Purchasing power doesn't look to be much better, with Taiwan ranking high globally - 19th in the world according to the IMF, 28th according to the World Factbook -  but behind both Singapore and Hong Kong on both scales (remembering, of course, that that's still higher than Canada, Australia and a huge chunk of Europe). South Korea was quite a bit further down in both cases. I'm not sure why this is, and don't have the requisite knowledge of economics to analyze it, but I love making myself look stupid publicly so here goes.

First, a lot of Singaporean and Hong Kong relative 'wealth' by purchasing power can be explained by how this purchasing power is calculated. Their large foreign labor populations, who have much lower incomes and purchasing power, are not counted in these metrics as they are not citizens or permanent residents (Taiwan News makes a similar point). Taiwan also has a large foreign labor population, but while I can't find reliable data on this, I'd wager that the ratio of foreign labor to local population in Taiwan is lower than in those two city-states.

Second, Singapore gets around the one thing that might sap a large chunk of their citizens' purchasing power: housing. Most housing in Singapore consists of public housing projects, which builds accommodation at a variety of budgets. Roughly 80% of Singaporeans live in these flats. That might explain how Singapore can have such a high Gini coefficient and estimated high levels of poverty, but still come out blazing on purchasing power.

Why Hong Kong ranks well in terms of purchasing power, I have no idea. I'd think real estate alone - which Hong Kongers are less able to afford than Taiwanese even with higher salaries - would knock it down.

I suspect in both cases that all that purchasing power on the part of Singapore and Hong Kong, given their relatively high poverty and inequality, is concentrated in the hands of the wealthy. If you're just a regular person with a regular job, however, you can make your comparatively lower salary go a lot further in Taiwan (or perhaps South Korea, with its similar inequality rate despite its higher poverty rate). If that's true, all Singapore and Hong Kong really have on Taiwan in terms of purchasing power are more rich people who can do more purchasing. Most people will never be rich, so that doesn't mean much.


Taiwan #1! 

To bring this back to the original point, despite some troubling economic data, I still think Taiwan is the best Asian Tiger in which to build a life. Salaries are low, but so is inequality and poverty (and the rent is pretty good, too). You won't do better for health care, and you have fairly strong human rights protections - better than Hong Kong or Singapore. You're quite likely a lot better off as a woman, especially compared to Hong Kong and South Korea.

The whole world is struggling now, and if anything, I think Taiwan's made the best of this. It's not being 'left behind'. Don't listen to the haters telling you that not only is Taiwan dwarfed by China - when, in fact, China scores well below Taiwan on most of the metrics above - but also the other Asian Tigers. Nope - Taiwan has built something less flashy, less shiny and a little-slower paced, but there are good arguments out there for why it has actually done the best. 

If you tell us we can't...

A sarcastic funerary memorial to Li Peng, Carrie Lam, lawmaker and general douchebag Junius Ho
and other anti-democracy political figures

Photo courtesy of Jean-Francois Dupre

Recently, Banqiao Senior High School in New Taipei decided to allow male students to wear skirts (most Taiwanese students wear uniforms). Female students are already allowed pants or skirts.

Some parents and parent-adjacent angry people spat out a few meaningless statements such as:

“Children like to do something wacky, to be different from others, so that people pay attention to them,” he [Hung Chih-ho, who leads a Kaohsiung-based parents' association and whose opinion on what happens in Banqiao does not matter] said, “but now boys are allowed to wear skirts to school, with the school attributing the change to respect for students’ right of autonomy.”

Yeah...and?

#Taiwan: Members of several parent organizations gathered in front of the Ministry of #Education (MOE) Friday to protest against a public high school’s decision to allow male students to wear skirts to school.#genderequity https://t.co/zER49LVvxi

— Gwen Wang (@GwenythWR) July 28, 2019

Apparently their main complaint is...you know what? It doesn't matter.

What matters is this: with the new rule in effect, chances were that only a few boys would have chosen to wear skirts. It's not a norm yet so doing so is sort of a form of personal expression rather than an unremarkable choice (for now), and I don't know about you but I find shorts and pants far more comfortable than skirts.

But now, because some ornery seniors are complaining that the young'uns aren't upholding harmful gender norms to the degree that they expect because a few boys are choosing to put fabric on their bodies in ways that boys typically did not do before - OH NOES - you can be absolutely certain that more boys will choose to wear skirts simply to piss off the oldsters.

Good job, old people. You really showed them!

In highly related news, everyone's talking about the "illegal" protest in Yuen Long yesterday - illegal in quotes because the word implies doing something wrong when this protest was absolutely morally right. 

It's not just that I think Yuen Long 7/27 got more support locally and internationally because people dared to show up despite the rejected protest application, but that these protests would in fact be far more peaceful if the police - and police-adjacent angry people - would just allow them to be peaceful. Think about it this way: if you don't throw tear gas, hire gangsters, beat people bloody, kill a guy with water cannons, put jubilee clips on your batons, protesters will assemble, march and go home. It's inconvenient, but not nearly as inconvenient as the world seeing that you either hired thugs, are thugs, or both.

And as a result, more people are showing up. Hong Kongers are getting angry. If they ever trusted those in charge, they no longer do. Occupy Central wasn't universally supported, but with the current spate of protests, all the police and government are doing is hardening the stance of more Hong Kongers against them and against China. They're showing up and demanding democracy exactly because they have been told they cannot have democracy. 

They're doing it creatively too - told that they could not assemble there, a few people figured out that activities such as large-scale Pokemon hunting and religious celebrations are not bound by restrictions on assembly, and claimed those as excuses to gather. There was even a call to hold a sarcastic memorial for Li Peng - the Butcher of Beijing who presided over the Tiananmen Square Massacre - complete with a planned attempt to try to resurrect him.

Would protesters in the West be so creative (and sarcastic)? I don't think so, but then typically we don't have to find ways to protest when we're told we're not allowed.

People are calling for an 'full gear alchemist' gathering tomorrow in Yuen Long to revive Li Peng... -_- alongside Yuen Long pokemon hunting, shopping day, @hoccgoomusic fluid autograph signing party etc... pic.twitter.com/5381bPIcuC

— Kris Cheng (@krislc) July 26, 2019

Good job, Hong Kong police (and hired gangsters - same thing really), the Hong Kong government, and China! You really showed them!

Eventually things would have escalated anyway - as I've said, the problem isn't the extradition treaty but China's plans for the endgame of One Country Two Systems and how incompatible that is with what Hong Kong wants. But it might not have mattered: though there are people who want full independence for Hong Kong, I gather that most would settle for being part of China but having democracy. Most of the time they'd probably have voted for boring, centrist politicians anyway and the few firebrands that would have gotten into office would have their say, but the status of Hong Kong as 'part of China' would not have been seriously disputed.

So if China had just let them have democracy and not made a thing of it, not insisted on half-assed fake democracy, not tried to force through terrifying extradition bills etc. etc., though decisions in Hong Kong might not have always gone exactly their way, China could have had almost all of what it wanted.

Of course, they can't do that, because of their absolute terror that letting people have a say in their government anywhere in China would lead to people in China wanting a say in their government everywhere. This is probably true, but then "the CCP could never allow that as they might lose power!" is not an ethically defensible justification. I don't think it matters though - if the CCP let Hong Kong have what it's demanding, they'd come off looking like 'the good guys', everyone would go on as usual, the bad international press would have never materialized and the real threats facing the CCP might have actually been held off longer, or at least with a lot less international scrutiny. People condemning them now might actually be defending them.

Whether or not it's a good thing for the CCP to stay in power - and I absolutely do not think it is - it might well have been in their own best interest to choose the slow-burning democracy threat over the "we look like murderous thugs to the international community" threat.

The same is true of Tibet. Though he doesn't speak for all Tibetans, the Dalai Lama has been clear that Tibet would settle for autonomy, and does not need independence. All China ever had to do was let it be - stop sending in Han Chinese settlers to change the population demographics (and making sure those settlers got all the best jobs), not trying to erase Tibetan culture or religion, not threatening monasteries and not insisting the CCP could choose who the next major lamas would be. If they'd done that, Tibet would be a lot better off, and China would have gotten almost everything they wanted. (I can't speak for Xinjiang, I'm less sure about that.)

Instead we have re-education camps, an internationally popular Dalai Lama, monks on fire, international celebrities sympathetic to the Tibetan cause and a province in near-lockdown. 

Good job, Chinese government! You showed them! 

Of course, with that comes the terror that Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other provinces with distinct non-Han cultures would want a similar degree of autonomy. Again, that's probably true, but I fail to see why it'd be a bad thing. I don't even think China would necessarily cease to exist. 

And, of course, Taiwan.

This one is trickier as it involves straight-up independence, but if China allowed Taiwan to declare formal independence as the Republic of Taiwan, perhaps with a few acceptable concessions, and then said "you know what, we speak the same language and inhabit similar cultural spheres. Wanna be best friends and have tons of economic cooperation?", Taiwan probably would have said yes.

The way things are now, I don't know that I personally would trust such an offer, but the point still stands the CCP could probably have most of what it wants if they would just let go and stop being such assholes. There would still be a few hardcore China-haters around, metaphorical boys going to school in skirts no matter how much the CCP hated it, but I suspect the average Taiwanese voter would be quite fine with a close relationship with China as long as their autonomy, freedom and democratic rights were permanently assured through de jure independence.

I bet more Taiwanese would even claim Chinese ethnic identity alongside Taiwanese national identity, if doing so weren't a rhetorical point that Beijing is using to try to force its claim on Taiwan.

But no, a dogged insistence on fabricated boundaries (if they really cared about the pre-1911 boundaries, Beijing would claim Mongolia as well) and a desire for total control once again makes it harder for them to actually get the thing they want. Instead, Taiwan remains stubbornly free and quite rightly mistrusts all overtures from the CCP (and CCP-adjacent angry people), and  a close economic relationship thwarted thanks to Beijing's own hubris.

Because they've convinced their own people that Taiwan is of vital national importance and letting Taiwan 'get away' would be a disaster for China, if Taiwan does in fact get away, some provinces of China might decide they want independence, too. If they hadn't manufactured such a potential crisis, I doubt that territories actually under Chinese governance would care nearly so much about a territory not under their governance formalizing its place in the international community.

And thanks to Hong Kong as well as changing international winds, the world is finally starting to notice.

Great job, CCP. Absolutely fantastic. You really showed them!

Now...who wants to put on skirts and head to Yuen Long? 

No, China is not more gender-equal than Taiwan

I don't have a relevant cover photo so enjoy this picture of an antique shop in Taipei

People often ask me why I've chosen to settle in Taiwan, or why I've stayed here so long but only spent a year in China.

I point out that while I have always found people in China to mostly be friendly and hospitable, the food ridiculously good and culturally and historically it's fascinating, there are a few things I just can't stomach which make it difficult for me to live there. One is political freedom (including practical matters like easily getting online to access the open Internet, or just being able to speak your mind publicly without fear). Another is the pollution. Still another, I say, is sexism.

"Wait, China is more sexist than Taiwan?" is a common reply. "But everyone knows women in Shanghai have more power than men!" But "Mao said that 'women hold up half the sky'"? But "there are more women in STEM fields in China than Taiwan!" And once, memorably - "but it's much easier to get reproductive health care in China!" (In Taiwan both birth control and abortions are available but one isn't covered by national health insurance and the other is somewhat restricted). 

Without denying that these claims are true - except possibly that stereotype about Shanghai - I still say that China is absolutely less gender-equal or even friendly to women than Taiwan. Why?

Let's start here: a few hard numbers.

Taiwan tops Asia in gender equality (meaning it's ranked higher than China), as a higher literacy rate (98% with a 2% gap between men and women as opposed to China's 96.3% with a larger gender gap, if that number can be trusted). The wage gap in China is (likely) around 22%, whereas it's around 14.5% in Taiwan. So just by the numbers China is simply not more gender-equal than Taiwan. 

* * *

Yet the arguments persist, so let's take a look at them, starting with the oft-repeated "but Mao said women hold up half the sky!' and 'whatever male comrades can do, women can too!"

He did say those things, though it takes a lot of soft-focus wishful thinking to think that those goals were fully realized, or that they have brought about a contemporary China that is "more" gender-equal than Taiwan.

And it's true that women's participation in the workforce skyrocketed under Mao, with more women doing traditionally masculine jobs. And as universal primary education (which included girls) was a goal of the CCP under Mao, and that goal was eventually met, we can surmise that literacy rates improved as well (on a tight schedule I can't find anything specific about this but it seems to be a safe assumption - and as far as I can tell there isn't any clear gender equality data from that era). However, even then there was great variation in literacy rates. As late as the 1980s, rural and older women sometimes had literacy rates below 3%. And the Marriage Law of 1950 did seek to end concubinage, promote freely-chosen (read: love) marriage and allow divorce (but don't think that's the end of that story).

Beyond that, what you get when you try to defend this position is propaganda-tinged, oversimplified and not wholly justifiable. It is not an obvious conclusion that Mao's reforms would necessarily include gender equality, as Marxism and Leninism are all about eradicating class differences and don't necessarily say anything about the patriarchy as male domination (in fact, the number of self-styled Communist men I've met who are sexist as hell and don't even realize it is...less surprising than you'd think.) In any case, one of the greatest obstacles to setting up Mao's ultimately disastrous 'ideal' was the resistance to ending traditional gender roles.

It's even been argued - and I'd agree - that discourses that have been touted as 'ensuring gender equality' in Communist China were actually used to silence discussions of gender, depoliticize gender as an issue, and make it difficult or impossible to debate or acknowledge gender inequality or advocate for improvements. Rather than make male and female equal, the point was to erase the female. In any case, it's hard to say that the CCP ever really stood behind gender equality when, through its entire rule in China, women have never been at the helm of power. That's not the case in Taiwan.

In fact, by 1953, here's where Mao's China was in relation to gender equality:

...the government realized that the economy could no longer absorb the amount of labor power that it had mobilized. Besides, the implementation of the new
Marriage Law, unlike the Land Law, brought about strong and widespread opposition from male members of the society. Murder and suicide of women who sought to
terminate their marriage reached such a high level that the government decided that collective stability rather than individual freedom, particularly freedom of women, was
now to be given priority. 

For the next several years, there were more stiff regulations about divorce, and the government advocated women’s domestic duties and the importance of harmonious family life. Campaigns were launched to encourage women to be socialist housewives and model mothers, emphasizing the domestic responsibilities of
women. 

The situation did improve from there, with women brought back into the workforce soon after (though mostly to do work more typically associated with women - think caregiving work, kindergarten teaching etc.) This persisted - discussed in the link above - through the Cultural Revolution. Overall gains can be seen but they were "mixed" and "inconsistent". (From there this source starts to sound like it's trying to prove that Mao-style Communism was better for women than...not that, and that's where I get off that train.)

In any case, looking at the legacy of Mao-era China, it doesn't seem like it's done modern China much good. Female leaders? Nah. Wage equality? As a link in the next part shows....nah. As late as the 1990s, it hadn't put women on truly equal footing in education or employment. Workplace equality remains a massive issue. As of today, women in China are sometimes - perhaps often - treated more like sex objects or a dating market in Chinese workplaces. Education equality? Mostly yes, until you hit the PhD level, which is another way of saying "not entirely". The article gets it just right: being educated (up through Master's level) is a plus in East Asia, and desireable in 'wives' in more affluent circles. Getting a PhD, however? Well then you're just a terrifying, genderless freak who scares men away and clearly doesn't prioritize family and children. (This can be a problem in other countries too - it's not unique to China).

I'm sorry, but I just find the notion that because Mao said a thing one time, that this thing was true of China in his time, or is true of China now.




* * *

Although it's arguably the least meaningful of the arguments listed above, I want to talk about the whole "Superwomen of Shanghai" stereotype next. Even if it were true, one exceptional city doesn't make up for an entire nation of patriarchy. And I have serious doubts that it's true. The marriage market (a literal, physical market) in Shanghai is famous, and filled parents and grandparents trawling for spouses for their offspring. I could accept that as a 'cultural thing', but it's clear that the offspring in question aren't entirely pleased about it: 

"Does your daughter know you're here?" I ask. 

"Yes. But she hates it. She tells me to go on the dates myself. Kids these days hate parental involvement in these matters," Tsai says.

And there's no denying that these marriages are not actually based on people the younger generation might actually want to marry, but something more oriented to the family and their reputation:

Marriage already is such an important part of a Chinese family's reputation but parents these days only have one chance to get their future planned out right.

That too, I could accept if it were a way of doing things that every generation - including the one being married off - had signed on for. But it clearly isn't. While most Chinese women probably do just want to find love and have a family like most people around the world - it's a very human desire - but it seems clear to me that these sorts of tactics (among others) aren't 'traditional' so much as 'last resort' aimed more at fulfilling specific life goals (such as wanting a family) and societal expectations, as well as making older relatives happy than at actually finding love. In any case, I'm not convinced marriage is a good deal for women in most parts of the world, and China is no exception.

(If you're wondering how I can say that as a happily married woman, it's because I happened to get ridiculously lucky. My expectations of a feminist, egalitarian marriage are stratospherically high and the chances of finding a man who'd be on board with them, whom I otherwise loved and loved me back, were actually quite slim.)

So it's hard for me to agree that Shanghai is some beacon of women's equality when one of the most unfeminist events in the world takes place there. Besides, while I've heard that line a lot, it's always been anecdotal and from an 'orientalist' perspective (as this is), not proof of a real trend.  I haven't seen any data to back it up, nor is it clear that any exists. If anything, I've seen the opposite - the gender wage gap may be narrower in Shanghai, but it still exists. There seems to be a lot of talk about how "Shanghai husbands do housework" but no research into whether or not this is actually true.

What there is a lot of, however, is propaganda without any real proof: 

Because come on, it's not like we can trust Global Times, Shanghai Daily or China Daily (I wouldn't trust The Star, which is Malaysian, either.)

It sounds to me like perhaps Shanghai's relatively urban and international culture as compared to the rest of China has maybe (maybe) resulted in a slightly better social contract for women, and that was turned into this whole thing where "in Shanghai, women have it better than men!" because apparently giving women something just a little bit better than utter garbage is equivalent to giving them the sun, moon and stars more making them "superior". And it surely doesn't mean the rest of China is doing particularly well:

The current situation of gender equality can be read with certain global indicators. China’s Gender Development Index is situated in Group 2 out of five groups of countries, and estimates its Gender Gap at 0.945 on a scale of 0 to 1, 0 being the most unequal and 1 the most equal. The female Human Development Index is at 0.718 and the male’s HDI is at 0.753 (United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Reports Table 4: Gender Development Index). Life expectancy and years of schooling roughly reflect the same reasonable difference between Chinese men and women. However, the discrepancy in the estimated gross national income per capita is of no less than 5,125$ (10,705$ for women vs 15,830$ for men). 

This observation hints at the fact that gender equality might have improved in certain areas, while stagnating or perhaps even declining in others, as a result of Post-Mao economic and social reforms.

* * *

"But...there are more female engineers in China than Taiwan!" or "China has a huge number of women in STEM!"

Does it, though?

While I won't defend the male-dominated nature of STEM fields in Taiwan (or most of the world), I can't find any data to support that point, though I feel like I've seen some before. If anyone knows of any such data, please pass it along. In any case, pretty much every source points out that women's participation in STEM in China is actually lower than it should be, and sexism is rampant. China is not listed as a country where women have achieved parity in STEM by the World Economic Forum (and if you think "well they probably just hate China and don't understand it's 5000 years of culture, in a recent crap video they put out they listed Taiwan as "Taiwan, China", so...).

So I'm honestly just not sure this is true, or if it is I can't find any proof.

* * *

As for women and reproductive health, come on. The sources above already detail how historically, the CCP has used women - their bodies, their labor, their roles in society and the family - in whatever way suited them and "the country" (but really just them). That's just as true today. When the needs of the party happened to bear a passing resemblance to feminist objectives of greater gender equality, they latched onto that as a justification for their authoritarian nation-building that Westerners might be sympathetic to. In other words:

China has some of the least restrictive abortion laws in the world, but that has nothing to do with state support for bodily autonomy—it’s because abortion coincided with the government’s desires. Female bodies have always been treated as state property that yielded what the country needed....

Mao Zedong’s famous quote, “Women hold up half the sky,” is often touted by those who cite China’s high female employment rate (reaching its peak in the late 1970s at 90 percent employment for working-age urban women) or number of self-made female billionaires as evidence of significant progress toward gender equality....

But beneath this apparent commitment to empowering women, much of the feminist messaging has always been propaganda more concerned with boosting the labor force than actually promoting women.

This was true in the past and it's still true now. Women's reproductive rights in China follow a similar trajectory.

Meanwhile, the popular narrative has gone from “delayed motherhood is beneficial for women’s health” [the official message in state media when they wanted to convince people of the so-called sensibility of the One Child Policy to meet national goals of controlling the population] to “pregnancy during university improves employment chances in the future.” “Painless abortion” ads were seamlessly replaced by “painless childbirth” ads. Huang Xihua, a National People’s Congress representative who is outspoken on women’s topics, has condemned the high number of abortions that she blames for damaging women’s health, and she has also recommended that the marriage age for women be lowered to 18. All of these narratives are wrapped around the will of the party itself, which is that “giving birth is not only a family matter but also a national issue." 

The new natalism has the old skeleton of state control, molded with fresh flesh. 

When the CCP wants women to have fewer babies, they aim their propaganda cannons that way. When they want them to have more babies (or decrease the labor force while increasing the population), they get pointed another way. It never had anything to do with women's reproductive freedom. How could it have, from a government so blithely unconcerned with the notion of 'freedom' in general? 

The “one child” propaganda of yesteryear is being condemned for “morbid unluckiness” and supplanted by a celebration of traditional family values and natural feminine roles of daughter, wife, and mother. Banners, newspapers, TV shows, industry experts—every available medium is being turned into part of a propaganda machine touting the benefits of giving birth for the nation.

(The rest of that article is fascinating, by the way, and you should read it.)

Don't ever forget - China may have easy access to abortion (for now - do finish reading that article), but that has also led to forced abortions. As you would expect, those who suffer the most from being coerced into abortions are not wealthy, married or Han. They're the poor, unwed, rural or ethnic minorities. The CCP doesn't just want to decide whether people should be having more children or fewer - they want to control who has what they would consider 'high-quality' (affluent, in wedlock, Han) children.

Just try and tell me that this is 'reproductive freedom' in any sense. It's just another way to control female bodies for state benefit.

* * *

I'm not trying to pretend that Taiwan is some sort of utopia for women - it's not. So much needs to be done, from wage equality to fixing reproductive health care (to make it affordable and accessible to all women) to fixing the divorce and adultery laws, and enforcing the gender equality laws that are already in effect. We need to make sure that women actually get access to everything the law affords them. We need to change societal attitudes to be more modern, and this is entirely possible within a Taiwanese context.

But, come on. Let's not pretend that because Mao said a thing about women one time that sounded progressive, that China is doing better than Taiwan. Wage inequality is less severe here. Women are more likely to be literate (by a small margin). Nobody is forcing women to have abortions (though forcing women to bear children they don't want because they can't access abortions is another story). Although parents still meddle in their children's affairs - "the Lins are coming for dinner and their handsome son who is studying to be a doctor will join them! Won't it be nice to meet him? Do wear something nice!" - there aren't news stories about marriage markets full of grandparents that their grandchildren are horrified to hear about.

So please, stop pretending China's beating Taiwan in this regard. It simply is not.