Veteran Taiwanese musician Lo Ta-yu has sparked controversy by criticising former president Tsai Ing-wen and other Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians for not having children, saying they “would not give much thought to the next generation”. Responding for a second time on Friday (13 November), Tsai acknowledged that she had not resolved the problem of low birth rates during her eight years in office. But she stressed that not having children of her own did not change her wish to care for Taiwan’s next generation.
Tsai opened a Facebook post on Friday by saying: “It is true that I have no children of my own.” She noted that low birth rates were a challenge shared by many advanced economies, from Japan and South Korea to Europe, and Taiwan was no exception. Despite the many policies she introduced during her eight years as president, she had been unable to reverse the trend.
Tsai said that whether to have children was a personal choice, but the government had a responsibility to ease the pressures of raising children for families who wanted them. She said she had introduced various childcare and long-term care policies during her tenure, and that the administration of current Taiwan President Lai Ching-te was continuing to advance related measures to ease the burden on young families juggling work and family care.
She also noted that Taiwan’s government had sought to ease the cost of living through legislative amendments, rental subsidies and increases in the minimum wage. But housing prices and rents remained a heavy burden for many young people, and the government needed to keep working on this.
Looking back on her two presidential terms, she said she had faced the pandemic, African swine fever and many challenges. She thanked the people of Taiwan for standing with her and weathering those difficulties together.
“I must acknowledge that my time in office was not perfect, and I made mistakes. Some policies achieved their goals, while others did not work as well as we had initially hoped.”
Tsai said she had continually reflected, made improvements and adjusted her approach in response to setbacks. She acknowledged that low birth rates could not be resolved immediately by introducing a few policies. The government, she said, must continue improving housing, incomes, childcare, long-term care and workplace conditions so that people who wanted to start a family and raise children could have greater confidence in the future.
At the same time, Tsai called for equal respect for people who chose different paths in life.
She ended her post by saying: “It is true that I have no children of my own. That is a fact. But it will not change my wish to care for Taiwan’s next generation; nor will my concern for this country’s future diminish in the slightest simply because I have stepped down as president.”
According to earlier reports, Lo discussed Taiwan’s politics, elections and cultural environment in an interview on journalist Tang Hsiang-lung’s radio programme on Tuesday (10 November). He singled out Tsai and former Control Yuan president Chen Chu for not having children, and Vice-President Hsiao Bi-khim for being unmarried, saying they were unlike him, a parent who gave much thought to the next generation.
Tsai Ing-wen responded in a Facebook post on Wednesday (11 November), saying that although she had no children of her own, she had done her utmost to protect every child in Taiwan.
Besides criticising Tsai and the others, Lo Ta-yu also said in the interview that Democratic Progressive Party rule had led to a decline in Taiwan’s cultural standards, adding that “Taiwan’s mainlander community is being badly bullied now”.