The mass rally on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei on Sunday drew almost half a million people and the events surrounding the March 18 occupation of the legislature have made headlines around the world. What happened, and what prompted these sudden developments?
Taiwanese are fully aware of the course of events, and many in academia, civil society and among the public have expressed support for the student protesters. Recent opinion polls show that an overwhelming majority endorse the students’ concerns over the cross-strait service trade agreement, ranging from 76.1 percent — in the Chinese-language Business Week — to 80 percent in the Liberty Times, (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
However, for observers abroad, it might not be so easy to understand the underlying reasons for the unfolding events.
Let us examine what led up to this discontent. The immediate reason can be traced back to the events in the Legislative Yuan on March 17, when the chairman of a committee charged with conducting the review of the proposed pact opened and closed a meeting within 30 seconds without any substantive discussion, forwarding it to the plenary session for a vote.
This breach of a formal agreement to do a clause-by-clause review, brokered by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) in the summer of last year, was, in the view of many, the straw that broke the camel’s back.
However, the tensions have been building for a long time. As British academic Dafydd Fell stated in his essay (“Importance of social movements in Taiwan,” page 8, March 20), “in recent years the government has failed to engage with society.”
For the past several years civic organizations have become increasingly frustrated by what they view as a lack of responsiveness by the government.
“To the outsider, it may seem hard to comprehend that so much anger has built up due to the government’s refusal to review a service trade agreement. However, the root of the problem has been a gradual building up of tensions and frustration within society,” Fell wrote.
The student protests are part of this frustration about how democracy works in Taiwan.
There is another angle to the situation: This is a trade agreement with a large neighbor which has a different system of government. Some have even compared the situation of Taiwan to that of Ukraine a few months ago, where students and activists demonstrated against a proposed economic agreement with Russia.
Like their counterparts on Maidan Square in Kiev, the students in Taiwan are concerned about the political implications of the trade agreement: Will it leave Taiwan the freedom to determine its own future?
So it certainly appears to be less of a discussion about “free trade” and more about the future of the country as a free democracy. If the trade agreement had been with Canada for example, few in Taiwan would have objected, but because it is with China, which has specific designs on the nation and its people, the public are nervous.
What would be the best way out? That is up to the Taiwanese to decide, but it would befit the US to emphasize that it fully supports Taiwan’s vibrant democracy and the right of Taiwanese to determine their own future, free from outside coercion.
The US needs to do more to help end Taiwan’s international diplomatic isolation, so that it does not increasingly drift into China’s economic and political sphere of influence, but remains a free and spirited member of the international community.
In this regard, the US must examine more carefully the implications of this trade agreement.
Nat Bellocchi served as chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan from 1990 to 1995. The views expressed in this article are his own.
World leaders are preparing themselves for a second Donald Trump presidency. Some leaders know more or less where he stands: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows that a difficult negotiation process is about to be forced on his country, and the leaders of NATO countries would be well aware of being complacent about US military support with Trump in power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely be feeling relief as the constraints placed on him by the US President Joe Biden administration would finally be released. However, for President William Lai (賴清德) the calculation is not simple. Trump has surrounded himself
US president-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named US Representative Mike Waltz, a vocal supporter of arms sales to Taiwan who has called China an “existential threat,” as his national security advisor, and on Thursday named US Senator Marco Rubio, founding member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China — a global, cross-party alliance to address the challenges that China poses to the rules-based order — as his secretary of state. Trump’s appointments, including US Representative Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the UN, who has been a strong supporter of Taiwan in the US Congress, and Robert Lighthizer as US trade
Following the BRICS summit held in Kazan, Russia, last month, media outlets circulated familiar narratives about Russia and China’s plans to dethrone the US dollar and build a BRICS-led global order. Each summit brings renewed buzz about a BRICS cross-border payment system designed to replace the SWIFT payment system, allowing members to trade without using US dollars. Articles often highlight the appeal of this concept to BRICS members — bypassing sanctions, reducing US dollar dependence and escaping US influence. They say that, if widely adopted, the US dollar could lose its global currency status. However, none of these articles provide
On Friday last week, tens of thousands of young Chinese took part in a bike ride overnight from Henan Province’s Zhengzhou (鄭州) to the historical city of Kaifeng in search of breakfast. The night ride became a viral craze after four female university students in June chronicled their ride on social media from Zhengzhou in search of soup dumplings in Kaifeng. Propelled by the slogan “youth is priceless,” the number of nocturnal riders surged to about 100,000 on Friday last week. The main road connecting the two cities was crammed with cyclists as police tried to maintain order. That sparked
RSS