The Sunflower movement in 2014 unleashed a political tidal wave that reshaped Taiwan’s political landscape. Led by student protesters, citizens started an anti-China movement across Taiwan, protesting against the signing of the cross-strait service trade agreement.
Taiwan People’s Party founder, Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) is backtracking on his original stance on the signing of the agreement. He now says he was opposed to the lack of transparency of the negotiations rather than the agreement itself in 2014.
I was one of the student protesters. The goal of the protest was as much about the closed-door negotiations as it was about the content of the treaty, but the main aim was always to prevent China from using economic coercion against Taiwan and eventually achieving unification.
Earlier this year, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) said that Beijing is “willing to restart cross-strait dialogue on the common political foundation of adhering to the ‘one China’ principle and the ‘1992 consensus.’” In other words, restarting cross-strait dialogue has to be conducted on the basis of the “1992 consensus” and acknowledging the “consensus” is to accept China’s “one country, two systems” Taiwan model.
Nearly a decade after the Sunflower movement, cross-strait relations have proven that not ratifying the agreement was the right thing to do. As Ko once said, the “‘1992 consensus’ is to kowtow and surrender to China,” and the agreement would lead to “high-end doctors leaving Taiwan for China.” Based on his previous discourse, it is apparent that Ko was against the agreement itself, aside from opposing its closed-door nature.
China’s use of coercive economic strategies to achieve political goals has become an increasing problem around the globe. Its Belt and Road Initiative created a lending spree, with Beijing issuing thousands of loans to more than 140 countries. In 2017, after struggling to cough up money to China, Sri Lanka signed over the rights to a strategic port to Beijing, as part of the so-called “debt trap diplomacy.”
As Taiwan is on the front line of China’s military threat, thinking that the agreement would only do good and no harm would be naive and play into China’s hands. If this is not a Trojan horse, then what is it?
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign investors started moving their supply chains out of China as they have come to realize the extent of social instability under such an autocratic regime. The failure in planning the economy has also led to a sharp rise in youth unemployment. Compared with a decade ago, there would only be fewer advantages in seeking closer economic integration with China today.
There were always different voices in the Sunflower movement. Some were against the closed-door negotiations, some wanted to hamstring the agreement, while some were stymieing the then-ruling party’s subsequent efforts to liberalize trade with Beijing. What is certain that all the protesters were against China using economic coercion to achieve its political agenda.
After the movement, some of us went back to our lives, some joined civic groups, while others formed new political parties. The most famous example was none other than Ko, who became the Taipei mayor.
As a fellow ally in the movement, I respect people’s choices, but I would like to remind them what they once believed in and stood for: protecting Taiwan from China’s claws and doing the best for Taiwan.
I still remember the slogan in 2014, which was: “defend democracy, retract the cross-strait service trade agreement.”
Does that ring a bell, Mr Ko?
Pan Kuan was a participant in the 2014 Sunflower movement.
Translated by Rita Wang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS