Unlike other international media outlets covering the student occupation of the legislative chamber, all of which have been reporting the students’ opposition to the cross-strait service trade agreement, CNN has instead focused upon what these events mean for the “demise” and the “rebirth” of democracy in Taiwan. This is the main significance of these protests.
The students have never said that they are opposed to the trade pact per se. They have made it clear that what they are opposed to is the lack of transparency and the arbitrary manner in which the government and the legislature has dealt with an agreement of this significance that has been signed with China and how this goes against the wishes of the public, all of which drove the protesters to resort to the occupation of the legislative chamber.
What kind of government thinks to conduct an impact assessment for an agreement signed with another nation only after pen has been put to paper? The premier — an unelected government official — had the gall to declare to the world that the legislature — which is composed of elected public representatives — does not have the power of veto over the agreement. Even more preposterously, these elected legislators had the audacity to blindly follow the party line and sabotage the opportunity to conduct a line-by-line review of the agreement, in what was a blatant dereliction of duty.
Any doubts that the public may have had about the agreement could have been dispelled by such a review, which would have enabled Taiwanese to understand the arguments for and against it and explained what measures the government was proposing to mitigate the pact’s impact upon the service sector. People could have discussed which clauses are acceptable and which of them are cause for concern, all of which could have helped the government’s argument.
Instead, the nation’s leaders adopted the opposite approach, obstinately and autocratically insisting on passing the pact come what may; it ignored the importance of democratic participation and the need for a review. All it achieved was to deepen the public’s suspicion of a collusion between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party.
Ever since the KMT returned to power in 2008 and with the intensifying of cross-strait exchanges, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has been saying that the changes have promoted democracy in China. Instead, the reverse has been true; Taiwan has seen a regression of democracy and human rights.
When China’s former Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) first started coming to Taiwan, the suppression of peaceful demonstrations against him gave rise to the Wild Strawberry Student Movement. This was followed by the student protest movement against media monopolies as a reaction to the Want Want China Times Group’s attempted acquisition of the cable TV services operated by China Network Systems.
These movements came about due to fears of the erosion of freedom of expression, and things came to a head with the occupation of the Legislative Yuan — the biggest student movement since the Wild Lilies action in 1991 — which was necessitated by the government’s direct attack on the democratic system through Ma’s order — and the KMT legislators’ compliance — that the lawmakers use their majority in the house to make sure the agreement passes.
What does this mean for the nation’s democracy? Is it in its last throes, or is it rising once again from the flames? It depends on whether people are able to regain the core concepts of democracy; to walk away from legislative autocracy and move toward deliberative democracy.
The fact that the students resorted to occupying the legislative chamber demonstrates that, in its current incarnation, Taiwan’s democracy exists in name only and that after the elections, all participation in the democratic process ends for the people. The legislature can do as it wills, indifferent to people’s reactions.
The way the executive branch handled the appropriations of land, and how the judiciary handled the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), should remind people of the need to protect the democratic process.
In all aspects of government, from the executive testimonials and public participation in judicial reviews to legislative public hearings, there needs to be more than a purely formalistic amassing of public opinion: The public has to have more substantial powers of monitoring and of decisionmaking.
Students — from the Wild Lilies and the Wild Strawberries to those who occupy the legislature — have always been a major factor behind the democracy movement in Taiwan. In their passion and their drive lies the hope for the protection and furtherance of the nation’s democracy.
The students are providing everyone a lesson in civic education, and Taiwanese should be grateful for their efforts.
Lin Chia-fan is chair of the Department of Civic Education and Leadership at National Taiwan Normal University.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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