When looking at the student movement, we must first look at Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and his response. He tried to bring off a softer populist stance in response to the demand that the service trade agreement be rejected and that a law regulating oversight of cross-strait agreements be drawn up. Unfortunately no one bought that. Next, he tried to confuse people, claiming that there are already four levels of oversight in place in an attempt to render establishing new legislation unnecessary. However, one has to wonder if the opaque handling of the pact and the occupation of the legislative chamber are not sufficient evidence that these supervisory mechanisms are ineffective. Jiang has made it clear that the Cabinet is not going to withdraw the agreement: The decision is final, leaving no room for discussion.
Since Jiang is working on the premise that the agreement will be ratified and that there will be no legislation, why bother showing up at the legislature? Did he want to create the impression that there had been dialogue and establish the conditions for a later evacuation? After leaving hastily, Jiang held a press conference at the Executive Yuan, criticizing the students and asking if a meeting attached with preconditions constituted dialogue.
This raises the question of why the students and members of the public were protesting at all: Was it not because President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Jiang had set — the unconstitutional — precondition that the legislature was not allowed to change a single character in the agreement and had to pass it in toto? Just who is removing every possibility of dialogue?
Ma followed Jiang into the spotlight, with a 30-minute press conference reiterating the same slogan: “Believe me when I tell you that the service trade agreement really can save Taiwan.” However, the protests started because of lack of confidence in this kind of minority decision. Is a president who confuses deer antlers with the hair on their ears capable of grasping what “category CPC 513” in the pact means? Did he really know what type 1 and type 2 telecommunications business were when he guaranteed that “opening up type i and type ii telecommunications business will not endanger national security”?
“The student occupation of the legislature is illegal. Is this the kind of democracy we want?” Ma said. If that is the case, then the counter-proposition must be: “Ma is illegally pushing the legislature around. Is that the kind of democracy we want?” Who was it that gave the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip an ultimatum: “If the service trade agreement isn’t passed, you’re the one I’ll come looking for.” As proven through controversies surrounding US beef imports and the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) the view that party discipline overrides public opinion has banned democracy from the legislature. Ma and Jiang are calling on students to leave in order to allow a return to normal operations, but their kind of “normal” means that party discipline will continue to force the legislature to function as a rubber stamp.
As to Chang Ching-chung’s (張慶忠) actions, Ma equivocated. Chang was basically talking to himself in a corner of the committee room for 30 seconds when he declared that the review of the agreement was taking too long. The Cabinet immediately approved it and the KMT’s legislative caucus endorsed it. This disdain for the legislature and trampling on democracy was the fuse that set off the occupation. How can there be any talk of legislative autonomy?
Mysteriously, Ma has said that it will be up to the judiciary to decide whether the occupation was illegal. Has the process to settle accounts already begun?
Lin Yu-hsiung is a professor in the College of Law at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) led a bipartisan delegation to Taiwan in late February. During their various meetings with Taiwan’s leaders, this delegation never missed an opportunity to emphasize the strength of their cross-party consensus on issues relating to Taiwan and China. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Their instruction upon taking the reins of the committee was to preserve China issues as a last bastion of bipartisanship in an otherwise deeply divided Washington. They have largely upheld their pledge. But in doing so, they have performed the
It is well known that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ambition is to rejuvenate the Chinese nation by unification of Taiwan, either peacefully or by force. The peaceful option has virtually gone out of the window with the last presidential elections in Taiwan. Taiwanese, especially the youth, are resolved not to be part of China. With time, this resolve has grown politically stronger. It leaves China with reunification by force as the default option. Everyone tells me how and when mighty China would invade and overpower tiny Taiwan. However, I have rarely been told that Taiwan could be defended to
It should have been Maestro’s night. It is hard to envision a film more Oscar-friendly than Bradley Cooper’s exploration of the life and loves of famed conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. It was a prestige biopic, a longtime route to acting trophies and more (see Darkest Hour, Lincoln, and Milk). The film was a music biopic, a subgenre with an even richer history of award-winning films such as Ray, Walk the Line and Bohemian Rhapsody. What is more, it was the passion project of cowriter, producer, director and actor Bradley Cooper. That is the kind of multitasking -for-his-art overachievement that Oscar
Chinese villages are being built in the disputed zone between Bhutan and China. Last month, Chinese settlers, holding photographs of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), moved into their new homes on land that was not Xi’s to give. These residents are part of the Chinese government’s resettlement program, relocating Tibetan families into the territory China claims. China shares land borders with 15 countries and sea borders with eight, and is involved in many disputes. Land disputes include the ones with Bhutan (Doklam plateau), India (Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin) and Nepal (near Dolakha and Solukhumbu districts). Maritime disputes in the South China