The student-led Sunflower movement’s occupation of the legislative chamber is set to end peacefully this evening. The fact that an almost revolutionary campaign is to end peacefully and without bloodshed is a sign of the maturity and rationality of Taiwan’s democracy.
The campaign may have ended, but Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) has said that the students’ occupation of the legislative chamber and the Executive Yuan were illegal and must be investigated. The students knew that they were breaking the law and they are not trying to evade legal accountability.
As the government deals with the legal aspect, it must remember that the movement is widely supported. Although the movement has broken the law, it did so reasonably and legitimately.
It is a delicate issue and the government must not go into score-settling mode by widening its scope and arbitrarily targeting large numbers of protesters. Doing so would only result in further social conflict.
Student leaders Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) and Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) are being investigated on eight and 10 possible charges respectively, and might face prison sentences. Hopefully, prosecutors will decide that the complaints are minor and do not warrant indictments.
When issuing verdicts, judges should consider not-guilty verdicts, probation, the possibility to commute verdicts to fines and social work.
Imprisonment for political reasons will only provoke further public outrage. It can only be hoped that the judiciary will consider social perceptions as well as the rule of law.
When the legislature resumes operations, lawmakers must remember that the protests were sparked by legislative misconduct, and that it was a lack of sincerity and an inability to respect the procedural agenda that made it possible to decide that the review of the cross-strait service trade agreement was completed after 30 seconds of chaos.
When the legislature returns to normal, legislators must not forget that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) have promised to pass legislation regulating the oversight of cross-strait deals before the service trade agreement is reviewed and to quickly review the oversight legislation before turning to a clause-by-clause analysis of the agreement.
Legislators must behave like adults and prove that they can hold a proper meeting instead of occupying the speaker’s podium or resorting to the use of hidden microphones. They must be able to seriously and earnestly debate the pros and cons of the agreement.
The government’s signing of the trade agreement without first soliciting the opinion of business and industry has been criticized as being opaque.
The lack of communication with the legislature and the public after the signing is what triggered the civil unrest and backlash.
The government has been too passive and conservative in its handling of the movement’s concerns and doubts over the negative effects of the agreement, as well as generational concerns, the issues of complimentary measures and of political and economic strategy.
The government has been unable to dispel doubt, and this has created a lopsided public policy debate.
The March 30 protest, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, should make the government understand that anything it does will be judged indirectly by public opinion in the legislature and directly by public opinion through oversight.
The drafting of public policy must be careful, meticulous and transparent, and it must take the opinions of all sectors of society into consideration. Although this may result in a more complex and time-consuming debate, the result will be that policies and agreements will not be rejected by the legislature and the public.
A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
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