On the evening of March 18, 2014, a group of protesters led by Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), a student at National Tsing Hua University’s department of humanities and social sciences, and Dennis Wei (魏揚), a master’s student at Tsing Hua’s institute of sociology, broke into the Legislative Yuan through its side gate on Jinan Road, while another group, led by Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), a research student at National Taiwan University’s department of political science, got into the Legislative Yuan by climbing over the wall on the Qingdao E Road side.
This was the spectacular opening scene of the Sunflower movement, which saw student protesters occupying the legislative chamber for almost 23 days.
On Feb. 27 this year, organizations representing retired military personnel and other people opposed to pension reform gathered outside the Legislative Yuan and called on their supporters to break into the compound.
At 5:50am, they got in and several protesters broke some of the glass windows of the legislative assembly building.
Retired colonel Miao Te-sheng (繆德生), secretary-general of Blue Sky ROC Action (藍天行動聯盟), lost his grip while climbing up the side of the legislature’s conference department building and fell down from a considerable height. At the time of writing, he remains in intensive care. (Editor’s Note: Miao died on Monday.)
The main demand of the Sunflower movement was opposition to closed-door negotiations with China over a proposed cross-strait trade in services agreement.
The students who took part in the protest did not do so for their own selfish interests, but for the good of the public.
By contrast, the organizations against pension reform are stubbornly resisting changes to protect their own vested interests, regardless of the critical condition of the pension system, which might soon go bankrupt because it is paying more out than is being paid in.
While the Sunflower movement’s motives for breaking into the legislature were selfless, those of the pension protesters are thoroughly selfish.
What about the public’s perception of the two movements?
In the case of the Sunflower movement, it resonated across society and attracted broad-based support. Even overseas TV networks such as CNN and NHK reported on it.
On March 30, 2014, 500,000 people of all ages occupied Ketagalan Boulevard to show their support for the student protesters.
On the other hand, the organizations opposed to pension reform can only muster the same old familiar faces huddling together for warmth.
Has anyone seen any other social groups or younger people coming out to support them?
How do they think the public will support them when high-ranking opponents of pension reform, such as retired lieutenant general Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), take money from Taiwanese taxpayers then go to watch Chinese military parades in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square while singing China’s national anthem?
The Sunflower movement fought a battle that has written an indelible page in the history of the democratic movement.
It succeeded in preventing the opaquely negotiated cross-strait services trade agreement from being signed and it created a butterfly effect that led to the corrupt Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) suffering unprecedented electoral defeats in 2014 and 2016.
It also set the scene for the creation of the New Power Party, now the third-biggest party in the legislature.
By comparison, what impression have the pension reform protesters made on the public?
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired National Hsinchu University of Education associate professor and a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers