When looking at Yushan (玉山), the scenery differs depending on whether one is seeing it from an airplane or gazing up at it at from a valley. In the same way, different perspectives to the recent string of student protests and social movements arise depending on the standpoint of the observer.
Therefore, before a situation is assessed, people should reflect on their own world-views, for this is the only way to see where blind spots lie.
I am a lawyer of a certain social status and have some economic power. It is not hard to predict that a person like me does not want to see total anarchy because I hope that society will continue to be stable. However, while I do not advocate destroying the current system, this does not mean that I do not want to make some adjustments to it.
In the same vein, the political views of the leaders of the Sunflower movement should not be the main focus. Of more importance is the socio-economic status of the tens of thousands of young people and students who took part in the movement’s related protests. Those who have not yet entered the workforce or have only just entered it still need to increase their economic power and it is not hard to see that they are more tranquil about the destruction of the current system.
So, has the system really reached the point at which it is necessary to occupy government organs and paralyze them?
Consider it from the point of view of the protesters. If social resources are quantified, it can be seen that a person with a resource value of 100 units and a person who has only one unit will naturally have different hopes and expectations when it comes to changing society’s rules.
The former will be more inclined to cherish the resources they have and will be more likely to resist change.
As for the latter, what possible losses could they incur if the rules were broken? Even if the real outcome was that they stood to lose even that one unit, this person might believe that they could turn their one unit into two, three or even 100.
Also, for the latter, a motivating factor when considering breaking established rules, despite the possibility that they will lose their only resource, is if the current rules give them the opportunity to increase their resources. This is what is referred to as social mobility.
Consider the current state of democratic countries around the globe. They all face a common problem: an ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor. This has not only greatly decreased social mobility, it has also started to decrease the “aspiration” that society at large and especially young people, have for social mobility.
This is an important psychological factor behind all of the social movements the nation has seen recently.
Given the situation of the nation’s political system, it would be an overstatement to say that Taiwan is a dictatorship. The nation is still a democracy. However, even if the system is stable, it must be pointed out that all democracies must face up to the fact that social mobility is decreasing, both in a practical sense and in people’s hope for mobility. This is eroding the legitimacy of democratic systems.
If those in power do not face up to this fact, increasingly serious protests will come next. It would be incorrect to think that such protests would only be aimed at the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
They will be aimed at any government in power, because — while on the surface it may seem that these protests are aimed at a particular leader — in reality, these protests are a warning to representative democracy.
C.V. Chen is a managing partner at Lee and Li Attorneys-at-law.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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