By their very nature, the old, established political parties tend to be narrow and conservative in their approach. This has been the case for the two most recent Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governments — the present administration under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the previous one under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
In the way they dealt with the student-led Sunflower movement, and the political moves taken after the protests had run their course, Ma and his sidekick Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) both acted as if they were settling scores with the enemy. Lee, for his part, used the Wild Lily student movement of the 1990s to secure his own ends, and then left them by the wayside after they had served their purpose. The KMT has consistently resisted social or political change.
The Sunflower movement, keenly aware of the risk to the constitutional system posed by the actions of the legislature, called upon the government to convene a public conference on constitutional government.
The response by Ma and Jiang was not only unreasonable, the two men also, incredibly, decided instead to call a national affairs conference on trade and economics. Fully aware that the opposition supported holding a public constitutional conference, they also disingenuously invited the opposition parties to participate in their own conference.
The result was that both the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union refused to take part. Even the pan-blue People First Party declined to attend. In the end, only supporters of the Ma and Jiang administration attended the conference, so it was unlikely to succeed.
When the Wild Lily movement called on Lee’s administration to call a national affairs conference to discuss the issue of direct elections for president and vice-president, Lee agreed to the conference, but failed to invite the students from the movement to participate: Indeed, the government actually invited students who were not part of the movement to attend, to make up the numbers. The conference was fixed, anyway, the results a foregone conclusion decided by the KMT in advance so it would get what it wanted. It effectively rejected all the recommendations of the students representing the movement or reform-minded academics.
Even before the conference was held, it was clear to many that it would not result in any significant reforms. Freedom advocates such as political scientist Hu Fu (胡佛), constitutional expert Lee Hung-hsi (李鴻禧) and Academia Sinica research fellows Yang Kuo-shu (楊國樞) and Chu Yun-han (朱雲漢) pulled out before it was even held. Consequently, the conference descended into a negotiation between the two major parties, the KMT and the DPP, and any talk of fundamental constitutional reform was abandoned.
Just as 24 years ago the government responded in an unreasonable way to the Wild Lily movement, Ma and Jiang responded to the Sunflower movement by repeatedly criticizing the participants, and have attempted to throw the book at them. Not only did Ma and Jiang fail to fully appreciate the significance of the student movement or understand the reforms they were calling for, they even declared that they would form a youth advisory group.
This kind of clumsy bumbling was met with derision by the younger generation. In fact, the KMT actually set up a youth group during Ma’s first term as party chairman, with former Cabinet secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世) initially at the helm.
The KMT has always been interested only in controlling the youth. It will never listen to young people’s opinions, or their concerns for the future.
Chiu Hei-yuan is a retired professor and a member of the Taipei Society.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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