On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Sunflower movement yesterday, young campaigners said the government has not done enough to consolidate Taiwan’s sovereignty or improve young people’s livelihoods in the face of Beijing’s policies to court Taiwanese talent.
The Sunflower movement refers to the occupation of the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber for several weeks in March and April 2014 in protest of the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s handling of a cross-strait service trade agreement.
When social campaigner Jimmy Chen (陳政德) and his friends first started raising public awareness about the proposed agreement in July 2013, they made it clear that they were against the agreement’s expected effects on Taiwan’s industries, he said, adding that it was China’s tactic to annex Taiwan by strangling its economy.
Photo: CNA
“Somehow, [Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)] politicians later set the tone of the movement as ‘against the opaque review [of the agreement],’” which he could not fathom, Chen said at a forum in Taipei on the nation’s future on the fourth anniversary of the Sunflower movement’s launch organized by former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).
Like the former KMT administration, the DPP has equivocated on the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty after it won the 2016 presidential election, possibly “signing a death warrant” for Taiwan, Chen said.
Citing as an example a hearing this month on a proposed referendum about whether to change the title of the national sports team from “Chinese Taipei” to “Taiwan,” Chen said he was told by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official at the hearing that doing so might further limit the nation’s international space.
When Chen told the official that the argument contradicted most attendees’ logic, he conceded that his remarks were based on his “preconceptions,” but later said that the outcome of the proposed referendum would likely be “consultative,” in which case its result would not become national policy.
The official’s remarks and the DPP’s strategy on China shifting from organizing mass protests to drafting legislation both suggest that the party is holding back on the issue of consolidating Taiwan’s international status, Chen said.
Although the cross-strait agreement was shelved in the legislature, Taiwan is still not safe from China’s economic threats, especially after the government started taxing shares that companies award their employees, causing firms to pay them cash dividends instead, greatly disincentivizing workers and possibly causing young talent to flirt with the idea of working in China, he said.
Working in the high-tech sector, Chen said he has often been approached by Chinese companies offering salaries two to three times the amount he makes in Taiwan.
However, the government has failed to propose any solution to China’s attempts to pilfer Taiwan’s talent, Chen said, adding this could distance more young people and make them more likely to be seduced by the handsome salaries offered by Chinese firms.
Neither the KMT nor the DPP is serious about addressing the threat of China trying to annex Taiwan by encroaching on its industries, as both parties have failed to sufficiently acknowledge the underlying hostility across the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan Solidarity Union Youth Department director Hsu Ya-chi (許雅齊) said
Citing the example of the proposed act on supervising cross-strait agreements — which was introduced in 2014 in the wake of the Sunflower movement, but has still not been passed — Hsu said the bill’s title is in itself belittling to the nation.
“What is cross-strait? Would you refer to [the relations between] Taiwan and other countries as cross-strait?” she asked.
Green Party spokesman Yi Chun-hung (易俊宏) panned the endless rivalry between the pan-green and pan-blue political camps.
The competition between the two sides has hindered the nation’s progress, Yi said.
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