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Chapter 3
TO PROTEST OR NOT TO PROTEST?
3.1 The Initial Reaction
The events leading up to the Sunflower Movement basically happened overnight.
Within one night, protestors burst into the Legislative Yuan and police, unprepared by what was happening, soon were vastly outnumbered by these protestors. No one would have anticipated the sudden reaction from the Taiwanese public. Although there are complexities behind the planning and coordination of storming the Legislative Yuan: a large amount of protestors were unaware that some had previously planned to scale the walls and enter the building. Some were just swept in by the sudden rush of people.12 It can be said that the abrupt public response was as abrupt in nature as the circumstances that ended debate on CSSTA. The bill was already divisive with strong opposition from the DPP, who occupied the podium (a legally valid tactic) to prevent the bill from going forward. On March 17, 2014, presiding chair of the Internal Administrative Committee, KMT legislator Chang Ching Chong (張慶忠), unilaterally declared that time had expired on the review process for the bill and it would be reported to the floor for a vote, which caused two problems. First, it ultimately reneged on previous agreements already established. As the review was not complete yet, lobbyists and business leaders would have been able to negotiate with legislators and potentially change provisions more suitable to fit their terms. Now, however, none of this would be possible because the review process was cut short. All players were stuck with the same bill that Taiwanese representatives negotiated with Chinese representatives in a closed door meeting the previous year, basically rendering the review system useless. Secondly, it avoided the Taiwanese democratic legislative process where stalling tactics used by the opposition can be overcome by legislative tactics. In Taiwan, ruling parties will usually change procedural rules, call for unity among its members, and fight a lengthy battle for votes.
But this legislative system was suddenly bypassed by a unilateral decision. Many people among the public were shocked by what had just unfolded. Not just that their government had committed a flagrant under-the-table operation13 to bypass opposition, but also their
12 Rowan, Ian. “Inside Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: Twenty-Four Days in a Student-Occupied Parliament, and the Future of the Region.”
13 Under-the-table operation is something done secretly, a lack of transparency, 黑箱作業 in Chinese
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government was temporarily unable to properly function due to the occupation. Both participants and non-participants in the Sunflower Movement told me they were angry and shocked when the events first happened. They were mostly shocked by the KMT’s sudden movement to quickly end the review process, which they felt tarnished the legitimacy of the democratic system in Taiwan. The moment that this happened, many were oblivious to the complexities of the issues at stake. Everything was quick, and for some individuals it would take a while to process the situation before they decided to take a course of action. Other people were more aware as this debate had been in the making for so long and were ready to take immediate action.
3.2 Who Decided to Protest?
Ming Fong, who is a fourth year undergraduate law student at National Taiwan University (NTU) and very impassioned with his studies and current events recounted his four years of experience in studying law his own views in the severity of government tactics of going outside of the law. He opined procedural justice is very important and no one should be exempt by the established rules set in an institution. Furthermore, people need to demonstrate what they want within the confines of the law. If rules are not followed, then there will be no more relevant law. Subsequently, the government, as lawmakers should be the ones to set the example. He felt so strongly about what had just happened that as soon as he heard there was an organized protest against these tactics used by the government, he decided to go to the site:
“On that day, we heard about the protest from the internet and on Facebook, and that night I went to the Legislative Yuan with my friends. I invited all of my friends to go there and when we got to the Legislative Yuan, everyone was surrounding it trying to help the people inside. When I got there, people were already inside and it was blocked off. During this time, I discussed this issue with my friends and tried to understand why people were inside. After we got the information, we were trying to protect the people inside from the police and prevent them from going inside to take them out.”14
Getting to the protest site and gathering other friends also in the law department was easy for him. However, once he got to the site, he felt uneasy whether police reinforcements would eventually come in and take them out, and he feared for his own safety. He found
14 Interview with Ming Fong
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solace in the fact that many people were there with him sharing the latest information developments. He ended up staying there all night to make sure police would not enter the Legislative Yuan, and after realizing they would not be evicted, safely went home in the morning.
But the government breaking its promises wasn’t the only issue that pushed him over the edge. He already had uneasiness in government dealings with China. But once he heard more information regarding the deal after discussing with friends at the site and bringing their knowledge together, he then started to feel that this was the bill that would ultimately bring Taiwan closer to China. He stated his concerns:
“When I was growing up, I learned that I was Taiwanese, not Chinese, so I always felt this way.
Chinese people could come to Taiwan for labor [as part of this bill]. In fact, nowadays many Chinese buy land in Hualien and it’s very frightening because there are so many Chinese. Their money is held by a group of people and they buy our land or companies, so when this thing happens, Taiwan’s system will be controlled by China. When I went to college, NTU is very liberal and they always told us when something is not right, we have to find a way to change it. So, we need to learn new concepts and see which one is the best for Taiwan.”15
In terms of economics, Taiwan’s services industry accounts for 70% of its GDP, and both civic groups have started to complain about the economic vulnerabilities of getting too dependent on one entity – in this case China. If the barriers are loosened to open the markets to China, it will leave a bigger uncertainty on the Taiwanese economy.
If China’s economy someday sinks, it will also bring Taiwan down with it. To think that this type of deal will come into fruition will have a lasting impact on the future of Taiwan.
In addition, it will be nearly impossible to undo these changes once they are enacted.
Furthermore, the Taiwan government’s very own Chung Hua Institute estimated that the reform would only bring in a net annual GDP growth between 0.02%-0.03%.16 At the same time, political issues cannot be ignored either. As China has a centrally controlled government, it could use its leverage to economically harm Taiwan or could essentially influence the democratic institution if it wished to do so.
“China is different from Taiwan in terms of law systems, democracy, and culture and mannerisms are also different. So I think when a big country is [too] close to us, their money or economy controls us
15 Ibid
16 Rowan, Ian. “Inside Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: Twenty-Four Days in a Student-Occupied Parliament, and the Future of the Region.”
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everywhere. We don’t want to be controlled by them because we like our society the way it is. There does not need to be a change in government.17
Afraid that this could be the future reality, it caused him to frequently go to the protest site and support the occupiers inside of the Legislative Yuan, albeit from the outside. At the site, he wanted to make sure there were enough people to continuously bring in media attention and raise awareness, also making sure that the police would not evict the occupiers. While he was at home, he spread information online and actively worked to convince others to bring them to support the movement and continue raising awareness to the rest of the world. At first he was skeptical about continuously going to the site because the attention was slow. Secondly, for a period protest numbers were not growing very fast, and he didn’t know whether or not the police officers would attack them or not. But after a few days, politicians and professors started sending out their assurances that participants will not be punished. 33 out of the 45 professors in the NTU law department signed a petition to the government not to penalize the students who participated.18 Also, international media attention started picking up their story. He continued revisiting the site over the next few days until the movement ended.
Looking at Ming Fong’s motivations to determine to protest, I have gathered several views that seem to give his individual reason to get involved in the Sunflower Movement. The views listed below have been listed because each one is capable of getting one emotionally involved and sparking interest in the Movement as a whole.
Each “Yes” represents a positive value, functioning as a reason towards protesting, while a “No” represents a negative that goes against protesting as an end result. “Indifferent”
means that the candidate felt unmoved, unsure, or had no opinion about the reason. We can compare this method between each candidate to measure their motivations and end result to protest or not. His results are as follows:
17 Interview with Ming Fong
18 Apple Daily News – March 24, 2014 “台大法律學院教授連署 反對武力對付學生”
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As we already know from his story that he was influenced by his interest in law and strongly influenced by the KMT’s under-the-table operation, here we can see those variables put on the chart. His result of determining to protest was immediate and likely due to these two factors. Later, his views evolved and emotions to get involved were amplified after learning what was behind CSSTA. He then tried to educate others about what he viewed were the dangers of supporting this bill. It is very possible that his initial judgment to protest was assisted by his school environment in the way he has been taught.
The fact that he immediately wanted to solve this problem through protest speaks volumes about his background. More analysis of these background motivators, or abeyance structures, will be discussed in Chapter 4.
C.T. Chang is a fourth year undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student.
Though he too participated in the Sunflower Movement, it took him a few days before he finally decided to go to the site. When the Legislative Yuan was first occupied, he was immersed with what was happening after checking his social media accounts. Dozens of his friends posted news articles and parts of the bill online. At the time, he did not know anything about CSSTA, but chose to completely ignore it because he did not have any interest in it. As his major suggests, he only tends to read technology news and rarely ever reads political news because it is out of his study. None of his immediate friends asked him to go protesting at this time either. It was until one of his best friends who studies law made one very long post on Facebook that explained the situation that just occurred and whether or not this was good for Taiwan. This caused him to start
discussing with friends and watching the news when he had the chance. And he finally learned more about what was happening. He said that the media gave two reasons why people should be protesting: one was CSSTA, and the other was the under-the-table operation that the KMT employed, yet this still didn’t convince him to protest.
“It didn’t convince me. It was not the first time the government did this. And then I met someone who studied in law and they told me they are protesting not because of CSSTA or under-the-table
operations. What the protestors want to stand for is there is a process in law – if the government wants to do something, they need to ask congress and go through the normal procedure, they can’t go around it. If they do it once, they will dare to do it again, and there will be no law in Taiwan and no more democracy.
Since they didn’t do the process that is prescribed by the law, that is the real reason why we should stand up
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and say something is wrong, that the government is overstepping its boundaries. This argument is convincing for me.”19
So, in his belief, it is not the under-the-table operation in general that we should be angry about, but we should fear how easily it was used. Although most of his friends that he commonly associates with on a daily basis are engineering majors, his best friend who wrote the post that initially got him interested is from a school club he joined his second year that only met on the weekends. This enabled him to meet many other people from various departments with different viewpoints. This club focused on helping children in Hualien, in an area that lacked in resources. He would go there to teach math and find ways to motivate them to continue studying hard. It was a challenge that he originally did not even intend to join, but was looking to join any volunteer activity on the weekends.
He ran into their table during a tabling event, and by chance, these are the people that ended up convincing him.
“The friends in the club definitely influenced me. Because most people in this club are from Sociology or Law Departments. In my Department, everyone studies Engineering, so their views are different to those who study Law or Sociology Departments. One of my best friends there studied law and he would normally tell me things. Also, the atmosphere influenced me too because if all of your friends are talking about the importance of this movement, you will start to wonder if this is really important and whether you should understand their way of thinking and why we need to protest.”20
Finally, by the time he got involved, it was nearing the end of the movement and he only participated in the large gathering on March 30. After being invited by some of his friends in the club, he now realized his purpose to go because he understood the situation behind the protest. If the protest was longer, or if another protest regarding a similar issue happens again, he would definitely join. If it wasn’t for this particular club, he would not have met these people to motivate him, hence he wouldn’t have joined the protest. His only other network that gave him exposure to this event was social media, but it did not push him to a certain point as it didn’t provide him with any interest. In school, his network of classmates and teachers did not say much about this movement and they went on their daily schedules as normal. As he was not interested in political issues, it seemed there was no push factor to make him go. Though he ended up not participating
19 Interview with CT Chang
20 Ibid
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for long, it actively demonstrates a way that someone who would have had absolutely no possibility of participating can be influenced to change their mind and join. By having the influence of friends familiar with the movement, it educated him and motivated him to get involved.
In listing his motivations and end result, he did protest, but hesitated to do so until he finally understood what the movement was about. He wanted to be able to personally identify a reason to make him go. His friends indirectly initiated that process by
educating him on the issues. But his friends were not the real motivating factor; it was learning in depth the consequences that could happen if people allow the government to continue doing under-the-table operations without being punished. He didn’t view the process itself as bad as he was aware it happened before, but thinking that it can happen in the future made him scared, and he felt that protesting in large numbers can show Taiwanese citizens anger against these tactics.
3.3 Who decided not to protest?
Some people do not change their minds so easily however, no matter how hard you try. As the threshold model suggests that everyone is an individual with their own preferences, 21 these would be the people who have a very high threshold. Is this a part of an innate characteristic that they will not protest under any circumstance or are they simply not driven enough with the issues at hand to get interested in the act of protesting?
While some may fervently not like the act of protesting, it also seems to be likely in the latter statement that if a certain issue directly applies to one person, they can become emotionally involved with it and have the motivation to get urged to do something about it. If the issue is not relevant to them, then they will have no way of becoming
21 Granovetter, Mark “Threshold Models of Collective Behavior.”
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emotionally interested. Leo is a first year graduate student at the NTU Department of Law. He did not participate in the Sunflower Movement, in what he claimed is in contrast to the majority of his Law Department classmates. Leo is not against protesting altogether as he has greatly invested his efforts in LGBT clubs and annual protests for marriage equality over the last three years. However, when it comes to the Sunflower Movement, he owes his decision not to get involved to the fact that his general focus in his studies is in Business Law. Therefore, his current focus and coursework is quite different from the general law students at NTU. While he focuses on business numbers and methods to get the Taiwanese economic engines running, his counterparts are
emotionally interested. Leo is a first year graduate student at the NTU Department of Law. He did not participate in the Sunflower Movement, in what he claimed is in contrast to the majority of his Law Department classmates. Leo is not against protesting altogether as he has greatly invested his efforts in LGBT clubs and annual protests for marriage equality over the last three years. However, when it comes to the Sunflower Movement, he owes his decision not to get involved to the fact that his general focus in his studies is in Business Law. Therefore, his current focus and coursework is quite different from the general law students at NTU. While he focuses on business numbers and methods to get the Taiwanese economic engines running, his counterparts are