Sunflower Movement demands

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student group comprised of students of different Taiwanese universities such as National Taiwan University, National Chengchi University, National Taiwan Normal University, Tsing Hua University.

6.5 Sunflower Movement demands

At the very beginning, the main demand of the Sunflower Movement was greater political transparency, however it rapidly grew into a broader space in which different political and social demands converged. The discursive axes of the Sunflower Movement was comprised of four different elements: Democratic reform, which was one of the central demands of the movement, the anti-China factor or Taiwanese nationalism, anti-free trade agreement from a leftist perspective and the inter cohort-justice in which the youth were the political subject.¹³¹

Regarding the democratic reforms, the Student movement was focused on four main reforms. (1) The legislation of an oversight mechanism for Cross-Strait agreement:

(xianlifa zaishencha, 先立法、再審查). (2) Legislation (of the oversight act) before review of the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (lianganxieyijiandutiaoli, 兩岸協 議監督條例). (3) Call for Citizens Constitutional Assembly (Jubangongminxianzheng huiyi, 舉辦公民憲政會議) (4) Send back the CSSTA. In this regard, the Sunflower

Movement was successful. The March 25 resolution of the Joint Committee of the Legislative Yuan decided that the Executive Yuan had to send back and renegotiate the CSSTA (退回服貿)¹³². Furthermore, the Sunflower Movement criticised the traditional representative democracy, which was thought to be rooted in a deep elitism and professionalisation of politics. Thus, one of the demands of the student movement was more public participation.

Regarding the Anti-China factor or Taiwanese nationalism, some protestors believed that it was necessary to ensure the future of Taiwan as a democracy and nation, particularly given the potential effects of increased Cross-Strait interaction on the

131 Albert Tzeng, "Sunflower Movement an analytic Review", Academia.edu, June 26, 2014 http://www.academia.edu/7485979/Sunflower_Movement-_An_Analytic_Review

132 Jennifer Baker, "Taiwan Sunfllower Movement ends 3 weeks occupation", Revolution news, July 4, 2014 http://revolution-news.com/taiwan-sunflower-movement-ends-3-week-occupation/

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integrity of Taiwanese identity¹³³. Therefore, identity played an important role during the protests. One of the slogans used by the demonstrators was "We are Taiwanese! We are Taiwanese!". The student movement was spurred by deep-rooted distrust of China by Taiwanese who feared the accord would increase Taiwan’s dependence on China, thereby hurting the island’s economy and national security¹³⁴. Some critiques of the CSSTA, believed that an excessive economic reliance on China will give Beijing more leverage in pushing Taiwan towards unification. In addition, they also fear that the penetration of Chinese capital as a consequence of the agreement, can compromise the liberty of the Taiwanese. In particular, the Sunflower Movement, distrusted Chinese media companies such as China Time Media Corp.

Regarding the critics of the trade agreement, the student movement tackled that question from a leftist position, conceiving the CSSTA as a consequence of the capitalist globalisation and the neoliberal policies promoted by the KMT. To understand this critique, it is important to go back to 2008 and analyse KMT's economic policies since then. It was not until the 2008 global financial crisis that the KMT put forward economic questions as campaign issues. The hobbled economy fostered a widening of the wealth gap. The 1990 witnessed the gap widen gradually. The Gini coefficient reached 0.35 and the Oshima Index 6.39 in 2001, indicating that Taiwan’s growth-with-equity model began to change. The disparity in income distribution in Taiwan surged after 2007 and peaked in 2009, when the Gini coefficient reached 0.345 and the Oshima Index reached 6.34. Although the wealth gap after 2008 was less severe than in 2001, it persisted, with much longer income stagnation and much bigger income bifurcation, leading to more social discontent. After 2009, both indicators dipped, while holding at a higher level than in 2003–07. The short economic rebound in 2010 failed to substantially and immediately improve the situation of damaged strata/classes before another economic slump occurred in 2011. Structural unemployment in Taiwan remained severe from 2009 to 2011. In the short term, the middle and lower classes were beset with a rather strong sense of ‘‘relative deprivation. From 2010–11 Taiwan had a short period of economic recovery with the efforts of the Ma Ying-jeou

133 Andrew Previc and Adam Kong ,"Sunflowers in Taiwan:A New Chapter in Cross-Strait Relations", APAC journal, (winter, 2015): 9.

134 John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, "Taiwan in 2014: A besieged President amid political turnmoil"

Asian Survey 44, no. 11 ( 2015): 144.

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administration, the living conditions of most people did not improve because of the cumulative effect of unequal distribution¹³⁵.

To solve Taiwan's economic problems, the KMT believed that economic bureaucracy was the key to economic growth. The During the five-city municipal elections in 2010, the Ma Ying-jeou administration noted the widening of the wealth gap, but the KMT has long operated as a kind of community of shared interests with Taiwan’s major firms because of close high-level state-business relations. Consequently, party officials paid more attention to the interests of big business when formulating economic policies than to social redistribution of wealth.¹³⁶ On the other hand, the unfavourable domestic economic context and KMT's promises of improving the economic performance, led the KMT to closer relations with China. Both ECFA and CSSTA have to be understood within that context.

The critics of the free trade agreements mistrust their economic and social benefits.

They claimed that both ECFA and CSSTA have the potential to widen the existing social inequality in Taiwan. Moreover, there is a perception among Taiwanese that the Ma administration had been paying more attention to the elites's interests rather than to the daily problems of society. In this context, the Sunflower Student Movement forced the Taiwanese people to rethink their faith in the neoliberal project. If the movement had not drawn attention to it, people would not have taken heed of the agreement, nor would they have realised that Taiwan is a small economic entity with small market that could be harmed by huge capital investment and that Taiwan’s vast numbers of small and medium-sized businesses may struggle in the face of globalisation. The movement has created new discourses and explanatory frameworks which are characterised by suspicion towards neoliberal ideology¹³⁷.

Regarding the inter cohort-justice in which the youth are the political subject, the students who participated in the Sunflower Movement had the impression that the worsening of their living expectations as a result of the low salaries, high housing prices

135 Zhenqing Zheng, "Taiwan’s Wealth Gap and the Evolution of Electoral Politics after the 2008 Global Financial" Asian Survey 53, no.5, (2013): 832-833.

136 Ibid, 844.

137 Feng-yi Chu, "On the Frontline: democracy at 4am- Taiwan's Sunflower Movement", The Discovery Society, May 6, 2014 http://www.discoversociety.org/2014/05/06/on-the-frontline-democracy-at-4am-taiwans-sunflower-movement/

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was a consequence of the legacy of the older generations. Some called the students the Bomb Generations (bengshidai, 崩世代). The Sunflower Movement also demanded

"inter generational justice" as well as more spaces to participate in politics. As one NTU student said "generational justice means disproportionate justice because for example housing prices and salaries are all set by the older generation for us. Generational justice means we want equal salaries, it means we want to have equality, if we want to live in Taipei, maybe our salary needs to be 50000 not 22000. Why do we have this? because the older generation deserved two decades before"¹³⁸.