The Emergence and Demands of the Sunflower Movement

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historical event. The second part of this chapter will come down to both the

substantial impacts that the Sunflower Movement had imposed on the state polices and its potential influences on the democratic development of Taiwan.

4.1 The Emergence and Demands of the Sunflower Movement

As Potter emphasizes, the process of democracy should not be detached from “the particular interrelationship of certain structures of power” such as economic, social, and political dynamics. (Potter, 1997, p.18) Hence, even though levels of political participation declined during the DPP’s regime, the accumulated social dynamics discretely continued. The state-society conflicts did not go away with the declined political engagement under the KMT’s regime. On the contrary, dissents from the civil society increased by a clogged feedback mechanism.

On the one hand, the institutional design of semi-presidentialism¹¹ in Taiwan had enlarged the power of the president. This problem became even more salient when the same party controlled both the executive power and the parliament, which lacked a valid check and balance system. Thus, the parliament had failed to reflect the various interests and being representative of the society. On the other hand, the

11 Duverger (1980, p.166) provides three constituting elements of semi-Presidentialism: (1) The president is elected by universal suffrage; (2) the president possesses quit considerable powers; (3) the president has opposite him a prime minister and minsters who possess executive and governmental power and can stay in office only if the parliament does not show its opposition to them. The three features a regime somewhere between pure parliamentarism and presidentialism. However, in the political practice of Taiwan, Huang states that “instead of having the flexibility to change the government whenever it loses the confidence of parliament, minority governments under

semi-presidentialism in Taiwan exhibit all the rigidity created by gridlock between the executive and the legislature. This gridlock is caused by fixed terms and dual legitimacies as found in pure

presidentialism.”(p.375) See more in Huang, T. W. (2006). The President Refuses to Cohabit:

Semi-Presidentialism in Taiwan. Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal,15(2), 376–402.

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two-party system impeded the diversified voices into policy process and was less likely to achieve political consensus. The dominant party seized the decision-making power in its hands and created power struggles.

The KMT and DPP competed with each other in most policies, especially those related to cross-strait relations in gaining support from the society. They drew their attentions to national identity issues which intensify conflicts of different ethnic groups in Taiwan. As a result, the various social interests had been ignored. Both two major parties, the DPP and the KMT, malfunctioned in issue advocating, and winning elections became their major concerns. Moreover, the remaining economic stagnation, widened economic inequality, inefficient policy outcome, and fallacious feedback mechanism had incubated a demurred civil society. Eventually, social dissents increased and social dynamics had gained over time.

Besides being attentive to the dynamic of structure power, Grugel also emphasizes the crucial role of a participatory civil society which generates more

“comprising institutions that translate citizens’ preferences into policy.” (Grugel, 2002, p.96) Before the eruption of the Sunflower Movement, student groups, social groups and NGOs had put close eyes on the signing of the CSSTA. The Black Island Nation Youth Front¹² held panels for the students to expose the negative impacts brought by the agreement. Civil groups had tried lobbying, pressuring the government, and using demonstrations to blockade the passing of the bill. They aligned to raise several protests against the CSSTA, which the KMT attempted to push through the Legislative Yuan without due democratic process.

12 The Black Island Nation Youth Front was formed by students from Taiwan’s top universities. The group was founded in 2013 with the goal of maintaining Taiwan’s democratic quality, which includes lobbying and protesting the Service Trade Agreement with China. It became one of the most prominent leading groups in the Sunflower Movement.

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On the Double Ten National day of 2013, civic groups demonstrated around the President’s Office to arouse public awareness towards this issue. There were several smaller scaled protests which followed to advocate certain issues, such as the

anti-nuclear power plant, land justice, and anti-corruptions. The conflicts between the civil society and the state were just like impending storms.

In June 2013, the parliamentary negotiation process first agreed on

clause-by-clause review before stipulating. After a couple months of standstill in the Legislative Yuan, the two parties consented to hold 16 public hearings to clarify contents of the CSSTA and incorporate opinions from different sectors. However, the KMT was criticized to expedite the process and accomplish all of its hearings within the space of a week. When the legislation resumed in March 2014, there was dissent and it showed no signs of passing the agreement.

The chair of the legislature’s Internal Administrative Committee, Ching-chung Chang strategically took the CSSTA as an executive order and declared that over the 90 days review period it should be sent to be voted on directly. The KMT enjoyed legislative majority and its party caucus whip had threatened its members to

implement the party’s will. Chang proclaimed that the review of the agreement had been fulfilled and passed a vote in 30 seconds. A great amount of strength had accumulated and erupted when the KMT tried to pass the CCSTA without consensus in the parliamentary. This abrupt action to compel the pass of the CSSTA enraged people who had been paid closely attention to the signing. The incremental civil power reached the apex during 2014- the eruption of the Sunflower Movement.

Hundreds of students gathered to protest in front of the Legislative Yuan, and a group of students from the Black Island Youth Alliance promptly slipped into the Legislative Yuan and occupied the chamber. Hereafter, the Sunflower Movement was officially started. A group of students barricaded themselves inside the

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Legislative Yuan to blockade parliamentary procedures, while thousands of others protested outside to against the inadvertent agreement. At the heart of controversy lay on the insufficient political transparency of the negotiations and whether or not some sectors should be opened up for investments.

The dissent about the CCSTA revealed great conflicts between the state and the society. On the one hand, the KMT, which wagered all their hope on the CCSTA as salvage of the economic depression, manifested its intension blatantly and made every endeavor to expedite the pass. Nonetheless, opening up a domestic market to Chinese investment worried the local Taiwanese about their own competitiveness of making a living. On the other hand, the society had been doubted about China’s intention for political unification. It was suspected that the overly economic dependence on trade with China would facilitate the cross-Strait unification.

Aside from that, some lines of the pact are highly sensitive and related to the national security. There was a great fear that the opening up of sensitive sectors such as constructions and telecommunication would expose Taiwan’s national security to be in danger. For example, opening up the communication services might have

potential risks on the personal information protection and the confidential information in national security. Moreover, the closer ties between two sides could hamper

democracy in Taiwan. China and Taiwan have different political systems-

authoritarian regime and democracy, respectively. Chinese investment in the news media would potentially jeopardize freedom of speech in Taiwan.

In the awakening of the movement, the KMT top leaders, especially president Ying-jeou Ma, were taking an intransigent stance. The authority asserted that the CSSTA was skewed in Taiwan’s favor and should be adopted as a whole package. In the eyes of the student alliance, though, the hard stance of the government showed no will for negotiation and it stubbornly refused to compromise. This aroused indignation

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of the activists, and the student leader, Fei-fan Lin¹³ made two demands on the state.

The first demand of the protestors was to review the passage anew and follow a democratic procedural. Passing a vote to the CCSTA in 30 seconds was a blasting fuse for the Sunflower Movement and flared up widespread dissent. As David Easton (1953) argues in the systems theory¹⁴, the political conversion process has been taken as a black box. With the disclosure of this undemocratic negotiation process, it well stated the complicated and non-transparent policy conversion process. The student groups and NGOs who joined the protests accused the KMT for such undemocratic process and demanded for a full clause-by-clause review. This unveiled event caused the citizens to call for the KMT to vote on the pact under democratic regulations.

The second demand of the activists was to establish an institutionalized supervisory mechanism before a full review of the CSSTA and to monitor any

agreements signed with China in the future. Such kind of demand originated from the skepticism of China’s political intention and the lack of trust in the ruling KMT’s dealings with cross-Straits relationship. China had been viewed as a threat to unify Taiwan with a carrot-and-stick strategy. It either used economic advantages to enforce the trade tighter or military threat to encroach Taiwan’s sovereignty. Accordingly, economic agreements with China should have been under a thorough inspection primarily for the reason of national security. The demand for monitoring regulations on any future agreements became the second major appeal of the movement.

13 Fei-fan Lin was a prominent student leader in the Sunflower Movement. He has participated in many rallies such as the “731 student movement”, “901 opposition of media monopolization movement”

back in 2012, and is widely known among the student community in Taiwan for being outspoken about media monopolization in addition to trade agreements between the island and neighbouring China.

14 In simple terms, Easton proposed that a political system includes the following elements: inputs (demands and supports), black box (the decision making system), output (policies or actions), feedback, and the environment.

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The growing political disturbance and societal tumult decreased the legitimacy of the ruling party as well as President Ma’s political reputation. On April 3, in response to the public demands, the cabinet approved to draft law on cross-strait monitoring bill. The “Statute for the Processing and Monitoring of Agreements between the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area,” proposed by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), was under legislative process to enact. However, President Ma still held a strong request to exempt the CSSTA from that oversight to accelerate the pass of the bill. On April 7, after the speaker of Legislative Yuan- Jin-pyng Wang promised to pass the oversight statute before the implementation of the CSSTA, the leadership of the student groups announced that they would vacate the legislature on April 10.

Thus, the Sunflower Movement came to an end on April 10.