Taipei’s Sunflowers

March 29th, 2014

One of the best features of this hotel is the jogging path. It is close to the “Freedom Square” (used to be known as Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Park). I enjoy the run around the perimeter and come back for a nice 3-mile (5km) circuit. I geared up and went, only to smash right into the mob.

Twelfth days ago, about 1500 college students stormed into and occupied the congress, right next to the hotel. They demanded complete revocation of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (兩岸服務貿易協議). I jogged around the peaceful crowd. There were speeches, singing, and chanting. There were also discipline-enforcers, medical station, stages with jumbo-tron screen and concert-quality AV equipment, t-shirt booth, foods distribution, and “refreshment stations” for people to take showers. They called themselves the “Sunflowers” and were very well organized for the long haul. My casual exercise became a tour that also included barricaded government buildings and many TV mobile units. The palpable emotions were ready to explode and some seemed eager to kindle.

Around 7pm came a thunderstorm of poring rain and gusty wind. It passed quickly, but drenched everyone. I thought of those protesters and wonder how would this dampen their spirit.

March 30th, 2014

Both sides put out propaganda, PR blitz, and various tactics to present a strong support base. The media was ridiculously biased and offered no value in furthering the understanding of this matter. From my chatting up with those kids, the opposition came in four main points:

• Protectionism: many fear that they wouldn’t be economically competitive against China. This seemed to be the smallest faction, since most in Taiwan understood it is about global competitiveness and not about China. On the other hand, there are always groups that will experience hardship and they don’t like it.
• Dirty Political Procedure: the government kept people in the dark, passed the agreement in an extremely under-handed way, and abused its majority position in the congress. This angered many righteous students.
• Party rivalry: Taiwan’s political landscape is nearly 50-50 split between two parties. The opposition side smelled blood and was all too glad to see the whole thing escalated.
• Threat to sovereignty: China’s agenda was blatant — money for your independence. Yes, the price was lucrative. But is the sovereignty for sale? Even the mentioning of this topic angered many.

Calling President Ma a traitor is probably not justified. If, however, he truly believed the agreement’s merits, he failed miserably in communicating them. When pressed, many admitted that they did not really know much about the agreement itself and took up position based on media sound-bites. On this front, the government’s PR campaign lost by a landslide.

March 31st, 2014

The emotion crested during the protest that lasted well past mid-night. My morning jog met many tired kids sleeping on the covered side-walks. Their number dwindled and those stayed seemed tired and spent. No one knows how will this ends. Everyone wishes no more people get hurt.