Democracy at 4 AM: What unprecedented protest means for Taiwan

by dryman • 12 years ago

110 31 12 years ago

cicloid• 12 years ago

Someone care to explain the geopolitical situation?

dryman5• 12 years ago

Taiwan is a small country next to China. Although people on both side speak the same language, the culture and government system is different. China, officially the People's Republic of China, is a sovereign state. Taiwan, however, is democratic. The Taiwan government originally based on mainland China, but was defeated by People's Republic of China, and moved to Taiwan.

Officially, Taiwan and China is in war. We never signed up armistice agreement. Taiwan politicians can be separated into two groups. One believe if we stay close to China, we can have better economics. A few of them even want to unite with China. The other group believe we should stay as a country of our own, and China government hates it.

With those background information you can see, making a economic agreement with china is sensitive to people, but the current government tried to pass it without standard procedure in congress. This is why people are so angry about this.

analyst74• 12 years ago

Technically, the situation is similar to the two Koreas, it's two Chinas at war, at least the mainland has never given up of uniting China, or conquering Taiwan.

Since the 60s though, after realizing military action against Taiwan was too risky due to US protection, the issue has been left alone. But some voices have raised since the 90s to unite Taiwan through political/economic means, like Hong Kong and Macau. Uniting Taiwan is a national pride issue for a lot of Chinese people, so there is political capital to be gained.

On the Taiwan side, it is a rich country, and people in general prefer their current lives, thus see no reason to be "united". There are some business people/politicians who benefit from closer ties with mainland, but they are the minority.

noobermin• 12 years ago

Anyone from Taiwan care to comment?(I'm sure someone from there frequents HN)

audreyt• 12 years ago

http://g0v.today/congressoccupied/https%253A%252F%252Fg0v.ha... has some background information in English.

kirstenliu• 12 years ago

https://www.facebook.com/sunflowermovement?ref=stream

Here have a lot of information translated into different languages. Hope it might help you understand what's going on in this island. We really need supports and international attentions :) Thank you!

scotttsai4• 12 years ago

I've been to the protest. One good reporting source is https://twitter.com/JMichaelCole1

cilea• 12 years ago

The trade agreement between China and Taiwan that's currently on the table contains two parts, one concerns publishing and the other has to do with ISP. Taiwanese in general, like to preserve their own identity, culture, language, etc. The agreement MAY alter the market dynamics, for example, squeezing out Taiwan's native publishers. The biggest concern is the control of digital information. No need to explain on this. Overall, Taiwanese are just afraid of what-ifs. Personally, I'm OK with publishing but not the digital information pact.

dryman5• 12 years ago

I'm an software engineer from Taiwan. Taiwan is one of the countries in east asia that has democracy, and we're super proud of it. However, the current government tried to pass some laws that has deep impact to our economy secretly. They tried to pass the law in congress restroom, and passed it in JUST 30 SECONDS.

This is something that Taiwan people can't stand for. We need to fight for our democracy procedure. A law like this cannot be treated this way. The students in taiwan occupied the congress hall (Legislative Yuan). Following up we have so many volunteer from all professions joined us. The doctors started to help people who were injured; the lawyers defended for people who were caught by police; hackers who like you and me helped the wifi and real time streaming to be stable and robust, and also built this website for more visibility from the world.

It's 4am at Taiwan. WE NEED YOUR ATTENTION. WE NEED YOU to spread what happened in taiwan to the world. Take a look on those photos and videos. It's dark in Taiwan, but we believe the dawn will come.

dryman5• 12 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIAe3DREUhI http://instagram.com/p/l-Duu5By7B/

Some recorded video of how police beat people

kbar13• 12 years ago

that's a pretty standard riot control tactic, executed quite well. I don't agree with the beating tho :(

scotttsai4• 12 years ago

The protesters are made up of three overlapping groups:

1. Those who resent the way the ruling party reneged on its promise of legislative review and forced a this trade services pact with China through.

2. Those who have economic concerns, e.g. they worry that Taiwanese small and medium sized businesses would be acquired by Chinese capital thus massively raising the barrier to entry in some industries. Another worry is that Taiwan may face a massive brain drain to China.

3. Those who have national security concerns because the trade services pact opens for e.g. some parts of the telecommunications and publishing industries. China claims Taiwan as a renegade province and has said it'd use force to unify the motherland if necessary.

So far this is still a Taiwanese domestic issue though with the U.S. and China watching closely. One WSJ report goes[1]:

"U.S. officials might consider all this as they prepare to resume bilateral trade talks with Taiwan next week. Advancing bilateral trade—and encouraging eventual Taiwanese accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership—would help quiet nerves on all sides of Taiwanese politics. The U.S. has largely ignored Taiwan in recent years, but Taipei's current crisis highlights the extent to which trouble still lurks in that corner of Asia."

[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230441840...

cclogg• 12 years ago

My girlfriend (who is Taiwanese) and happened to be visiting home during this time, went to observe the protests during the first week. From what she told me (going off memory here), there's many people going to the protests for 2 hours just so they can mark on their Facebook wall that they were there... and many others who don't actually care nor understand, but just follow the vocal protestors. However, there are indeed those who care, as marked by your 3 different groups.

P.s. she also said the police were not a problem for her. The ones they were dealing with were generally trouble-makers and basically out of control or whatever.

Oh well, I hope Taiwan can sort this out, it's a great country :)

briantakita• 12 years ago

I would be scared of annexation if I were a Taiwanese citizen. Heavy-handed states (including China) have not been kind to dissenters.

dhughes• 12 years ago

Taiwan may get "Putin-ed", step 1 cause citizen outrage, step 2 citizens revolt against their corrupt government step 3 China moves in to help stabilize the country without a government.

scotttsai4• 12 years ago

Another "colorful" part is that there have been gangsters showing up at the protest site, threatening the largely college aged protesters. This coincides with the return to Taiwan of a mob boss with close Chinese ties:

http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/the-return-of-gangster-politi...

He's been spotted at the scene (the last photo): http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/201403...

sansword• 12 years ago

I'm a website developer from Taiwan. There'll be a protest movement 9 hours later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV8JDbtXZm4 This song is made during these days, might explain what happened these days.

neilni• 12 years ago

Democracy at 4 AM: What unprecedented protest means for Taiwan

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