In Taiwan, Protests Against a Cross-Strait Trade Deal Gain Strength

Police spray protesters with a water cannon outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei on March 24. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Summary


This will be a decisive week for protests in Taipei that began on March 18. The demonstrations mark a crucial juncture for Taiwan's opposition movement and perhaps for the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou. The Ma administration believes closer ties with China will make Taiwan more competitive in the growing Chinese consumer market and pave the way for the island's accession to prospective multilateral trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. But not all of Taiwan agrees with Ma's strategy.

Analysis
In the largest-ever student-organized demonstration in Taiwan's history, an estimated 10,000 protesters reportedly gathered outside the country's legislative headquarters in Taipei over the weekend to protest a cross-strait services trade agreement. Under the terms of the deal, China would open 80 services-related sectors to cross-strait investment and Taiwan would open 64. The pact, along with a trade-in-goods agreement, is seen as helping pave the way for Taiwan's eventual accession to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Agreement, a multilateral trade forum based on the ASEAN+3 format, which gathers the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations along with China, Japan and South Korea.

The situation in downtown Taipei intensified March 24 when police forcibly evicted several hundred protesters who were occupying the Executive Yuan, the home of Taiwan's Cabinet. The police action appears to have strengthened the protesters' resolve, and various sources in Taipei have reported that demonstrations will likely grow throughout the week. Ma has thus far refused to give in to the protesters' demands, but that could change.
Demands and the President's Strategy
The protesters, some 200 of whom have occupied the Legislative Yuan since March 18, had originally committed to the protests and occupation until March 22 -- the deadline they gave Ma to meet their demands, which include a repeal of the services trade pact. After Ma on March 21 publicly refused to drop the pact and dismissed calls to meet directly with the protesters -- instead sending Premier Jiang Yi-huah, whose resignation is among the demonstrators' demands -- activists vowed to continue occupying the legislature and to expand protests to other government buildings.

The students have also called for parliamentary speaker Wang Jin-pyng to nullify a resolution pushed through on March 17 by Ma's party, the Kuomintang, to bring the services pact to a vote sometime during the week of March 31. Wang has been embroiled in a bitter intraparty power struggle with the president. Since the Kuomintang controls a majority of the seats in the Yuan, the bill would likely pass. Finally, protesters demand a halt to all trade talks with China until the legislature outlines new regulatory parameters for economic dealings with the mainland -- a move that would effectively delay negotiations over a China-Taiwan trade-in-goods agreement beyond its original 2014 signing date.

The Ma administration has sought closer economic ties with China as a means of bolstering Taiwan's competitiveness in the Chinese consumer market and paving the way for the island to join multilateral trade agreements. Taipei's strategy appears to be to use economic ties to forestall political dialogue with Beijing and to temper any concerns the mainland may have as Taiwan pursues bilateral trade agreements with other countries and membership in the as-yet-unrealized, U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership.

But not all of Taiwan agrees with Ma's strategy. Opposition to the services trade agreement -- and to the prospect of closer economic ties to China in general -- is pervasive. On one end of the opposition spectrum are the protesters themselves. All signs so far indicate that the protests are student-led and independent, with some organizational aid from nongovernmental and ostensibly non-party affiliated organizations such as the Democratic Front Against the Cross-Strait Trade in Services Agreement. On the other end is the leading opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party, which opposes the bill for similar reasons and stands to benefit most from the student protests when municipal elections come around in November. (National elections are scheduled for 2016.)
Challenges for the Protesters
The demonstrators have explicitly rejected any party affiliation, particularly ties to the Democratic Progressive Party, whose reputation for political obstructionism and corruption has led to voter approval ratios only marginally higher -- and substantially lower in some policy areas, such as ties with China -- than the marks accorded to the president and the Kuomintang. A key challenge for the demonstrators in the coming weeks will be to maintain their distance from the opposition. They otherwise risk jeopardizing some public credibility.

Another important test will be sustaining the public's interest and gaining broader public support. With the original 63-hour deadline set on March 18 having come and gone, the protests and occupation look set to continue indefinitely. Demonstrators have expressed their intent to occupy other government buildings in the capital (though the leaders of the occupation of the Legislative Yuan denied any connection to the brief occupation of the Cabinet). Involving people other than students in the protests will be essential to achieving the protesters' short-term goals.

Like student demonstrations elsewhere, however, the Taipei protesters run the risk of alienating the wider public, especially as their activities begin to interfere with daily life in the capital and beyond. According to a survey conducted by a Taipei-based newspaper, some 75 percent of the population approves of the demonstrations, but this could change if the protests go on too long without achieving their goals, disrupt critical government functions or are perceived as feeding too directly into short-term opposition political interests. (It's unclear whether the survey referred to the national or city population.) At the same time, it is also possible that mishandling by the Ma administration could encourage the protests.

It is too early to say whether the occupation and demonstration will achieve their core demands or even continue very far beyond this week. The future of the protests is difficult to assess, in part because the demonstrations are less than a week old and in part because they are so unusual and unexpected. Political apathy runs deep in Taiwanese society, especially among the youth. The country lacks a national purpose -- the sense of movement toward a necessary and desirable end that holds people together in the face of hardship and uncertainty. After the catharsis of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s -- three decades that saw Taiwan's rise as a global economic powerhouse and its peaceful transition from one-party rule to multiparty democracy -- the 2000s have seen a rise in social dissatisfaction. Perhaps not coincidentally, this coincided precisely with the rise of China-Taiwan trade and cross-strait investment.

It may be that the slow-moving and complex transformations of the Taiwanese economy and society that began around 2000, and that are inextricable from the suturing of Taiwan's economy to that of an ascendant mainland Chinese manufacturing empire, are now coming to a head. If so, the current demonstrations may one day be seen as Taiwan's response to the "May Fourth Movement," which ignited mainland China's struggle for independence and autonomy nearly a century ago. But as with that earlier student uprising (which, incidentally, sparked widespread interest in Marxism among Chinese intellectuals), the impact of Taiwan's ongoing demonstrations will likely depend less on the protesters themselves than on the workings of larger, deeper political forces, both within and beyond Taiwan. These include China's long-term economic trajectory and the U.S. pivot toward Asia.

Beijing will watch the demonstrations in Taipei with apprehension. Even if the movement fails to meet its objectives and fizzles, it has shown that the potential for mass street-level protests over the question of cross-strait relations exists in Taiwan. That the protests consist primarily of students likely only intensifies Beijing's concerns. The window for Taiwan's integration with the mainland is closing fast as the last generation of Taiwanese born on the mainland passes and a new generation that sees itself as wholly Taiwanese rises.