Now it comes
to the 18th day for those students occupying Taiwan’s lawmaking building, the Legislature
Yuan, in protest over Taiwan-China Service Trade Pact which was passed
hastily at the Yuan’s internal affair committee in early March 2014, and
required by Taiwan’s
President Ma to be effective before June 2014. Ma, doubling as
the head of the ruling KMT party, has forcibly ordered its KMT lawmakers to
unanimously support the pact with no room for any revision before June. As the KMT owns a majority in the Yuan, a pass is widely-viewed
inevitable.
Besides the
sharply rising inflation, annoying jobless rate, and dirt-cheap wage level
similar to that 15 years ago, those “Black-shirt” students are angry over the
inappropriate measures adopted by the KMT, including its back-room negotiation
with China even without any prior notice to its own KMT lawmakers. Meanwhile, the
opposition party, DPP, is turning weak and gearing itself up for the massive
elections at 2014 end. In face of the uncertain future, students decided to
voice displeasure toward President Ma who enjoys approval rating as low as 9%..
The pact, as
part of the sub-pacts under the Taiwan-China ECFA inked in 2010, raised doubt
about its efficiency to lift Taiwanese welfare, particularly amid the fact that
the island in past few years, or since Ma’s ruling in 2008, has deteriorated
financially and economically, albeit the cross-Taiwan Straits political ties
did improve. Ma has vowed to stimulate economy, yet with results benefitting
those 1% wealthy conglomerates as shown by the poor monthly wage well
capped at the minimum NT$22,000. His efforts, being driven by Taiwan
makers’ increased investment in China, have however prompted youngsters to look for jobs in neighboring nations by handling poker-shuffling and cows-killing.
Partly
motivated by riot police’s fierce moves to strain students' attempt to storm into Taiwan’s Cabinet building on March 23,
as many as 500,000 people on March 30 wearing black shirts took to the street
in Taipei city
to call for the KMT-led government to first pass the cross-Straits oversight draft
before getting the Service Trade Pact passed. They protested not just over the
potentially rising jobless rate after the pact is effective, but also the so-called reunification between Taiwan
and China - a nerve-racking threat among some Taiwanese who reject the communism. Speculation
has swirled that Ma and China’s
leader, Xi Jinping will meet at Ma’s current tenure due 2016. The pact will further
pave the way for that.
China has stepped up its
economic and political clouts in Taiwan,
via nonstop Taiwan
investment there. What has haunted the island is China’s
own claims to retake it after KMT lost civil war and fled to Taiwan in 1949.
Ma has claimed the pact will bring more boon than bane to the island, adding
that people could find higher paid jobs in Chinese cities, such as Shanghai. As thus, Taiwanese must
be brave enough to face future competition on the openings of domestic consumption industries,
including hair-cutting, tourism, hotel and financial, etc. Recent media headlines
said that Taiwan
has lost its foreign-trade competitiveness against Korea which had won more FTAs.
Global
economies might have been on path to recover, and Taiwan corporates in 2013 earned a
37% yoy jump of total profit. However, few of them announced a wage hike, not to
mention significant job openings. Taiwan has been too reliant on the
manufacturing sector operating on the ODM/OEM modes. Innovation and the move into higher-end tech sectors should play a more pivotal role in Taiwan economy than the pact.
To certain extent, some people opposed the pact not out of the fears of KMT’s China-leaning
policy, as long as the pact will boost Taiwan economy as they expect. China now is too big to be ignored by Taiwan, but doubts remain about whom
at the end will be benefitted from the pact. The KMT was viewed to have betrayed the democratic system in the review of Service Trade Pact, a folly
that it must be responsible for to remedy. More critically, it must try to calm the
worry by asserting no future Taiwan-China deal to be made with ulterior motives
and at expense of Taiwanese interest. China at the same time must stop its long-exisiting threat against other nations for them to first sign FTAs with Taiwan, as well as leave Taiwan alone in global political arena.
God bless Taiwan !!!
Link to the protest on March 30, 2014.
The rally is the largest ever in number of protesters.
