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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Nov-2014
30-Nov-14 World View -- Taiwan voters choose independence from China

Web Log - November, 2014

30-Nov-14 World View -- Taiwan voters choose independence from China

Sunflowers and Umbrellas

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Taiwan voters choose independence from China
Sunflowers and Umbrellas

Taiwan voters choose independence from China

Student protests in Taiwan in April of this year (AFP)

Student protests in Taiwan in April of this year (AFP)

Taiwan's ruling nationalist party KMT (Kuomintang) suffered disastrous losses in local elections across Taiwan on Saturday, giving victories to the opposing DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), and forcing the resignation of the prime minister. Thousands of municipalities, including the capital city Taipei, that had been ruled for years by KMT mayors and politicians will not be ruled by DPP mayors and politicians.

The Kuomintang (KMT) is the modern day incarnation of Chiang Kai-shek's original nationalist party of soldiers that fought against Mao Zedong's Communist Revolution and lost, and fled to Hong Kong, then a British colony, and from there to Formosa (Taiwan) in 1949, at the conclusion of the civil war. The KMT position has always been that Taiwan would reunite with China.

KMT held an iron grip on power in Taiwan after the war, and that only began to fade in the 1980s with the founding of the DPP. However, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, which people in Taiwan viewed with horror, proved to be a catalyst in turning Taiwanese people against Beijing, and by 2000 the DPP won a national election. A DPP corruption scandal in 2006 put KMT back into power, and KMT officials have been working closely with Beijing officials to woo Taiwan's public to voluntarily want reunite with China.

The policy hasn't really been effective. There are two groups of people who don't want to reunite. One group is the indigenous Taiwanese people who lived there before 1949, and who have suffered at the hands of the KMT. Young people generally form the second group, and they distrust China and they distrust the KMT for selling out to China. Central News Agency (Taiwan) and BBC and Forbes

Sunflowers and Umbrellas

In April of this year, hundreds of university students and other activists protested the proposed Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA), which KMT had negotiated with Beijing in secret. The students occupied the legislative chamber for several days, and moved to occupy the cabinet offices. This triggered a violent response from the police. The scenes of bloodied protesters, injured police officers and water cannon trucks galvanized the resolve of the protesters.

In the first week of the occupation of the legislature, a supporter brought bunches of sunflowers to the building to symbolize the need to let sunlight into the black box of KMT negotiations between Taiwan and mainland China. The protesters became known as the Sunflower Student Movement.

The Sunflower movement fizzled out as the summer began, but over in Hong Kong a new protest began, which later came to be known as the Umbrella Movement, because protesters used umbrellas to fend off police tear gas. In fact it was the use of tear gas that galvanized the Hong Kong protesters, just as police violence galvanized the Taiwan protesters last Spring.

The two protests have become synergistic in the sense that each one is providing energy to the other. According to some reports, the leaders of the two protests are helping each other out, providing mutual support and strategies.

Taiwan will have general elections in 2016, Hong Kong in 2017.

Saturday's local elections suggest that the separatist DPP is going to win the presidency 2016, which will concern and possibly infuriate Beijing.

Beijing has "fixed" the Hong Kong elections by not permitting any candidate to run for office unless selected by Beijing. Certainly no separatist will be permitted to run.

Protesters in both cities are galvanized by any show of violence by security forces because they all well remember Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

The anti-Beijing movement in Taiwan really took off after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and each new show of force by government officials serves to renew the contempt that these protesters have for Beijing. With the KMT in power, Beijing has followed a conciliatory policy towards Taiwan, but in the months to come if it looks like the DPP is going to come back into power in 2016, then Beijing may feel forced to take some military action. The China Story (April) and Thinking Taiwan

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Nov-14 World View -- Taiwan voters choose independence from China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (30-Nov-2014) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Nov-2014 30-Nov-14 World View -- Taiwan voters choose independence from China

Taiwan voters choose independence from China

Sunflowers and Umbrellas

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Nov-2014
30-Nov-14 World View -- Taiwan voters choose independence from China