Sunflowers reveal new political consciousness among Taiwan's youth

Want China Times, Kuo Chien-chih, Tsui Tzu-ti and Staff Reporter 2014-05-17

The Legislative Yuan in Taipei on April 10 as the student protesters prepare
to leave after their three-week sit-in. (Photo/Yao Chih-ping)

Taiwan's young people are increasingly aware of political issues and have surpassed the custom of making decisions according to their own political party affinity instead of what is right and wrong, writes our sister paper China Times.

The recent Sunflower Student Movement that occupied the country's parliament for over three weeks in opposition to the handling of a controversial trade pact with China sent shockwaves through the country's political arena with its efficiency and power of mobilization. The most popular group among those who protested at the Legislative Yuan were the Black Island Nation Youth Front, which included prominent leaders of the students' movement Lin Fei-fan, Chen Wei-ting and Wei Yang.

Lai Yu-fen, spokesperson for the Sunflower Movement, said the Black Island Nation Youth Front has long paid attention to important social issues and has taken action against what it believes to be wrong. Taking the cross-strait trade-in-services agreement as an example, the group closely followed its development and sent people to monitor each public hearing that the ruling Kuomintang held about it to take notes. They also gathered large amount of information in order to work out a common stance, write communiques and produce packages of information with background on diverse issues, and finally to spread them online.

As members of the group are scattered around the country, they rely heavily on the internet for communication, Lai said. They would assign tasks and have each department study, interview, spread information, hold meetings and protest at key sites.

Members of the group are mostly students of humanities subjects, according to Lai.

Attempts were made to link the group's activities to the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, with claims made that the group's leading figures formerly worked for former DPP chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai's office issued a statement however saying that she does not know either Chen or Lin.

Noting that social activists have grown dissatisfied with Taiwan's partisan politics that does not address issues of concern to them and that indeed they took steps during their recent sit-in protest to keep the DPP at arm's length, the deputy chief of the party's youth division Chou Yu-hsin said the DPP will need to actively "politics in life" and cooperate with young people in different fields.

At the beginning of Taiwan's democratic journey, people protested because they wanted an end to political persecution under martial law and the right to elect their leaders. Now they are protesting to obtain justice in areas related to people's livelihoods, environmental protection, bullying in the military and free trade agreements, Chou said, and the best way to gather more young people into political movements is to invite them to "cooperate and discuss," and then take action.