Students reconvene, protest on
　

ROUND TWO: Although demonstrators were evicted on Friday, many returned to continue their sit-in, demanding an apology for how police handled last week’s protests
　

By Lin Chia-chi
STAFF REPORTER, WITH STAFF WRITER
Sunday, Nov 09, 2008, Page 1
　

“It is no longer a technical question of excessive law enforcement tactics, nor is it simply a partisan issue between supporters of various political parties. This is a proliferation of state-sponsored violence.”— student statement

“We want human rights!” chanted students at National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall as they continued their sit-in for a third day, demanding an apology from the government over what they called the “rough” tactics used by police to deal with protesters during the visit by China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chaiman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) last week.

Despite the poor weather yesterday, more than 100 students wore simple raincoats and remained sitting in protest in the Taipei rain.

The first two days of the sit-in protest saw hot, humid weather. Yesterday, downpours began at around 10am.

“The first trials of the weather have started, but despite our efforts, no one has stepped up to respond to our demands,” Hsu Ching-fang (許菁芳), president of the National Taiwan University Student Association, said to the crowd of students in the rain.

About 400 students, led by assistant professor of sociology at National Taiwan University Lee Ming-tsung (李明璁), started the sit-in in front of the Executive Yuan on Thursday at noon. The students believe that police, while protecting the safety of Chen and his delegation, acted improperly and that freedom of speech had been suppressed.
　

The student demonstrators were forcibly evicted by police from the front gate of the Executive Yuan on Friday night because they had not applied to conduct a protest there.

The students linked their arms together and refused to leave. Police had to take them away to nearby police vehicles, and then drove them to National Taiwan University.

Some students later reconvened in Liberty Square at National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall to continue the sit-in.

“Police officers have engaged in numerous abusive acts against peaceful protesters from various dissenting groups, under the guise of ‘keeping the peace,’” read an English statement issued by the students. “These acts have included arbitrary searches and prohibitions, seizure and destruction of property, physical assault, dispersion, and even arrest and detention.”

“Through reports in the media, we have come to realize the seriousness of the current situation. It is no longer a technical question of excessive law enforcement tactics, nor is it simply a partisan issue between supporters of various political parties. This is a proliferation of state-sponsored violence that is provoking and attacking civil society. All these oppressive acts, which ignore human rights and democratic values, are reminiscent of martial law,” the statement said. The students yesterday insisted that they would continue with the sit-in protest until their three appeals were met: an open apology from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) to all citizens, the resignations of National Police Agency Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) and National Security Bureau Director Tsai Chaoming (蔡朝明) and the swift amendment of the Parade and Assembly Law (集會遊行法).

Some observers compared the sit-in to the Wild Lily Student Movement (野百合學運) of 1990, which started as a student movement that eventually drew hundreds of thousands calling for political reforms, including the abolition of the National Assembly.

The protest this time not only brought students from different schools to the sit-in, but also redefined social movements as the students used the Internet to promote their appeal.

They have launched Internet petitions and set up live streaming videos with audiences all over Taiwan and in the US, Japan, Holland and Germany.

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The students have taken turns hosting the event in various languages. They also opened lines for call-ins during the night.

Sitting with the students, Lee said: “Taiwan’s youth still care about public issues, only nowadays, they are using new channels to voice their concerns.”

The Taipei City Government yesterday urged the student demonstrators to complete the legal processes for holding the protest.

Yang Hsiao-tung (羊曉東), the city government’s spokesman, said the sit-in protest, which was organized by students and has continued for more than one day, was an illegal demonstration.

He urged the students to apply with the city government for a rally permit to turn the sit-in into a legal protest.

“As the illegal protests during the past week have caused social instability, we urge the students to follow the law and apply for rally permits to prevent unnecessary confrontations between the police and protesters,” he said at Taipei City Hall.

Yang said the city government would grant the students a rally permit if they filed applications according to regulations.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Progressive Party yesterday lent support to the students, and urged Ma to deliver on his campaign promise to change the Parade and Assembly Law so that notification would be enough to stage a protest rather than having to apply first with authorities.

Don’t expect a miraculous revival

Sunday, Nov 09, 2008, Page 8

On Tuesday, representatives of Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) signed agreements that will expand the charter passenger flights between the two sides, permit airlines to ply a more direct route to save fuel and time, make cross-strait cargo flights possible and allow for direct shipping links, in addition to agreements on postal services and food safety issues.

Advocates of the normalization of cross-strait economic ties said the agreements reflected popular demand and would boost bilateral trade. But as soon as investors turned their attention to reality, they found they faced the same old problems: slowing exports, rising unemployment, weakening consumption and stagnant salaries.

The performance of the stock market last week speaks for itself: Three consecutive sessions of decline in the local stock market following the signing of the agreements. This offered some important lessons to investors.

First, it will be a while before the agreements make a meaningful contribution to shareholder returns. The agreements will likely have a long-term impact on Taiwan’s economy, but they cannot revive it instantaneously.

Exports last month posted their largest decline in almost seven years, dropping 8.3 percent from a year earlier and following a decline of 1.6 percent in the previous month. This was just one of the latest indicators that Taiwan’s growth momentum is weakening fast.

Second, the benefits of the cross-strait agreements are not likely to offset the negative impact of the global economic slowdown. The equity performance on Wall Street and regional markets will remain a dominant factor on the Taiwanese stock market.

Market optimism over improved economic ties with China will be short-lived, especially after the latest exports figures showed that shipments to China, Taiwan’s largest export market, dropped 19.9 percent last month year-on-year, the biggest decline since February 2005, when it plummeted 20.7 percent.

The optimism will also be undercut by the likeliness of global economic recession. Last week, disappointing US employment and corporate earnings reports, along with a slew of weak economic data from Japan and the EU zone, indicated that advanced countries could be moving into recession next year. That didn’t spell good news for export-dependent Taiwan.

Third, before the meeting, the market had expectations for fast improvements in cross-strait relations, but the clashes between protesters and police last week signaled that improving cross-strait relations could be undermined by sovereignty considerations.

Just because the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has the legislative and administrative power to implement any policy it likes doesn’t mean the ruling party can choose not to take into account the views of the opposition, or refuse to conduct negotiations with openness and transparency.

Any cross-strait policy changes will rely on a consensus among Taiwanese. While the SEF and ARATS seem ready to meet every six months to discuss economic and financial issues, it is not certain that the planned talks will proceed as smoothly as expected if protests, and perhaps violence, intensify.

A tale of ‘one China’ and ‘two Taiwans’
　

By Lin Cheng-yi林正義
Sunday, Nov 09, 2008, Page 8

“One China, two Taiwans” is a concept that was proposed by some academics several years ago. While the “one China” view is getting stronger, the “two Taiwans” has become adrift following the “rise” of China.

Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) was wined and dined by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), and pro-unification groups and people from the corporate sector also welcomed his visit last week. This is one of the two Taiwans.

On the other hand, Chen could not go to southern Taiwan and was in effect grounded in Taipei. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) staged protests and besieged the hotel where Chen was staying. Demonstrators tied protest ribbons around their heads and carried national flags. This is the other Taiwan. Under the shadow of “one China,” the “two Taiwans” failed to communicate with each other and were wary of each other, as if the real enemy for each of them were not in China, but in Taiwan.

Beijing has remained consistent in its “one China” policy, but has become much more flexible in its application. The Chinese government grasped the strategic advantage of the KMT’s return to power in May to confine the future development of Taiwan through various agreements signed by both sides. The KMT and the Chinese Communist Party have agreed to accelerate cross-strait talks within a short period of time, with the chairmen of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and ARATS holding talks twice this year.

This appears to contravene the Agreement on the Establishment of Systematic Liaison and Communication Channels between the SEF and the ARATS (兩岸聯繫與會談制度協議) signed at the talks between former SEF chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) and former ARATS chairman Wang Daohan (汪道涵) in Singapore in 1993, which stipulated that vice chairmen, rather than the chairmen, of both agencies should meet twice every year. SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his ARATS counterpart said that they would expedite cross-strait relations despite voices of dissent within Taiwan. They were not deterred by a recent public opinion poll conducted by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council that showed 30 percent of respondents worried that cross-strait exchanges were being pushed ahead too fast.

The agreements signed during this second round of talks between Chiang and Chen in regards to aviation routes, direct sea transportation links and postal services herald the arrival of the “major three links” era across the Taiwan Strait. The “three links”— direct postal sercices, transportation and trade — proposed by China in 1979 have finally come true. Article 95 of the Act Governing Relations Between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) stipulates that “the competent authorities shall request the consent of the Legislative Yuan before permitting direct business transactions or direct sea or air transportation between the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area.”

But the wording of the agreements says that they will take effect 40 days after being signed.

Meanwhile, the distance between Taiwan’s ruling and opposition parties seems farther than that between Taipei and Beijing.

The conflict between the pan-green camp and the pan-blue camp did not end after the presidential election, and cross-strait relations are the main focus of contention between the two parties. While welcoming Chen’s visit, the KMT has actually widened the gap between the “two Taiwans.”

Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.