来源:吱吱最爱的路透社
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/07/us-taiwan-protests-idUSBREA3606V201
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Taiwan anti-China protest exposes island's nationalist divide
(Reuters) - A chaotic sit-in to protest against a trade deal with China has
shut down Taiwan's parliament and exposed deep divisions over the island's
identity after seven decades of living apart from its vast, undemocratic
rival across the strait.
The mainly student protesters, who proffer sunflowers as a symbol of hope,
denounce the pact as an arrangement suiting Taiwan's wealthy. They say it
will lead to mass encroachment by China, and its one-party mindset, on the
island's cherished democratic values and institutions.
Its advocates, including Taiwan's president and his government, say it is a
vital step to normalizing relations with Beijing and will provide jobs and
improve living standards.
Protesters demand the repeal of the trade deal, which was only one step away
from parliamentary ratification before the sit-in began.
They also demand lawmakers pass an oversight mechanism of trade pacts with
the mainland before they pass the current trade deal - a move the government
has agreed to in principle and could potentially pave the way toward an end
to the stalemate.
"The government has fallen into the palm of big money here in Taiwan," said
Miles Lin, 25, the main protest leader. "That, combined with pressure from
Beijing, drove them to ram this pact through the legislature."
For more than two weeks, the assembly has been a scene of tumult -
anti-government slogans draped over deputies' desks, grotesque effigies of
politicians, sleeping bags, some occupied, some not, strewn across the carpet.
This is the first time protesters, a common sight in Taiwan, have taken over
the island's highest lawmaking body, and constitute the largest anti-China
protest in years.
With police cordoning off the assembly, and the students installed inside,
authorities have had difficulty pressing home arguments above the din.
"The pact will be a boon for Taiwan's overall economy and lead to the
creation of 12,000 jobs in Taiwan," President Ma Ying-jeou told reporters
last week. "It's a guarantee of Taiwan's future competitiveness."
The ruling KMT, or Kuomintang, the party of Chiang Kai-Shek, who led the
nationalists in their retreat to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war in
1949, denies allegations that its leaders have caved into a business lobby
with deep financial ties to China.
"This pact will bring benefits to a number of sectors of the
economy, including the labor market," a KMT spokesman said.
But at a deeper level, the controversy reflects larger anxieties about the
direction of Taiwan society amid unprecedented closer ties to Beijing.
"This issue is not about the economy," Lung Ying-tai, the director of
Taiwan's Ministry of Culture and a noted critic during the 1980s of the
then-authoritarian government, told Reuters. "It's much deeper than that."
Especially divisive, she said, was opening Chinese investment to "soft"
sectors - printing, advertising and film production. She says she is in favor
of the pact but the government needs to do a better job communicating its
benefits.
"How do you define the soft sectors? It has to do with culture, it has to do
with values," Lung said. "The problems are not about trade. The problems are
about identity."
Once established on Taiwan, the KMT relied on repression to stay in power as
the "Republic of China". But by the late 1980s, with Chiang gone, a
transition to democracy took hold, with elections, a lively, if unruly,
parliament and a free press.
Some Taiwanese began calling for the island to declare independence, anathema
to Beijing, which threatened to bring the island back into the Chinese fold,
by force if necessary.
Any chance of conflict has been drastically reduced by Ma's policies and the
conclusion of a trade pact to Beijing's liking.
REVULSION TO CHINA
But the deal spawned revulsion among young Taiwanese who feel they have
nothing in common with a mainland where the press is censored, protests
crushed and dissidents jailed. The backlash is the latest threat to Ma, whose
approval ratings had already fallen into single digits before the fracas
broke out.
"Are we Chinese or are we Taiwanese?" said protester Yen Wei-chen, 21. "If
you look at our parents' generation, everything was Republic of China, one
China. But we're Taiwanese. I don't feel Chinese at all."
It is the approach to Beijing which produces the main divide in Taiwan's
largely two-party governing system.
The KMT abides by the "1992 Consensus", under which both sides recognize a
single China, but say "no reunification, no independence and no war" is in
Taiwan's best interests.
The opposition DPP, or Democratic Progressive Party, rejects "one China". It
has codified an independent Taiwan into its platform, saying its democratic
attributes have all but made the distinction clear anyway.
"Taiwan being independent is a reality," said Joseph Wu, the DPP's director
of policy research.
But the DPP still promotes a version of the trade pact with sensitive
sections like printing and advertising removed.
China has maintained a largely neutral stance on Taiwan's democracy, saying
its main concern, for now, is boosting trade and investment and not rocking
the diplomatic boat.
But China's President Xi Jinping, in office for a year, said last October
that a political solution to the question of Taiwan's sovereignty could not
be postponed indefinitely.
"There are realities on the ground in Taiwan and then there are larger
geopolitical realities," said Wu Rwei-ren of Academia Sinica, a
government-sponsored think tank. "The only weapon we have in that arena is
the moral legitimacy of our democracy."
But as the protests reveal the messy vibrancy of Taiwan's democracy, the
presence of one-party China looms larger.
"We are working with a harsh reality, living under the shadow of something we
distrust," said the Culture Ministry's Lung. "All the more reason we have to
respect each other, understand each other and try to work it out with each
other."
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