TWSunflowerRev

Oliver here: I think that it is difficult to frame the protest in one description or the other because this is a new phenomenon for Taiwan.

We don't interpret this in any particular way. What we agree on is that this agreement is unconstitutional, goes against public opinion and is detrimental to our democracy.

While there is quite a lot of different voices in the protest, for example, student groups and human right groups are mainly against the authoritarian manner of the government, labor groups against the impact on jobs, etc, we do not really think that it is about any ideology in particular.

Oliver:

1. Pros: From a purely economic standpoint, and a cost-benefit analysis, the government tells us that this will increase our GDP slightly (400 million USD or 0.11% (link in Chinese)). Of course, there are questions over this figure, and whether it takes into account the ability of predominately small and medium sized Taiwanese enterprises to compete with Chinese state-owned behemoths.

2. Cons: The cost of this trade pact, simply put, will be our freedom and the future of our country. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn't. On the economic front, our economy is already 38% reliant on China, with China only 2.5% for us. This is unbalanced. And you can probably imagine the impact of this on our democracy, our freedom of speech, etc, especially China's stated aims is to use its economic ties to impact our political system. This trade pact will increase this unequal dependency further in the future, maybe not in 1 or 2 years, but definitely in 10-20. And we fear that this will be a course we cannot reverse in the future.

Oliver: Please say thank you to your dad for us. People like him make this revolution possible.

Sean here (1st from the left): I really think Taiwan is a beautiful place and our protests are equally different. Our protests are more like parades or happy gatherings or even music concerts. You can see this article and the corresponding photos here

People in Taiwan really love their democracy and likewise we have almost a dozen news channels for just 23 million people. Participation for elections is in the high 70-80% of the population. After rallies, people pick up after themselves and leave no garbage.

Oliver: Both are very important issues.

1. China is obviously an important consideration. And I think that it makes people very uncomfortable when you have a huge hegemonic neighbor that wants to annex you, by force if necessary. In the past few years, we have seen China 'step up their game'. They're in the media industry, the entertainment industry, etc. If the service trade agreement is passed, this process will accelerate.

2. Internally there is also a lot of anger towards President Ma Ying-jeou. Basically, almost all of his major campaign promises (economic growth of 6%) have not been realized. The only thing that he seems to be doing quite well is running roughshod over Taiwanese public opinion to formulate closer ties with China. His approval rating in September last year reached a low of 9%.