2014-04-04
More than 500,000 people rally in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 30, 2014.
EYEPRESS NEWS
Feng Congde, a U.S.-based Chinese dissident and former student leader from the 1989 pro-democracy protests on Tiananmen Square, tells RFA’s Mandarin Service why the current student movement that has occupied Taiwan’s parliament is different from the protests he took part in.
Q: So what is the difference between the two movements?
A: Firstly, they’re not fighting against the same thing. The Beijing student movement was fighting a totalitarian dictatorship, the one-party dictatorship of the ruling Chinese Communist Party; while the student movement in Taiwan is opposing a government that was elected in line with the constitution and that is internationally recognized as a relatively mature and democratically elected government. The aims of the Beijing and Taiwan student movements are different in nature. Also, the measures used by the authorities to maintain order are completely different.
When the authorities in Beijing suppressed the student movement, they cracked down on thousands of people, while there have been no deaths in Taiwan’s student movement, and any injuries have been relatively light. Officials are quite restrained, for the simple reason that Taiwan has an elected government, so brutal repression of the student movement is impossible.
Q: So why is the economic development of Taiwan so important here?
A: In other places in the world, you can still maintain a democratic system in the absence of strong economic growth. But in Taiwan this is likely to be a serious problem, because mainland China is so huge compared with Taiwan—like a wolf compared with a mouse—and so Taiwan feels very insecure.
During Taiwan’s transition to democracy back in the 1970s and 1980s, democracy was a guarantee of Taiwan’s security. Taiwan’s democracy was very healthy and convincing, because when it was implemented at the grass roots, it contributed to the welfare of its people. It was an easy matter to consolidate democracy, only because people were also able to build an affluent society.
Conversely, if this democracy were to break down through partisan in-fighting and social disorder—if we have a breakdown in the rule of law, and the [island] starts to lose its way, causing an economic downturn—this could undermine [Taiwan’s] democracy until there’s nothing left.
Q: What lessons could the students occupying Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan learn from the Tiananmen Square protests of 25 years ago?
A: The Beijing student movement became quite disorderly in its latter stages, and some of the people promoting it didn’t give much thought to an exit strategy. I think the Taiwan student movement is a bit better organized than that. The student movement in Taiwan has been going on for a good three weeks now, and I hope they will think calmly about a strategy for exiting the situation. With a good exit mechanism, I think they can achieve a win-win scenario.
Actually, this crisis is also an opportunity. If political parties can show restraint, and work together with the government … then this could be an opportunity for Taiwan’s democracy to upgrade itself. One important sign of a mature democracy is the way in which the government engages with opposition and interacts to achieve a win-win situation.
Reported by CK for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
