It’s strange to see the recent images coming out of Taiwan, a normally peaceful and democratic country. Students protesting a trade pact that the KMT (Kuomintang) government is trying to ram through without scrutiny have occupied a few government buildings including the national legislature. But it seems the government’s attempt to remove these peaceful protesters has caused tens of injuries and unjust arrests. Protesters say that the pact gives China far too much access to the Taiwanese market, especially considering that China artificially controls market access in China and doesn’t even allow its own currency to freely float. This coupled with the constant military threats by the Chinese dictatorship to coerce Taiwan into unification with China, and by military force if necessary, has the Taiwanese public wary about any further treaties with an increasingly aggressive Chinese nation.
Regardless, it’s hard to get used to pictures of bloodied protesters and draconian police measures in Taiwan, an island nation that has been democratic since the 1990s. But then again, the violent government crackdown on peaceful student protesters is something that is not too far away in the memories of the Taiwanese. It was President Ma’s KMT party that imposed 40 years of martial law in Taiwan, cracking down ruthlessly against any dissent while oppressing local Taiwanese culture, a period infamously known as the “white terror era”. It was the KMT party that attempted to whitewash Taiwanese history, trying to brainwash an entire generation that they were part of a common Chinese nation only usurped temporarily by communists.
It seems the KMT’s pro-Chinese tendencies and anti-democratic past have caught up to it again, as it disregards all consideration of the hard-won liberties, human rights and democratic system that the Taiwanese have wrested over the years. It’s time for supporters of democratic rights and freedoms in the Western world to show their solidarity with the Taiwanese student protests in Taiwan.
