Since the demonstrations in HK have continued at a steady pace, I am reminded of similar protests that happened here in Taiwan in Taipei earlier in the year. There are many common themes: a strong student presence, mixed support, politicians actively ignoring local voices, hired thugs roughing up protesters, clean and conscientious protesters, etc.
The 服貿 or trade agreements in Taipei sparked huge controversy here in Taiwan for two main reasons. The first was that the government itself did not pass the agreements using the proper legal process, instead pushing them though in what some people called a backdoor deal. This upset many people because Taiwanese people tend to hold democracy near and dear to their hearts: true democracy only came to Taiwan after Martial Law ended in the 1980s, so it is relatively new and fiercely guarded. Unfortunately, even after the protests, the government ignored proper protocol, instead insisting that their passage of the bill was totally legitimate.
The second major issue for Taiwanese people, particularly students, was that the trade agreements were considered fundamentally unfair to Taiwanese businesses because it was an unbalanced agreement heavily favoring Mainland China (PRC, or Beijing). Beijing stipulated that they could essentially flood the Taiwanese electronic markets, media markets, and leisure markets with their own companies, needing a fraction of the money to start up a business as Taiwanese would need for a start up in the Mainland. Another issue with the agreement was that while Beijing mandated that they be allowed to set up shop anywhere on the island of Taiwan, Taiwanese businesses were restricted to certain small areas.
Beyond these two major points, protesters had a number of other concerns, culminating in the student takeover of the legislative yuan building, one of the buildings where bills are voted on. Basically, the students moved into this building with the sole purpose of stopping any more legislation from being passed without proper protocol. Despite the illegal occupation, students in the building only broke a single window in order to get into the building, and orchestrated an efficient system of delivering food and drinks to demonstrators and then removing the waste without damaging any further property. Like the HK protesters, Taiwanese protesters maintained a very clean and orderly space, ensuring that despite not allowing government officials into the building, there was not any rogue behavior.
Protesting continued outside and ended up sprawling around the governmental district in Taipei, with people camping out and shouting slogans outside of the entrance to one of the main governmental buildings each time a politician entered or left. In the midst of these protests, one of the local politicians nick-named 'White Wolf' decided to unleash his thugs on the protesters. The result was the slashing of several demonstrators, one of whom nearly lost several fingers in the attack. Like HK, despite knowing who attacked the protesters, the police stood by and did nothing, neither to the thugs nor the politician that send them.
Asia seems to have a special kind of process when it comes to protests- one that usually involves thugs sent by politicians.
In Taiwan, the protests ended after nearly a month of demonstrations with the government promising to look into the improper operations. However, in reality, as with most governments, they did nothing and simply continued to ignore the problem, fully passing the trade agreements.
It is not unusual for governments to ignore the will of the people (have a look at the Occupy Movement in the US), and it is likely that Hong Kong will face similar non-results to its current protests. However, given the current state of the world, isn't it about time world governments start more seriously listening to the people they're supposed to represent?
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