Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in central Taipei on Sunday in support of students who have occupied Taiwan’s parliament for two weeks to protest a trade pact and closer ties with mainland China.
Organisers and Taiwanese media estimated as many as 500,000 joined the rally in the biggest protest the island has seen since at least 2008. Many protesters were dressed in black shirts and carrying sunflowers, the chosen symbol of the student occupiers.
Taipei authorities said the rally drew about half that number by mid-afternoon.
The turnout exceeded student organisers’ expectations of around 50,000 and offered a potent display of the deep antipathy many Taiwanese feel towards their authoritarian neighbour, which claims the island as its territory.
“The Chinese Communist party’s ‘united front’ policy emphasises the use of money to buy loyalty,” said Michael Anti, a prominent Chinese political commentator. “In fact there isn’t a big difference between China’s ancient tributary system and the proposed trade agreement with Taiwan. The problem is that Taiwan’s hostility towards the mainland is only getting stronger and it is clear this policy is failing.”
Hundreds of student activists occupied Taiwan’s parliament and set up camp in the legislative chambers on March 18 after the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou fast-tracked legislation approving a service trade agreement with Beijing.
The students are demanding that the government rescind the agreement and establish a monitoring mechanism to oversee future political pacts with China.
They want Mr Ma to apologise after more than 100 students were injured on March 24 when riot police used clubs and water cannon to clear demonstrators out of the cabinet offices next door to the parliament building in downtown Taipei.
China claims self-ruled Taiwan, with a population of 23m and a thriving democracy, as an integral part of its national territory and has refused to rule out an armed invasion if the island were to declare independence formally.
Under Mr Ma, who was elected in 2008 and again in 2012, Taiwan has enjoyed years of warming ties with Beijing, which has played down past threats of military conflict in favour of economic incentives intended to encourage eventual reunification.
But, as Sunday’s protests make clear, many Taiwanese feel deeply uncomfortable about the perceived threat to democracy posed by greater economic integration with the mainland.
“People think President Ma’s foreign policy is far too close to China and they worry about the implications for the economy, press freedom and for freedom of speech,” Chen Wei-ting, a 23-year-old sociology major who is one of the two main leaders of the student protesters, told the Financial Times in an interview from inside the parliament.
“The leaders in Beijing have not hesitated to show they will use any possible measures, including economic power, to influence our politics and force reunification but this student demonstration is a way to break through the deception and lies of the Chinese government.”
Opinion polls show that more than 90 per cent of Taiwanese reject reunification with mainland China under its current system of government.
Sunday’s demonstration went ahead despite some efforts by President Ma to compromise on Saturday, when he rejected the demand to rescind the service trade agreement but said he would support a legal mechanism to monitor future trade deals with the mainland.
On paper, the trade agreement favours Taiwan, by opening up 80 mainland services sectors to Taiwanese investment compared with 64 Taiwanese sectors opened to mainland investors.
But opponents say it will leave Taiwan vulnerable to increased political pressure from Beijing if Chinese state-owned companies are able to own Taiwanese hospitals, supermarkets and taxi companies.
“These demonstrations show that China is a power with no attractive values or cultural attraction but only the power of money behind it,” said Jia Jia, a Beijing-based political columnist. “A regime that has no constraints and is known for using fear to rule its people can only make people frightened.”
While Taiwanese media has been transfixed with the two-week-old protest, in mainland China, where the media are tightly controlled by the propaganda department of the Communist Party, there has been limited coverage.
What coverage there has been has tended to emphasise the “chaos” and focused on a small pro-government counter-demonstration on Saturday attended by around 2,000 people.