Ep 174 | Reliving the Sunflower Movement from Ground Zero: Jiho Chang Tells the Inside Story

Mar 15, 2022

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A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

Jiho Chang tells us the inside story first hand by reliving the Sunflower Movement from Ground Zero.

March 18th will mark the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the Sunflower Movement during which time activists occupied Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan in order to protest the passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, which was a treaty between Taiwan and China. The roots of the Sunflower Movement go back much further, years before 2014. My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan, Jiho Chang, shares his perspectives on the Sunflower Movement as he looks back upon it, and talks about his involvement with the movement.

Jiho has been a guest on Talking Taiwan previously, talking about his work as Keelung City Councilman (episode 149), and remembering the late revolutionary Su Beng (史明) (episode 156).

This episode of Talking Taiwan has been sponsored by the Taiwan Elite Alliance 優社 and the Taiwanese United Fund.

The Taiwan Elite Alliance 優社 was established in 2000 to promote Taiwanese and Taiwanese American arts and literature, and to protect and enhance the human rights, freedom and democracy of the people in Taiwan.

The Taiwanese United Fund is an arts and culture foundation that celebrates the cultural heritages of Taiwanese Americans. Established in 1986, the foundation's mission is to facilitate cultural exchange between the Taiwanese American community and other American cultural communities, hoping to enrich and expand our cultural experiences. To learn more about TUF visit their website http://www.tufusa.org/

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Why the Sunflower Movement happened in Taiwan
How the Sunflower Movement had roots in protests that started in 2008
How former President Ma Ying-jeou tried to “re-sinicize” many things in Taiwan
Jiho’s involvement with the Sunflower Movement
How there had been an attempt to occupy the Ministry of the Interior a year before the Sunflower Movement in 2014
The power struggle between former President Ma Ying-jeou and Speaker of the Legislative Yuan, Wang Jing-ping at the time of the Sunflower Movement
Factions between the Kuomintang
Jiho’s account of what happened the night activists broke into the Legislative Yuan
How the length of the occupation was unexpected
The public support for the movement, with crowds of people surrounding the Legislative Yuan for the duration of the occupation
How Jiho has to testify in court about the attempted occupation of the Executive Yuan
How there was a livestream of what was happening inside of the Legislative Yuan during the occupation
How nothing was planned but people (such as doctors and other professionals) stepped up
The documentary about the Sunflower Movement that featured Jiho and his colleagues
How the Sunflower Movement has affected Taiwan’s political landscape and directions
The conditions inside of the Legislative Yuan during the occupation
There were 500-600 people occupying the Legislative Yuan
How another headquarters of operations was set up at a NTU (National Taiwan University) social sciences building nearby
The attempt at occupying the Executive Yuan on March 28, 2014
The end of the occupation of the Legislative Yuan
March 30thrally in Taipei in which hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in support of the Sunflower Movement
Rallies organized globally on March 30thin support of the Sunflower Movement
Hong Kong’s protests (in 2014 aka the Umbrella Movement and 2019-2020)
In the end as a result of the Sunflower Movement the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement was not approved and many young activists went on to serve in politics