???? Taiwan's Contentious Parliament Reform Bill: Implications for Democracy
Why Are Taiwanese Youths Protesting the Congressional Reform Bill?
Why has a legislative reform bill triggered forceful disruptions from the DPP and over 10,000 young people to gather in protest? What impact will the Blue-White majority’s continued push have on the political scene in Taiwan?
Clashes between representative politics and mass movements could break out repeatedly over the next four years in Taiwan.?
On the evening of May 21, a crowd of over 10,000 people poured into the streets surrounding the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The protesters, driven largely by people under the age of 30, chanted, “Defend democracy, hold substantive discussions” in protest of the Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) leveraging their combined majority in the Legislature to forcibly pass revisions to the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power.
Intense confrontations inside the Legislature and frenzied crowds outside evoke memories of the Sunflower Movement a decade ago. However, Taiwan People's Party caucus leader Huang Kuo-chang, once a major figure of that movement, has now become a target of widespread criticism.
Compared to the sense of a "loss of the nation" felt by Taiwan’s youths during the passage of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement by the Kuomintang (KMT) years ago, the reforms now being pushed by the KMT and the TPP under the banner of change — such as establishing congressional hearing and investigation authority, criminalizing contempt of congress, and regularizing the President's state of the nation address? — affect the government’s internal operations. Some of these reforms were even openly advocated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). So why are young people now taking to the streets in the pouring rain at night to protest?
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9 个月I really believe in all the parties' collaboration, however the mentioned and now voted on bill by Kuomintang/Chinese Nationalist Party, Taiwan (R.O.C.) and Taiwan People's Party will later cost them dearly. I understand just bits of ???? politics and TW is my chosen ?? but this particular controversial bill concerns me a little bit more than I thought. Let's say it out loud: The two majority parties have kind of obviously shown their true colors, which isn't in favour of ???? and I think they love their country but inadvertently are selling TW to PRC...