Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Students seem more alert than their parents’ generation. They differ from older corrupt and power-hungry generations and maintain a rational analytical ability. On March 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, bullied by the party’s placing of party discipline before public opinion, decided that the cross-strait service trade agreement review procedure should skip the Internal Administration Committee and be referred directly to the legislative floor. While older generations could not decide how to deal with this unprecedented crisis, a group of students rapidly mobilized. Ignoring the impact on their studies, they occupied the legislative chamber and blocked the government’s attempt to sell Taiwan down the river. This is a matter of saving the nation, a just action that requires bravery and intelligence.

Student protest leaders Chen Wei-ting, front left, and Lin Fei-fan, right, gesture yesterday during the ongoing protest in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei against the cross-strait service trade pact.
Photo: Sam Yen, AFP

Without any positive response from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to their demands, student activists occupying the legislative floor yesterday said that they would organize a demonstration on Sunday in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei to increase the pressure on the president.

They said they may continue their occupation of the Legislative Yuan’s chamber as well.

“We have been here for 10 days, yet the president has not responded to us. If he thinks that we will eventually give up and walk out of the legislative chamber on our own, I want to tell him that he is wrong,” student leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) told an afternoon news conference outside the legislative chamber.