Participants in a forum outside the national legislature in Taipei City during the ‘Sunflower’ occupation in April, 2014, call for the principles of distributional justice and direct democracy to be inserted into Taiwan’s constitution. Credit: Dennis Engbarth/IPS

By Dennis Engbarth
TAIPEI, Feb 5 2015 (IPS)

“The clock is ticking.” Those were the words of Taiwan Democracy Watch Director Yeh Chueh-an on Feb. 4, as scores of civil society organisations in the capital, Taipei, began a countdown for a citizen-based rewriting of Taiwan’s constitution aimed at safeguarding human rights and social equity.

Composed of over 20 human rights and social activist organisations, the Alliance for the Promotion of a Citizen Constitutional Council has launched a campaign for an overhaul of Taiwan’s political framework that, for the first time, could feature the “bottom–up” participation of the country’s 23 million citizens.

“Citizens, not political elites, must be the subjects of constitutional reform." -- National University Professor of Political Science Chen Chun-hung
The digital clock was set at 116 days and 12 hours – meaning a deadline of May 31, marking the end of the current session of Taiwan’s parliament, the Legislative Yuan.

Proposed constitutional amendments must first be approved by three fourths of Taiwan’s 112-seat national legislature and announced six months in advance of a national referendum in which at least half of Taiwan’s over 18 million eligible voters must vote “yes” if the changes are to be ratified.

Draft amendments to the constitution – including one prepared by opposition legislator Cheng Li-chun  – are likely to include safeguards on human dignity, freedom of residence, assistance for the destitute, better working conditions, and confidential communications and privacy.

On Jan. 12, the Alliance to Promote a Citizen Constitutional Council proposed a two-stage process in which a ‘national affairs conference’ would bring political parties, legislators, civil society organisations and other civic leaders together to brainstorm how best to bring about grassroots-based constitutional changes.

“Citizens, not political elites, must be the subjects of constitutional reform,” said National University Professor of Political Science Chen Chun-hung.

“We must set in place robust procedures for ordinary people to participate and feel a close connection and involvement in this process if it is to succeed,” added Chen, also a director of Taiwan Democracy Watch.

Breaking China’s historic hold

The current constitution of the ‘Republic of China’ (Taiwan’s official name) was drafted in mainland China, and imposed on Taiwan by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) government of the late autocrat Chiang Kai-shek after the KMT lost the Chinese civil war in the late 1940s.

Its modest provisions for democratic and citizen rights were deep-frozen during four decades of martial law rule through the late 1980s.

Seven sets of revisions through “additional articles” spurred by Taiwan’s first native-born president Lee Teng-hui in the 1990s left Taiwan with a democratically elected but unwieldy political system in which power and responsibility are not commensurate.

Although directly elected, the president has no direct role in state administration; the premier or head of government is appointed by the president and is not responsible to the national legislature; and no feasible methods exist to resolve deadlocks between the executive and legislative branches.

“We have a system in which the president can do what he wants with impunity and there is no way that the people or even the legislature can stop him no matter how low his support is or how unpopular his policies [are],” said Economic Democracy Union convenor Lai Chung-chiang.

“The existing governmental system is unable to solve the pressing and urgent problems faced by the people, including issues impinging on their right of survival [such as] lax food safety, wealth inequality, threats to their right of residence and inadequate social welfare,” added Taiwan Labour Front Secretary-General Sun Yu-lien.

Once considered impossible due to opposition by President Ma Ying-jeou and his hard-line KMT government, the question of constitutional re-engineering was re-energised during the past year of social and political activism, punctuated by the Mar. 18-Apr. 10 ‘Sunflower Movement’ occupation of Taiwan’s national legislature.

The occupation was touched off by Ma’s insistence on ramming through the legislature a bill to ratify a controversial Cross-Strait Trade in Services Agreement with China despite widespread concerns that the covertly negotiated pact would harm local industries and employment, exacerbate wealth inequalities and undermine democratic freedoms.

The campaign, which included a mass rally of over 300,000 on Mar. 30, stymied the pact’s ratification and was followed by street demonstrations in late April 2014 that scuttled plans to complete a bitterly contested 10- billion-dollar nuclear power plant.

During the occupation, activists called for a Citizen Constitutional Council and held democratic deliberations among several thousand citizens on its agenda.

But it was not until the ruling KMT suffered a severe electoral defeat in nationwide mayoral elections this past November that the feasibility of constitutional change emerged on the immediate political agenda.

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won 13 mayoral posts, compared to six for the ruling KMT and three for independent candidates, including prominent surgeon Ko Wen-je, who won the nation’s capital of Taipei City.

A survey of 1,069 Taiwanese adults released last December by Taiwan Thinktank showed that nearly 60 percent of those polled saw the mayoral elections as a vote of no confidence in the Ma government and its pro-China and pro-conglomerate policies.

The debacle triggered Ma’s resignation from the KMT chairmanship on Dec. 3. Although Ma remains president, the moderate New Taipei City Mayor Chu Li-lun replaced him as ruling party leader on Jan. 19 and called for constitutional amendments to move Taiwan toward a cabinet system of government.

A research fellow at the Academia Sinica Institute of Jurisprudence, Huang Kuo-chang, told IPS that the March occupation exposed to the Taiwan people the grave dysfunction of the political system, adding, “The Nov. 29 elections have finally forced the KMT to consider the necessity of constitutional reform.”

Securing basic rights

In December, the KMT and DPP legislative caucuses formed task forces on constitutional revision, but the two parties remain mainly concerned with revamping the central government structure and the legislative election system.

However, the top priority for social activist and human rights organisations is securing the equivalent of a constitutional Bill of Rights.

As National Taiwan University Professor of Law Chen Chao-ju noted, “[C]onstitutions in other new democracies, such as South Africa, have special provisions to ensure substantive equality and social justice.

“We need to incorporate detailed provisions to protect basic human and social rights from discrimination or infringement by the state and substantive abrogation by government-business collusion,” she added.

Such changes could help people uphold and defend, among other things, their own labour rights, in a country that is consistently failing to provide equally for all its citizens.

Although the unemployment rate fell slightly in 2014 to 3.96 percent, the lowest since the KMT returned to power, joblessness among youth (15-24 years of age) averaged 12.63 percent that same year.

Taiwan’s unemployment rate was higher than Japan’s (3.5 percent), South Korea (3.4 percent) and Hong Kong (3.3 percent).

Meanwhile, according to the official Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, the share of labour compensation to gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.87 percentage points to 44.65 percent in 2013, the second lowest in Taiwan’s history. During the same period, the ratio of enterprise profits to GDP rose by 1.41 percentage points to 33.45 percent.

“The fruits of economic growth have been taken by conglomerates and major stockholders while wages have stagnated and the numbers of working poor have continued to rise,” summed up Taiwan Labour Front Secretary-General Sun You-lien.

All across the spectrum, ordinary citizens and experts on social, economic and political policy are counting down the days for constitutional reform that could usher in an era of democracy and development that many here had started to believe was unattainable.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

A broad coalition of Taiwanese labour, human rights and other civil society organisations are campaigning to block legislative ratification of the controversial Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement signed Jun. 21 by representatives of Taiwan and China.

The signing of the pact in Beijing, a continuation of the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed in June 2010, sparked a two-day occupation of the legislative podium by opposition Democratic Progressive Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union lawmakers.

The boycott ended only after all legislative caucuses agreed that the agreement would be reviewed line by line instead of being rammed through a ratification vote, as desired by the rightist Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) government.“But we are more concerned with the likelihood that China’s state enterprises will use their capital to buy up neighbourhood beauty parlours and hair dressing salons...” -- Cosmetology and Hair Vocational Association chairman Peter Ku Wen-fa

President and ruling KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou and other officials maintain that the new deal is in Taiwan’s favour since it would open 80 service product lines for Taiwan companies in China compared to 64 service industries in Taiwan listed for market liberalisation for investors and service providers from the Peoples Republic of China.

A post-signing impact study by the Chung-Hua Institution of Economic Research commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs released Jul. 16 forecast that the pact would lift economic growth by between 0.025-0.034 percentage points and provide over 11,000 new service sector jobs over the next decade.

Among the sectors to be opened up to Chinese investment and experts are financial services, hotels and restaurants, printing, consumer services such hairdressing and beauty parlours, wholesale commerce, transportation services, construction, telecommunications and many social services including care services for handicapped and elderly citizens.

However, a wide range of economists, labour and human rights organisations, small entrepreneurs and cultural figures together with opposition parties warn that the new pact will harm the interests of Taiwan workers and small businesses and to democratic freedoms out of proportion to its anticipated benefits.

During a rally in front of the Legislative Yuan Jul. 28, Cross-Strait Agreement Watch Alliance Convenor Lai Chung-chiang announced the official formation of the Democratic Front against the Black-Box Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement composed of a coalition of labour, human rights, environmental, social welfare and media reform organisations.

Critics have concentrated their fire on the lack of transparency in the negotiations, the asymmetrical liberalisations to China’s benefit and the impact on Taiwan society, culture and national security of deeper links with China’s party-state dominated economy.

The government did not conduct any comprehensive impact assessment or hold any substantive dialogue with industry associations, labour unions or legislators before signing this pact, Taiwan Labour Front secretary-general Sun Yu-lien told IPS.

National Taiwan University department of economics chairwoman Prof. Cheng Hsiu-lien told IPS that most of the market liberalisations offered by China have preconditions while most Taiwan’s market openings for Chinese companies are unconditional.

Cheng noted that Taiwan e-commerce ventures will not be allowed to directly offer cross-border services, but will have to set up joint ventures in China’s Fujian Province and apply for licences which would ban content contrary to Chinese policies, such as Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory.

Taiwanese e-commerce enterprises will be forced to take their capital, staff and knowhow to China and will also be forced to engage in self-censorship, warned Cheng.

Hong Yi Travel Services co-chairman Jack Tsai Chia-huang told IPS that the new pact would let Chinese companies set up a vertically integrated system of travel agencies, hotels, transportation, restaurants and retail stores that would monopolise the cash flow from Chinese tourism and let the Taiwan people bear the costs to the environment.

Cosmetology and Hair Vocational Association chairman Peter Ku Wen-fa told IPS that officials affirm that Chinese workers will not be imported and so they will have to worry about their jobs.

“But we are more concerned with the likelihood that China’s state enterprises will use their capital to buy up neighbourhood beauty parlours and hair dressing salons and our beauticians or hair stylists will become employees in Chinese state enterprises.”

Even businessmen eager to expand into the China market were dismayed.

Locus Publishing Company chairman Rex Hau Ming-yi said in a news conference Jul. 27 that government negotiators had failed to press Beijing to allow Taiwan publishers and printers access to book and magazine publishing licences, but agreed to permit Chinese state-owned publishing groups invest in Taiwan’s printing and wholesale market.

Taiwan publishers will be squeezed if Chinese state companies gain control over printing and wholesaling and will be subject to self-censorship, said Hou, who added that the result would be the erosion of freedom of thought and cultural diversity in our own civil society.

National Taiwan University professor of economics Lin Shang-kai told IPS that the new pact will spark another wave of migration of capital, talent and knowhow to China and thus further push down investment, employment, wages and consumption in our own economy.

A survey of 1,008 Taiwan adults released in late July by Taiwan Indicators Survey Research found that 48 percent opposed signing the services trade pact, while 34 percent were in favour. These figures reflect a reversal three years ago, when 47 percent supported signing an ECFA compared to 32 percent who opposed.

The impact of the backlash was shown when Taiwan’s 113-member national legislature began a two-week special session Jul. 29 during which the KMT had initially aimed to secure ratification of the pact.

Instead, while the civic alliance held protests against the pact outside the Legislative Yuan complex, party caucuses agreed to submit the pact to review by a legislative committee in September.

Taiwan Democratic Watch president Hsu Wei-chun told IPS that the delay shows that citizen pressure can have impact as many KMT lawmakers are aware that citizens on the streets and voters in their districts are very worried.