097 109 06 Praxis Vol 2-再-Z05.Indd

6 97 Uniting Food and the Countryside The Contemporary Taiwanese Case Seitaro MAENO 1. Introduction This paper introduces a new trend in Taiwanese social movements and practice after the 2000s. Taiwan or the Republic of China (ROC) was known by its rapid industrial growth and called the “Asian miracle” in the 1980s. Political liberalization and democratization followed growth in the economic field. Social or political activists constructed mutual networks during this democratizing period. Today’s practitioners are also utilizing these networks of social movements. When speaking with Taiwanese activists, one may be surprised at their broad networks of re- lationships. Recent social practices in Taiwan seem not to be as radical as those in the early period of democratization. However, this does not mean that social movements are powerless in Taiwanese society. The occupation of parliament in 2014 proved their capacity for mobilization. There is some social imbalance remaining between primary and other economic sectors, and between rural and urban areas. These are the negative lega- cies of economic development. Interest in social injustice is now awak- ening people to social practices (Ho 2014, pp. 114–115). 2. Social movements and the historical context in Taiwan 2-1. The society in historical perspective1 Taiwan is an island in the South China Sea. Twenty-three million people live on its mainland and other islands. The area is almost as large as 98 Seitaro MAENO the Netherlands (36,000 sq. km). Austronesian aborigines built their society in Taiwan during prehistoric time. The relationship with continental China was not so close in this era. After a short period of European colonization by Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, the Qing dynasty founded their rule over the island in the late 17th century. Chinese mi- grants from Hokkien and Kwangtong Province engaged in settled culti- vation in the early period of colonization. In 1894, the Sino-Japanese war broke out and the Qing dynasty ced- ed Taiwan to imperial Japan. The Japanese ruled Taiwan for 50 years before their empire went to ruin in WWII. On the other hand, the Chi- nese nationalist party (KMT) took over the Qing dynasty in 1911. KMT founded a new republic (ROC) in continental China. Taiwan re- turned to ROC government after WWII. In 1949, ROC was defeated by communist China (the People’s Republic of China, (PRC)) in a civil war. ROC leaders transferred their government from continental China to Taiwan. The ROC military and emigres followed their leaders into exile and these emigres generated diverse ethnicity in Taiwan. President Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) and his son Chiang Ching- kuo (1948–1988) ruled Taiwan in the Western bloc. On February 28, 1947, the ROC government suppressed Taiwanese revolt by the military. Afterwards, political liberty was strictly limited. Ironically, under the KMT regime Taiwan experienced great change. Taiwanese society had been transformed from an agricultural to an industrial society. This rapid economic development was called the “Asian economic miracle” (Ishida 1999, pp. 36–40). At the same time, the developmental state has sacrificed its agricultural sector and rural areas to achieve industrialization (Ishida 1999, pp. 49–76). In January 1988, President Chiang Ch- ing-kuo died in office and Vice-president Lee Teng-hui became the first Taiwanese president of the ROC. His presidency began to promote and develop democratizing reforms. 2-2. Tradition and Innovation of social movement It was in the 1970s that the “non-party” or non-KMT activists appeared 1 This section is mainly based on Copper (2007, pp. 1–28). Uniting Food and the Countryside 99 in Taiwanese politics. Their early activity was as monitors for local elec- tions. Such activity sometimes turned into riots. In 1977, demonstrators burned the police station in a city in northern Taiwan. Some non-KMT candidates put up candidates in a political division of the KMT and won a seat among the national representatives (Wakabayashi 1992, pp. 191– 197, Ho and Hsiao 2006, pp. 47–53). In 1986, “non-party” activists founded the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and put an end to KMT’s dictatorship. Hsiao (2010) says the decade of the 1980s was a golden age of social movements in Taiwan (Hsiao 2010, p. 5). People in a restricted political space mobilized “self-solving” activities to oppose local government. They tried to solve local environmental issues by themselves. Local pollution was a sub-product of rapid industrialization. The right wing of the KMT regarded environmental, industrial, and farmers’ movements as “outlaws” in the early 1990s. In fact, demonstrations became less violent than in the 1980s (Ho 2006, pp. 180–181, Ho and Hsiao 2006, pp. 137–140). Activists formed mutual networks to enhance their ability to negotiate with the government (Ho 2006, pp. 191–200). In 2000, the DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian defeated the KMT candidate and started his eight years’ presidency. Hsiao (2010) writes that activists experienced “days of honeymoon and disappointment” with the administration under the DPP government (Hsiao 2010, p. 9). The DPP was relatively “sympathetic” to social movements. Civil activists began to participate in the public decision-making process (Ho 2006, pp. 155–164, Hoshi 2013, pp. 66–71). On the other hand, some groups began to protest the DPP government (Ho 2006, pp. 222–225). KMT also chose a strategy for mobilizing demonstrations to confront DPP policy (Ho 2006, pp. 228–229). In 2006, non-DPP groups, including organized “Red-shirt troops” moved a “million voices against corruption and President Chen’s movement.” Demonstrations mobilized by the two political camps became a part of Taiwanese politics. KMT’s leader Ma Ying-jeou put an end to the DPP’s administration in the 2008 election. The Taiwanese social movements had confronted a new environment. Activists lost their influence on the ruling party (Ho 2014, pp. 110– 112) and a changed policy with continental China and financial tsunami 100 Seitaro MAENO in 2008 affected the society. The number of social protests increased once again in 2009 (Ho 2014, pp. 104–106). 3. Bridging urban and rural society 3-1. Farmers in the street “Self-solving” collective protests appeared in the 1980s (Ho and Hsiao 2006, pp. 61–65). Inhabitants attempted to solve local pollutions in- stead of unreliable local administration. They called on multiple ways for solving environmental problems: petitions to local politicians, barri- cading communities, breaking productive facilities, or organizing vigi- lante groups (Ho 2006, pp. 61–65). In the early 1980s, self-solving involved nothing but conflicts inside the local community. Mobilization for protests was conducted through individual networks. They lacked cooperation within different local communities, and suffered from insufficient solidarity (Ho 2006, pp. 9–10, p. 65). It was not until large-scale protests occurred, such as the anti-Sunko factory movement or the anti-Du Pont factory movement in the 1980s, that local people organized beyond communities (Ho 2006, pp. 17–18). Another origin of the Taiwanese environmental movement was the conservation activities of professional ecologists and intellectuals in the 1970s. However, the two streams of activism, self- solving and ecologist activity, did not have direct relations with each other (Ho 2006, pp. 38–39, pp. 41–42, Ho and Hsiao 2006, pp. 58– 61). Increasingly, local intellectuals and resource mobilization from out- side the community encouraged ecological and anti-pollution movements to work together (Ho 2006, pp. 140–142, Ho and Hsiao 2006, pp. 260–269).2 The Anti-Meinung dam movement in Kaosiung County was a typical case of broader mobilization. Of course, there are also small-scale local protests today. Local activists have built loose and broad networks through larger-scale protests (Wang and Woods 2013, 2 For information about the relationship of Anti-Meinung dam movement and community building, see Hoshi (2013). Uniting Food and the Countryside 101 pp. 209–210). According to Ting (2011), protesting farmers in Taiwan appeared in the streets in the late 1980s. The first example was the December 8th incident in 1986, which protested against foreign fruit importation. In 1988, the “March 20th incident” broke out. Several thousand farmers demonstrated in Taipei city center. As the demonstrators heated up, they were transformed into a riot. Police arrested 93 rioters (Ho and Hsiao 2006, p. 90, Ting 2010, pp. 282–284). The Taiwanese affiliation with the WTO in 2002 shocked the agricultural products market. Local farmers carried out the “1123 living with agriculture” demonstration in Taipei to protest the entry into WTO. It was the largest farmers’ demonstration since WWII (Ting 2010, pp. 284–287). Increasing administrative land expropriation made farmers rise up again. Land expropriation itself was legally conducted after WWII. However, serial legal amendments in the 2000s enabled local government to expropriate land more easily (i.e., the amendment of the agricultural development act in 2000, enactment of industrial innovation statutes in 2010, and amendment of the land expropriation act in 2012). The number of cases of clashes between inhabitants and local administration had increased. The most symbolic incident occurred in Dapu Village in Miau-li County in June 2010. On that night, the Miau-li government enforced expropriation with power shovels (Tsai 2010, pp. 323–329, Hsu 2013, pp. 63–66). Dapu became a symbol for the followers of the land justice movement. Inhabitants organized self-solving associations the same as former local “self-solving” groups, but they had external support this time. Self-solving was no longer a conflict in the local community. Actually, forceful land expropriation occurred not only on the rural side. Residential areas were also expropriated in the city periphery or even in the city center of Taipei.

Load more