經濟學人：馬英九推服貿，為求歷史定位
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2014/3/28
2014-03-21 Web
only 作者：吳凱琳編譯
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| 圖片來源：劉國泰 |
在台灣，佔領立法院的行動已經持續3天，至今情勢沒有緩和的跡象。3月18日傍晚，一群學生衝進立法院議場，警方數度試圖攻堅，卻都無功而返。目前，警方只能禁止人員進入議場，只允許食物和飲料等物資進入。此外有數名醫生也在議場內，提供醫療服務。
在此之前，有三名民進黨立委宣布在立法院門口絕食70小時，這三人提供抗議學生額外的保護，若警察要驅離學生，必須先抬離這三人。
在立法院門外，儘管下著毛毛細雨，仍有為數眾多的民眾守在現場。佔領立法院的行動將會持續到3月21日，一方面阻擋立法院開議，另一方面是要求政府在21日前針對活動的三大訴求提出回應，三大訴求分別是；一、要求總統馬英九親自到立法院，針對國民黨立委強行通過《服貿協議》的行為，向大眾道歉；二、立法院長王金平必須做出回應；三、立法院重新逐條審查《服貿協議》。
另一方面，民進黨提出澄清，表示這次行動完全是由學生們發起。不過，民進黨支持學生的行動。民進黨認為，這次的行動是因為國民黨未能遵守先前的承諾，逐條審查《服貿協議》，而是粗暴地強行通過。在3月20日的記者會上，民進黨主席蘇貞昌表示，這是台灣20多年民主政治的「關鍵時刻」，民進黨會「盡一切努力」保護台灣的民主。
對民進黨而言這似乎是個有利的機會，如今馬英九支持度僅剩9％，面對今年年底縣市長選舉以及2016年的總統大選，情勢對民進黨相對有利。
兩岸關係是馬英九上台以來，最重要的執政議題。2010年，台灣與中國簽訂《兩岸經濟合作架構協議》（ECFA），兩岸關係又再向前邁進一步。2013年6月，雙方簽訂的《海峽兩岸服務貿易協議》，便屬於ECFA協議的其中一部分。
民進黨強調，服貿協議將會傷害台灣的中小企業；不過，以台獨起家的民進黨，最大的擔憂是害怕台灣在經濟上太過倚賴中國。民進黨立委蕭美琴表示，多數台灣人都有同樣的擔憂，因為他們看不到ECFA的簽訂可以為台灣帶來哪些益處。台灣的經濟，至今依舊不見起色。
就馬英九而言，他思考的可能是他的歷史定位，也就是如何在任期內，讓兩岸關係有更大的突破。上個月，在中國南京，雙方舉行了65年來首次的官方會談，下一步很可能就是推動馬習會。馬英九原本希望爭取參加今年秋天在北京舉行的APEC會議，與習進平會晤，但目前看來機會渺茫。不過，如果ECFA的內容能確實落實，雙方領導人仍有會面的可能。
然而，現在的馬英九必須先解決內部的爭議。抗議學生已經表明，如果他們的要求未獲得回應，21日過後他們不會離開立法院；此外，他們可能會擴大佔領目標，也許是總統府。
一個政府能容許國會議場被抗議者佔領如此長的時間，確實相當少見。但是，動用武力驅離和平抗議的學生，必定會負面批評，要化解當下的僵局，並不容易。（吳凱琳編譯）
The Economist
Politics in Taiwan
Students in
the house
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: March
21, 2014
NEARLY three days
into their occupation of the debating chamber of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan's
parliament, in Taipei, dozens of activists, mostly students, show no sign of
flagging. They broke in on Tuesday evening, March 18th, and resisted attempts by
the police to evict them overnight. Since then, a stand-off has persisted. The
police are stopping new arrivals from joining them, but allow in food and
water. The protesters include a team of white-coated medics. They look well
settled.
Three legislators
from the main opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), started
70-hour hunger-strikes just before the occupation. They are taking eight-hour
shifts in the parliament to afford the protesters extra protection—to shift the
students, the police will also have to manhandle the legislators.
Outside, a crowd
of several hundred ignores the drizzle to listen to speeches and songs, wave
artificial sunflowers, and shout denunciations of the government and of
Taiwan's president, Ma Ying-jeou.
The occupation was
billed as lasting 120 hours, to block a plenary parliamentary session on Friday
21st March, and to provide a deadline for the government to meet the
protesters' demands. These are three-fold: they want Mr Ma to come to the
chamber himself to apologise for the way in which his party pushed an agreement
on opening up services trade with China through parliament on Monday (available
here, in Chinese); they also want the parliamentary speaker, Wang Jin-pyng (who
happens to be a rival to Mr Ma in the ruling party, the Kuomintang, or KMT ) to
come to pay his respects; and they want legislation passed to institutionalise
parliament's right to scrutinise such agreements item by item.
The DPP insists
the students are acting on their own initiative. But it is supporting their
protest, which it believes is tapping a rich vein of discontent with the
government, focusing on the services-trade agreement.
The sit-in was
provoked by what the DPP sees as the KMT's breaking of its promise to allow a
parliamentary committee to review the agreement clause by clause. At a press
conference on March 20th, the DPP's chairman, Su Tseng-chang, portrayed this as
a "key moment" for Taiwan's quarter-century-old democracy, which he
said the party would "do whatever it takes" to protect.
In less lofty
terms, the DPP seems to have spotted an opportunity to exploit the unpopularity
of a man they call "a 9% president"—a reference to the low point Mr
Ma's approval rating fell to last year in opinion polls—on an issue where they
think he is weak. With local elections in December and a new presidential
contest due in 2016, when Mr Ma will have to stand down, the DPP seems to think
it has the KMT on the run.
Improving
relations with China has been a central theme of Mr Ma's presidency since he
took office in 2008. In 2010 China and Taiwan signed the Economic Co-operation
Framework Agreement (ECFA), significantly boosting cross-strait ties. The
services agreement, signed last June, is part of the effort to implement that
framework.
At the press
conference, Mr Su spoke under a banner reading: "Demand substantial
review; restart negotiations with China." The DPP argues the agreement
will hurt small businesses on Taiwan and is lopsided in some of its
market-opening measures. But also, the party's roots are in the movement that
wants Taiwan to declare formal independence from China; it worries about
Taiwan's becoming too dependent economically on the mainland. Hsiao Bi-khim,
one of the DPP hunger-strikers, thinks most people on Taiwan are behind it on
this, since they have yet to see the benefits they were promised from ECFA. The
economy is still, by local standards, sluggish.
For his part, Mr
Ma may be thinking about his legacy, and wanting to use his remaining years in
power to make a breakthrough in relations with China. Last month Nanjing in
China played host to the first formal meeting between ministers from China and
Taiwan in their government capacities since the end of the civil war in 1949
formalised the division. A next step would be a summit between Mr Ma and
China's president, Xi Jinping. Hopes that the Asia-Pacific Economic
Co-operation summit in Beijing this autumn might provide an opportunity are
fading. But it would be easier to achieve a meeting elsewhere if the
implementation of ECFA were going well.
In the shorter
term, however, Mr Ma has a nasty local problem. The students say they will not
leave after their five-day deadline if their demands have not been met; and
they may take their "occupy" strategy to other targets: Mr Ma's own
office, for example.
It is already
highly unusual for a government to have tolerated the seizure of parliament by
protesters for so long. But, fearful of the ugly headlines using force against
peaceful students would attract, it does not have many easy options.
Picture credit:
The Economist
©The Economist
Newspaper Limited 2014
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