What is the Sunflower Movement?

A movement in March and April 2014 in which Taiwanese students and citizens, protesting that a trade agreement with China was being pushed through without proper review, occupied the national legislature (the Legislative Yuan) for more than three weeks. The civic technologists' community g0v livestreamed and documented it, and it became a starting point for Taiwan's later digital democracy.

Hearing that a parliament has been occupied, you may picture chaos or violence. But the occupation of Taiwan's parliament in 2014 ended somewhat differently. The protesters' demands were largely accepted, and the experience led on to Taiwan's systems in which government and citizens discuss policy together.

In short

The Sunflower Student Movement (太陽花學運 in Chinese) was a movement in March 2014 in which Taiwanese students and citizens, protesting that a trade agreement with China was being pushed through without proper review, occupied the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan's parliament, for more than three weeks [1][2].

Volunteer technologists livestreamed what happened online. The occupation ended with the protesters' demands largely accepted. The book Plurality describes this experience as leading on to Taiwan's later digital democracy (efforts to widen participation in politics with technology) [1][2].

For example

How the occupation began and ended (March 18 to April 10, 2014). According to the Chinese-language Wikipedia, on March 17 a Kuomintang legislator declared that since the deadline for reviewing the services trade agreement with China had passed, it should be treated as reviewed. At 9 p.m. the next day, March 18, students, citizens and groups opposed to it occupied the chamber [3].

On April 6, the Speaker of the Legislative Yuan, Wang Jin-pyng, promised that a law to oversee such agreements would be passed first. The occupiers left on April 10. The occupation had lasted 585 hours [3]. The book Plurality, too, writes that "On March 30, 2014, half a million people took to the streets in the largest demonstration in Taiwan since the 1980s", that Wang Jin-pyng accepted the demands on April 6, and that the occupation dispersed soon after [2].

One iPad and flip-flops. According to the book, "Hundreds of contributors in the g0v community were present during the occupation of the Legislative Yuan (LY), aiding in broadcasting, documenting and communicating civic actions" [2]. → g0v

In a 2017 conversation, the host recalled how media reports at the time had marveled that the whole thing could be livestreamed with one iPad and two flip-flops. g0v had been thinking since a large rally the year before about how to get rallies online. On the night of March 18, they set up fiber-optic lines and wireless access points (in Chinese) [4]. The book Broad Listening writes that more than 100 g0v members were involved in the livestreaming. On the well-known story that Audrey Tang laid 350 meters of cable, it adds: "But this was not the story of one heroic individual; it was made possible by the efforts of many citizens" [5].

Deliberation in the street. In a 2016 article, the writer Liz Barry described walking through the site in April 2014. Strangers holding sticky notes were eagerly discussing policy issues, and technologists with homemade antennas were livestreaming this deliberation in the streets to millions [6].

In more detail

Why it happened

According to the Chinese-language Wikipedia, the agreement would have opened 80 sectors on the Chinese side and 64 on the Taiwanese side to each other. People worried about the blow to Taiwan's small and medium businesses and about growing Chinese political influence. The students criticized the negotiations as a "black box", invisible from outside [3].

The side that pushed the agreement. Also according to the Chinese-language Wikipedia (a secondary source), the agreement was signed in Shanghai on June 21, 2013, as a follow-up to the 2010 cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (海峽兩岸經濟合作架構協議). The government of Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), elected in 2008, pushed it as part of a policy of deepening economic ties with China. At a press conference on March 23, during the occupation, Ma argued that the agreement needed to be passed and said it would not be withdrawn; on March 29, Ma said the agreement could be debated and voted on clause by clause, but again refused to withdraw it [3]. The specific reasons Ma gave at these press conferences are not in this site's materials.

The book Plurality writes that on March 18, 2014, "a group of students frustrated by the substance and process of a new trade deal with Beijing and inspired by the global 'Occupy' movement climbed over the fence surrounding the legislature building" [1].

Where the name comes from

According to the Chinese-language Wikipedia, on the night of March 18 a florist in Yonghe sent sunflowers into the chamber. Images of sunflowers placed on the podium spread, more sunflowers arrived, and the media began calling it the "Sunflower Student Movement" [3]. Some participants disliked the name and call it by other names, such as the "318 occupation of the Legislative Yuan" [3]. The editions of the book also write "318" alongside "Sunflower", as in the English edition's "the 'Sunflower' (318) occupation" [1].

What the technology did

In a 2022 interview, Tang said that the aim of her involvement was "To make sure that humor and facts spread faster than rumor" [7].

According to Tang, some 20 NGOs (private nonprofit groups) held discussions topic by topic, such as labor conditions and cybersecurity, each with a facilitator. g0v recorded the "rough consensus", so that "people can start a day not from a blank state, but from the kind of rough consensus that came from feelings as agreed upon the previous day." Because of the livestreaming, "violence doesn't pay", and rumors such as that one corner was under assault by the police could be checked by watching the livestream on a phone, Tang said [7].

In a column in the book Broad Listening, Shinta Nakayama, noting that this is Nakayama's own framing, argues that the movement was a rare case: a movement of people who gathered spontaneously through social media gained leaders and the power to negotiate with the government. The column sums up that g0v's thorough transparency prevented removal by force [8].

The politics that followed

The book Plurality writes that the local (2014) and general (2016) elections "saw a dramatic swing in outcomes of roughly 10 percentage points towards the Green camp", and that the movement's leaders founded a new political party, the New Power Party. These events added to g0v's momentum and led to Tang, one of the authors, being appointed a minister (Minister without Portfolio), the book says [2].

Tang says that the national forum held right after the movement called for a national petition platform and for "at least 60 days of regulatory conversation announcement period". She stresses that it was not the following Tsai Ing-wen administration that implemented these, but the cabinets of the then Ma Ying-jeou administration [7]. The later spaces for discussion between government and citizens are introduced in the article on vTaiwan.

What is debated

It was not Tang's movement. Both Plurality and the book Broad Listening describe the livestreaming and documentation as the work of many g0v contributors [2][5]. Tang herself says that she also helped people who favored unification with China get online connections and livestreams, on the view that such civil disobedience only works "if — like in the Polis conversation — you can afford the same freedom of assembly and speech to the people who are diametrically opposed to your ideas" [7].
The legitimacy of the occupation. The interviewer Rob Wiblin asked Tang about the legitimacy of a passionate minority, not elected, occupying the chamber. Tang replied that the question itself, "Can we actually do this sort of collective intelligence and deliberation, without people feeling the need to occupy the parliament all the time?", was the topic of the national forum right after the movement [7].
Criticism from inside the movement. The Chinese-language Wikipedia also records that on the day of departure, volunteers on the chamber's second floor issued a statement criticizing the main leaders; that there was criticism that media coverage focused on two leaders and fed a cult of individual heroes; and that there was a separate movement by people who did not support it [3].
How long did the occupation last? Plurality says "more than 3 weeks"; the Chinese-language Wikipedia, March 18 to April 10 (585 hours); the book Broad Listening, 23 days; and the 2016 article, 22 days. The figures differ by source [1][3][5][6].

Where it fits in Plurality

At its opening, chapter 2-1 of the book, "A View from Yushan", tells of this movement as one of the dramatic personal experiences of its two lead authors [1]. An occupation of the US Capitol almost seven years later "lasted only a few hours and yet is one of the most divisive events in American history". By contrast, "the 'Sunflower' (318) occupation lasted more than a hundred times as long (more than 3 weeks) and yet the demands of the protesters were eventually largely accepted as a consensus; the movement led to a change of government and the rise of new political parties" [1].

The same chapter also writes that the general election of January 13, 2024, "harnessing the technologies developed partly as a result of the Sunflower movement", "has become a positive model to the world" in overcoming deep divisions [1].

In chapter 2-2, "The Life of a Digital Democracy", it is treated as the moment g0v burst onto the public scene, and the following sections introduce vTaiwan and more [2]. Chapter 2-2 also notes, however, that Taiwan's affective polarization (hostility toward the other camp) is among the lowest in the world, though some studies have found "a slight upward trend in political polarization since the Sunflower movement" [2]. Taiwan's path as a whole is summarized in the article on Taiwan's digital democracy.

Sources

Plurality, 2-1 "A View from Yushan" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 2-2 "The Life of a Digital Democracy" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-2/eng/ ［CC0］
"太陽花學運", Chinese-language Wikipedia (in Chinese) — https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%A4%AA%E9%99%BD%E8%8A%B1%E5%AD%B8%E9%81%8B ［CC BY-SA 4.0］
唐鳳對談蔡玉玲：開放政府如何實現民意 (Audrey Tang in conversation with Jaclyn Tsai: how open government realizes the public will) (2017-01-14, in Chinese) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2017-01-14-%E5%94%90%E9%B3%B3%E5%B0%8D%E8%AB%87%E8%94%A1%E7%8E%89%E7%8E%B2%EF%BC%9A%E9%96%8B%E6%94%BE%E6%94%BF%E5%BA%9C%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E5%AF%A6%E7%8F%BE%E6%B0%91%E6%84%8F.md ［CC0］
Broad Listening, 11-1 "The Evolution of Deliberative Democracy in Taiwan" (English translation in the same repository) — https://github.com/digitaldemocracy2030/broad-listening-book/blob/f69c60c838a91b91668abf109d7093b240610139/en/11_01_taiwan.md ［CC BY-NC 4.0］
Liz Barry, "vTaiwan: Public Participation Methods on the Cyberpunk Frontier of Democracy" (Civicist, 2016) — https://web.archive.org/web/20161024093003/http://civichall.org/civicist/vtaiwan-democracy-frontier/
Audrey Tang, Interview with Rob Wiblin (2022-01-13) — https://archive.tw/2022-01-13-interview-with-rob-wiblin ［CC0］
Shinta Nakayama, "Collective Action and Connective Action: Turning Anger Toward Problem-Solving" (column in the book Broad Listening; English translation in the same repository) — https://github.com/digitaldemocracy2030/broad-listening-book/blob/f69c60c838a91b91668abf109d7093b240610139/en/column/collective_action_and_connective_action.md ［CC BY-NC 4.0］

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