MCLC: students agree to end occupation

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Terry Russell <Terry.Russell at umanitoba.ca>
Subject: students agree to end occupation
******************************************************

Source: SCMP (4/7/14):
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1467029/taiwan-student-leaders-mull-
ending-protests-amid-talks-mas-government

Taiwan protesters agree to end parliament occupation after talks with
speaker
By Lawrence Chung in Taipei and Agence France-Presse

Leaders of the student protesters said Monday that they will withdraw from
the Legislature's main chamber at 6pm on Thursday after occupying the
venue since March 18 in protest of a controversial trade-in-services pact
with China.

A three-week students-led protest in Taiwan to oppose a service trade pact
with the mainland will finally come to an end on Thursday with the
students pledging to leave the parliament they have occupied since March
18.

The latest development came a day after legislature speaker Wang Jin-pyng
conceded that he would see to the enactment of an oversight bill to
supervise all cross-strait agreements before reviewing the controversial
pact.

After discussing for hours over whether it is the best time to end their
protest, the student leaders announced last night to bring their
three-week protest to a peaceful end.

“We call on all supporters who have joined us in the protest to gather at
the legislature on Thursday 6pm to greet us in leaving the parliament,”
said Chen Wei-ting, one of the student leaders organising the protest.

Calls for the demonstrators to quit parliament have been rising even among
some of their sympathizers.

 “Now it’s an opportune time to leave parliament,” said Rex How, a
publisher who quit as an adviser to President Ma Ying-jeou in protest at
the cross-strait services trade pact.

Local media speculated that the protesters would leave following Wang’s
concession.

But unconfirmed reports said some radical student groups had refused to
back down.

Politicians from both ruling and opposition parties have been meeting the
students since the occupation, but on Sunday was the first time that the
speaker had entered the chamber since it was seized.

Around 200 student-led demonstrators occupied the chamber on March 18 and
swiftly drew a large crowd of supporters, with more than 10,000
congregated outside at one point.

There were violent clashes on March 23 when baton-wielding police turned
water cannons on protesters who had stormed the nearby government
headquarters.

And on March 30, tens of thousands gathered to pressure the embattled Ma
to retract the trade pact, which they say will damage Taiwan’s economy and
leave it vulnerable to political pressure from Beijing.

Ma, who has pursued closer ties with the mainland since taking power in
2008, has agreed to the students’ demand for a law to monitor all
cross-strait pacts, but the protesters have rejected the government’s bill.

The latest pact would further open up trade in services between the
mainland and Taiwan, which split 65 years ago after a civil war.

Ma has said the failure to ratify the pact would be a grave setback to
efforts by trade-reliant Taiwan to seek more free-trade agreements and
avoid isolation as regional economic blocs emerge.

The contentious pact is a follow-up agreement to a sweeping Economic
Co-operation Framework Agreement signed in 2010 to reduce trade barriers
between the mainland and Taiwan.

Ma has overseen a marked thaw in relations with Beijing since he came to
power pledging to strengthen trade and tourism links.

He was re-elected in January 2012 but his approval ratings are currently
only around 10 per cent.

The mainland still considers Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting
reunification – by force, if necessary.