Labyrinth of Post-Colonial Democracy Through Sunflower Movement of Taiwan

Abstract

This study surveys the Sunflower Movement (March 18, 2014 ~ April 10, 2014), a youth movement in Taiwan, from a different post‐colonial perspective as compared to Korea.BR Since the global financial crisis and new cold war in East Asia, young people have started to become more proactive as voters of representative politics and as sovereign entities. Based on the dystopian diagnosis of ‘Josun escape’ and ‘ghost island,’ the young adults of Korea and Taiwan have desired to move beyond authoritarian developmentalism since it settled in the post‐colonial era. Although both countries have experienced similar situations in terms of politics and economics, moving from the old to new empires of Japan and the United States, the countries have slightly different contexts, such as ‘pro‐Japanese.’BR The reason is that in Taiwan, the Cross‐Strait Service Trade Agreement’s current criticism of ‘forgetting the homeland and flattering Japan’ is coming from the same context as that of the criticism of the young people opposed to the sudden ‘pro‐Chinese’ policies. This also relates to the opposition from the youth for writing guidelines for middle & high school textbooks which revised the textbooks by merging Taiwanese history and Chinese history, emphasizing Japanese colonial period. However, these young people were influenced by a strong Taiwanese identity which emerged in the 2000s, and subsequently, they did not agree with non‐democratic plans being pursued without public consent. Also, they are banding together with radical worldwide youth movements protesting against the regression of East Asian democracies that have been holding economic security hostage with economic excuses.BR In summary, Korea needs to start thoroughly rethinking about how to move forward within the current democratic framework similar to the young Taiwanese people navigating through the East Asian post‐colonial labyrinth by recalling the old historical semantic network.