Sunflowers and Umbrellas: Social Movements, Expressive Practices, and Politial Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong 9781557291929, 1557291926

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“The chapters in this volume illuminate two important new social movements by focusing on their cultural and symbolic dimensions. Expertly edited by two distinguished scholars of youth, intellectuals and political activism, this book makes an important contribution to the meaning of media and political culture in contemporary social movements.” —Guobin Yang, University of Pennsylvania

INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

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INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ● BERKELEY

Sunflowers and Umbrellas Social Movements, Expressive Practices, and Political Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong

Gold and Veg

“This volume showcases fascinating new work by an engaging mix of established and junior scholars of the social sciences and humanities. The book opens with an exemplary introduction by the editors and is especially good at highlighting the expressive and symbolic sides of struggles for change. Sunflowers and Umbrellas shows how valuable it can be to place the 2014 events in Taiwan and Hong Kong side-by-side in a way that, while acknowledging the differences between the movements, points out their similarities and connections.” —Jeffrey Wasserstrom, University of California, Irvine

Sunflowers and Umbrellas

“A fine and welcomed collection that sheds new lights on two iconic popular movements in contemporary Asia. Capturing the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements’ organization dynamics, expressive politics and political outcomes in granular details, this volume advances a much needed comparative agenda for social movement studies.” —Ching Kwan Lee, University of California, Los Angeles

Edited by Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 76

October 6, 2020 15:32:46

Notes to this edition This is an electronic edition of the printed book. Minor corrections may have been made within the text; new information and any errata appear on the current page only. China Research Monograph 76 Sunflowers and Umbrellas: Social Movements, Expressive Practices, and Politial Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong Edited by Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg ISBN-13: 978-155729-192-9 (electronic) ISBN-13: 978-155729-191-2 (print) ISBN-10: 1-55729-191-8 (print)

Please visit the IEAS Publications website at http://ieas.berkeley.edu/publications/ for more information and to see our catalogue. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94704-2318 USA [email protected]

October 2020

Sunflowers and Umbrellas

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CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 76 CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

Sunflowers and Umbrellas

Social Movements, Expressive Practices, and Political Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong Edited by Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg

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A publication of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Although the institute is responsible for the selection and acceptance of manuscripts in this series, responsibility for the opinions expressed and for the accuracy of statements rests with their authors. The China Research Monograph series is one of the several publications series sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies in conjunction with its constituent units. The others include the Japan Research Monograph series, the Korea Research Monograph series, the Research Papers and Policy Studies series, and the Trans­national Korea series. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94720 [email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gold, Thomas B., editor. | Veg, Sebastian, editor. Title: Sunflowers and umbrellas : social movements, expressive practices, and political culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong / edited by Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg. Description: Berkeley : Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2020. | Series: China research monograph; 76 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020035825 (print) | LCCN 2020035826 (ebook) | ISBN 9781557291912 (paperback) | ISBN 9781557291929 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Social movements—Taiwan. | Social movements—Hong Kong. | Political culture—Taiwan. | Political culture—Hong Kong. Classification: LCC HM881 .S86 2020 (print) | LCC HM881 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/40951249—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035825 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035826 Copyright © 2020 by The Regents of the University of California. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. Front cover images: Main: Sit-in on Qingdao East Road, Fan-Fumao, Taipei, in front of the Legislative Yuan in support of its occupation by students, 20 Mar. 2014 (photo by Frank Muyard). Bottom, left to right: Printed poster in Admiralty referencing the Beatles song “Yellow Submarine,” combined with the symbols of a yellow umbrella and yellow ribbon (photo by Sebastian Veg, 13 Nov. 2014). Sunflower altar in Legislative Yuan assembly hall, Taipei, 28 Mar. 2014 (photo by Ian Rowen). The Big Yellow Umbrella in front of Hong Kong’s LegCo (photo by Sebastian Veg, 6 Dec. 2014). Awning made of recycled umbrella canopies above the “main stage” in Admiralty (photo by Sebastian Veg, 6 Dec. 2014). Cover design: Mindy Chen, Thomas Gold, and Sebastian Veg.

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Contents Preface and Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction 1 Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg 1. Movement Leadership under a Polycentric Protest Structure 17 Edmund W. Cheng 2. The Sunflower Imagination: The Movement Perception and Evaluation from the Grassroots 42 Ming-sho Ho, Chun-hao Huang, Liang-ying Lin 3. Hybridity, Civility, and Othering: In Search of Political Identity and Activism in Hong Kong 68 Wai-man Lam 4. Chinese Tourism as Trigger and Target of the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements 96 Ian Rowen 5. Visuality and Aurality in the Sunflower Movement: Precedents for Politics as Spectacle in Taiwan 114 Brian Hioe 6. Music in the Umbrella Movement: From Expressive Form to New Political Culture 147 Sebastian Veg 7. Protest Documentaries in Taiwan and Hong Kong: From the Late 1980s to the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements 176 Judith Pernin 8. From Sunflowers to Suits: How Spatial Openings Affect Movement Party Formation 200 Lev Nachman 9. The Plebeian Moment and Its Traces: Post–Umbrella Movement Professional Groups in Hong Kong 228 Ngok Ma Contributors 254 Index 255

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Preface and Acknowledgments

This volume grew out of a conference held at the University of California, Berkeley (16–17 March 2018), that was financially supported by the France-Berkeley Fund, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in San Francisco, and Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies and Center for Chinese Studies. In addition to the contributors to this volume, several participants made particularly meaningful contributions to the conference. With regard to “expressive practices,” Sampson Wong presented the artwork of the Umbrella Movement as well as giving a paper, and Tze-woon Chan showed his film Yellowing, also about the Umbrella Movement. The current volume includes a number of links to music, photos, artwork, and ephemera from the two movements. Jieh-min Wu of the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, presented a paper on the making of Taiwanese identity. Two movement leaders, Lin Fei-fan from Taiwan and Alex Chow from Hong Kong (currently pursuing a doctoral program in Geography at Berkeley) engaged in a forum discussion about leadership and organization. Other discussants included, in alphabetical order: Weihong Bao (UC Berkeley), Andrew Jones (UC Berkeley), C. K. Lee (UCLA), Brian Kaiping Leung (University of Washington), Chit Wai John Mok (UC Irvine), Kevin O’Brien (UC Berkeley), Jeff Wasserstrom (UC Irvine), Guobin Yang (University of Pennsylvania), and Mengyang Zhao (University of Pennsylvania). Political Science PhD candidate Phil Rogers did an excellent job as rapporteur. We thank Yike Zhang for his careful work compiling the index. We are also grateful to Christopher Pitts for his meticulous copyediting as well as to Katherine Lawn Chouta, our editor, for expertly shepherding the manuscript to a smooth and speedy publication. While the present volume focuses on two social movements that took place in 2014, subsequent events inevitably reshape understandings of the past. For this reason, we have tried to update chapters wherever relevant. Nonetheless, both events have now moved into history. The Sunflower

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Preface and Acknowledgments

Movement played a role in Tsai Ing-wen’s election to the presidency in 2016, as several chapters point out, but not directly in her reelection in 2020 after an unexpected reversal of popularity (she had lost support by trying to steer a middle course to domestic reforms, but regained it by standing firm against increasing pressure from Beijing). In Hong Kong too, the Umbrella Movement “left traces” by galvanizing a generation of activists and professionals to enter politics, as Ngok Ma’s chapter documents. The Anti-Extradition Movement of 2019 was to some extent defined by its rejection of the perceived shortcomings of the Umbrella Movement, as Wai-Man Lam mentions. However, it proved no more successful than its predecessor at obtaining meaningful concessions from Beijing. As this book goes to press, the Central Government has imposed on Hong Kong a National Security Law that will probably have far more sweeping consequences for basic freedoms in Hong Kong than the Extradition Bill would have had. Taiwan too views this law as a sign of Beijing’s new resolve to deal with what it calls the “Taiwan Issue” sooner rather than later. The two territories are thus increasingly seen as connected despite the growing geopolitical rift between them. As Beijing further asserts its power over its immediate periphery, societies in both Hong Kong and Taiwan continue to search for new ways that might enable democratic procedures to prevail over power politics, a quest central to the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements, and perhaps the most enduring traces of these two explosions of political energy.

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Introduction

THOMAS GOLD AND SEBASTIAN VEG The Spring and Autumn Annals, 2014 In the spring and autumn of 2014, two large-scale, prolonged social movements took place in the shadow of the People’s Republic of China: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement (twenty-four days, from 18 March to 10 April 2014; see timeline in Hioe 2018) and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement (seventy-nine days, from 26 September to 15 December 2014; see timeline in Cheng and Chan 2017, 237).1 The two movements shared some basic characteristics. They both used the tactic of occupying strategic locations—the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, and the area around the Central Government Offices (as well as two other locations) in Hong Kong (see maps in Ho 2015, 82, and Cheng and Chan 2017, 228). They were both supported by mass mobilizations of ordinary citizens: 350,000 people joined the 30 March rally during the Sunflower Movement (Rowen 2015, 14), and 1.3 to 1.45 million people took part cumulatively over the course of the Umbrella Movement (Cheng 2016, 383). The two protests followed similar arcs, beginning with an initial moment of spontaneous insurgency, continuing with a period of protracted entrenchment during which the government and the protesters envisaged negotiations with each trying to leverage public opinion, and culminating 1  By contrast, the Anti–Extradition Bill Movement in Hong Kong, which began in June 2019, had no clear leaders and no specified or occupied locations, relying instead on constant spontaneous movement and evasive action. These tactics were often described as “be water,” a phrase used by the kung fu actor Bruce Lee.

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2Introduction in failed attempts at escalation (the Sunflower protesters attempted to occupy the Executive Yuan on 23 March; the Umbrella occupiers tried to storm the Chief Executive’s Office on 30 November). Both had iconic and unexpected symbols—the sunflower and the umbrella, two “disobedient objects” (Flood and Grindon 2014). Both saw the rise of a new generation of activists who replaced older pioneers of democratic movements in each territory. Finally, both made use of new telecommunications technology to mobilize domestic support and inform the outside world. There were also notable differences between the movements. In Taipei, the perimeter of occupation remained limited to the Legislative Yuan and its immediate surroundings, while in Hong Kong the Admiralty site alone was far larger and harder to manage for the movement leaders, who also had to deal with two rival occupation sites in Mongkok and Causeway Bay. Most importantly, the Sunflower Movement obtained significant concessions from the government after a split took place within the governing elite (when Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng broke ranks with President Ma Ying-jeou), while the Hong Kong government remained united against the students’ claims and was able to successfully mobilize social groups against the occupiers, ultimately using court injunctions to clear the sites (Yuen and Cheng 2017). The Sparks that Lit the Prairie Fires Many of the similarities and differences in the movements are embedded in the respective political institutions of Hong Kong and Taiwan and their relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Hong Kong became a British colony as a result of the Treaty of Nanjing, which marked the end of the First Opium War (1840–42), when Britain defeated the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). In 1898, Hong Kong was expanded to include the New Territories, which China leased to Britain for ninety-nine years. As the end of this lease approached, London and Beijing engaged in a protracted set of negotiations for the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. The people of Hong Kong did not participate in their own capacity in these negotiations. On 1 July 1997, Hong Kong was handed over to the PRC as a special administrative region (SAR), to be governed with a “high degree of autonomy” in all areas except foreign affairs and defense. The Basic Law serves as the legal framework of the “one country, two systems” formula. The head of the Hong Kong government is the chief executive who is “elected” by a committee of 1,200 people, in which Beijing controls a structural majority. The citizenry does not enjoy universal suffrage in this matter. The chief executive answers to the

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Central People’s Government, which is controlled, like the rest of the Chinese political system, by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although Hong Kong has a free press and vibrant civil society, its approximately 7.5 million people have few channels to shape their political representation. Hong Kong’s legislative body, the Legislative Council (LegCo) is made up of seventy members, thirty-five of whom are elected by geographical constituencies; thirty of whom are elected through functional constituencies, such as professional groups, whose members are quite limited and generally part of the establishment; and an additional five are elected through a territory-wide proportional vote. Although prodemocracy candidates usually carry a majority of the popular vote, this has never translated into a majority in LegCo. The Tiananmen democracy movement and its subsequent violent suppression in 1989 sparked major demonstrations in Hong Kong and served as a political awakening, raising fears about what the crackdown in China might portend for political and social systems in post-1997 Hong Kong. After 1997, the Basic Law framework initially seemed robust, but came under growing pressure after large-scale protests against national security legislation in 2003. Taiwan’s experience was quite different. Like Hong Kong, it was originally part of the Qing empire. Following the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), however, it was ceded to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. When Japan surrendered in 1945 at the end of World War II, Taiwan was turned over to the Republic of China (ROC), led by the Kuomintang (KMT, or Nationalist Party), and governed as a province. As with Hong Kong, the people of the territory had no say in the matter. After the KMT was defeated by the CCP in 1949 in China’s civil war, the ROC government fled the mainland and retreated to Taiwan, the only territory effectively controlled by the Nationalist government from that time on. After a long period of martial law, ending only in 1987, Taiwan became a fully functioning democracy whose electorate selects its leaders, from the president down to neighborhood officials. Although the president answers only to the citizens of Taiwan, Beijing continues to claim that Taiwan is a province of the PRC, even though the PRC has never exercised control over it. By contrast, although still officially named the Republic of China, the “national” government on the island has relinquished its former claims to be the legitimate government of all of China, including the mainland. There is no outside power that can negotiate away Taiwan’s sovereignty, in the manner of Britain and China in the case of Hong Kong. Frequent public opinion polls indicate that the overwhelming majority of people on Taiwan identify as Taiwanese, rather than Chinese, and do not support

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4Introduction unification with China. Taiwan has a long history of social movements, and its leaders have been responsive to popular demands expressed through protests, among other tactics. The Sunflower and Umbrella movements both grew out of popular concerns over the direction of relations with China. In Taiwan, the student protest was sparked by President Ma Ying-jeou’s decision to fast-track a controversial piece of legislation (the Cross-Strait Service and Trade Agreement; CSSTA) through the Legislative Yuan, without allowing for an article-by-article debate as promised. The CSSTA, building on the 2009 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China, would have opened strategic sectors of Taiwan’s economy to Chinese competition. The negotiations were secretive and involved not only the government institutions tasked with cross-straits affairs, but also direct contacts between the two ruling parties (KMT and CCP). The protesters highlighted their opposition to “black box politics” and to deals made without democratic oversight through Taiwan’s elected legislature. The reaction was part of a larger trend of suspicion of Ma’s ultimate goal with regard to the PRC: many in Taiwan viewed him as willing to advance Beijing’s policy of integrating the two economies, making Taiwan dependent on China, thus creating the material foundation for unification under Beijing’s terms.2 In Hong Kong, the occupation was sparked by a Decision of the National People’s Congress (NPC), announced on 31 August 2014, providing an extremely conservative version of a much-awaited institutional reform package, which was supposed to fulfill the promise enshrined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law to move toward gradual democratization of the territory’s institutions. Beijing was prepared to allow for the election of the chief executive by universal suffrage, but only with the explicit condition that pro-Beijing groups would closely control the vetting of candidates (Davis 2015). This decision highlighted the NPC’s role as the ultimate arbiter of disputes involving Hong Kong’s Basic Law and Beijing’s stronger assertion of its role in Hong Kong governance, first formulated in the white paper “The Practice of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Policy in the Hong Kong SAR,” published by the State Council in June 2014 and fully asserted with the promulgation of the National Security Law on 30 June 2020. Taiwan, by contrast, is self-governed under its own democratic institutions.

2  Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping (China’s president and general secretary of the CCP) subsequently met in an unprecedented summit on 7 November 2015 in Singapore, further fueling speculation about Ma’s intentions.

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This difference between the two territories determined the possible outcomes, in the sense that the Kuomintang, despite its pro-Beijing leanings, was part of an institutional framework ultimately accountable to Taiwanese voters, whereas the administration led by Chief Executive C. Y. Leung in Hong Kong was accountable mainly (if not exclusively) to the Central People’s Government and proved both unwilling and unable to reverse or amend the Decision made in Beijing.3 Despite this difference, it should be noted that both controversial texts that sparked the movements were ultimately shelved: the CSSTA has not been put to vote again in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, while the constitutional reform proposal was voted down in Hong Kong’s LegCo on 17 June 2015.4 In this sense, the contrast between the direct outcomes of the two movements is not as stark as might appear at first view. In both cases, the protesters’ claims had a legalistic aspect to them: the Sunflower participants insisted on the need to respect democratic procedure (Ho 2015), while the Umbrella protesters argued that the NPC Decision violated the letter of the promise to enact universal suffrage enshrined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law, focusing their claims on democracy (Cheng and Chan 2017). But at the same time, both movements also morphed into expressive and deliberative performances (Veg 2016), symbolized respectively by the sunflower and the umbrella, which provided an opportunity to act out the deeper changes in identity and political culture that both societies were and are undergoing.5 This is the central framework for the chapters of this book. The movements evinced further similarities in terms of structure, leadership, and uncertain support in two societies in which conservative 3  Officially, Hong Kong’s chief executive is accountable to both the people of Hong Kong and the Central People’s Government (CPG). However, the people of Hong Kong have no mechanism to hold the chief executive accountable, whereas the CPG exercises a substantive power of appointment. 4  The prodemocracy parties controlled enough votes to prevent the text from reaching the two-thirds threshold required for constitutional reform bills in the seventy-member LegCo; however, as a result of miscommunication, thirty-one progovernment legislators walked out during the vote, resulting in an outright defeat of the bill by twenty-eight to eight votes. The protests in June 2019 were sparked by a different issue (a law that would have allowed extradition to mainland China), but the issue of universal suffrage that was central in 2014 rapidly resurfaced as one of the “five demands” of 2019 (withdrawal of the bill, establishment of an independent commission of inquiry, retraction of the “rioter” label, amnesty for arrested protesters, universal suffrage). See Lee et al. (2019). 5  The Sunflower Movement (Taiyanghua yundong 太陽花運動) took its name from the donation of a crate of sunflowers by a florist; the symbolism was based on the sun’s ability to dispel “black box politics.” The umbrella was used by Hong Kong protesters to stave off tear gas as well as occasional downpours.

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6Introduction values remain staunchly entrenched. Both movements came at the end of a decade of growing mobilization of civil society against unpopular leaders that resorted to new forms of action (Fell 2017; Cheng 2016). In both mobilizations, the ad hoc leadership structures were not only at odds with the conservative political establishment, but also challenged the authority of the older generation of now-established progressive parties. In Hong Kong, the leadership crystallized around the Hong Kong Federation of Students, an organization with a long history of participation in social movements; Scholarism, a high school student group that gained prominence in the 2012 protests against a proposed national education curriculum; and Occupy Central with Love and Peace, set up in 2013 by three activists of the older generation in the buildup to the constitutional reform process. Although connected to the traditional pan-democratic parties through the “five-party platform” during the movement, the student leaders remained critical of the older generation of prodemocracy politicians and were wary of becoming embroiled in institutional politics, while at the same time suffering internal division and lack of coordination.6 Similarly, the Sunflower leadership, which grew out of the Wild Strawberry Movement of 2008 and the Anti–Media Monopoly Movement of 2012,7 then the Democratic Front against CSSTA and the Black Island Nation Youth Front (both established in 2013),8 maintained a tense relationship with the Democratic Progressive Party (Hsu 2017). Grassroots occupiers in Hong Kong’s Mongkok and Taipei’s Pariah Liberation Area (Jianmin jiefang qu 賤民解放區) cultivated their own protest ecology and maintained a critical distance from the movement leadership (see Yuen 2018 and Jianmin jiefang qu xuanyan 2014). Popular support fluctuated widely. While the Sunflower protesters consistently enjoyed the support of a majority of Taiwan citizens in surveys during the movement, except at the very end (peaking at 70 percent on 25 March; see Ho 2015, 89), the Umbrella Movement never gained the support of a full majority of Hong Kong citizens, only briefly reaching a plurality of favorable opinions (38 percent in favor, 36 percent against) in October 2014 (see Veg 2015, 64).

6  The five-party platform brought together the HKFS, Scholarism, Occupy Central with Love and Peace, the pan-democratic parties, and other civil society organizations. 7  The Wild Strawberry Movement took place in November 2008 as a protest against the visit of a Chinese official to Taiwan. The Anti–Media Monopoly Movement targeted growing Chinese control over media groups in Taiwan. See Fell (2017). 8  Both of these organizations were formed to protest free-trade agreements with China. See Cole (2015).

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Beyond Social Movement Theory The study of social movements is a major subfield of sociology, and the Sunflower and Umbrella movements provide rich data for this field. Echoing Tilly (1978), a recent state-of-the-field essay by two major theorists (McAdam and Tarrow 2018) stresses the importance of paying attention to both opportunity and threat as part of the political context that gives rise to social movements. Both opportunities and threats could be readily observed in the buildup to the two movements. Taiwan and Hong Kong offered abundant opportunities for collective action: democratic institutions and practices such as freedom of assembly and speech, political parties contesting elections, strong civil society, organizational capacity, high degree of penetration and use of the most up-to-date forms of telecommunication, and extreme globalization and awareness of global trends. Over the previous decade a strong social movement sector had arisen, both in Taiwan and Hong Kong, with citizens regularly taking to the streets, typically to protest some government action (or inaction). Not to be overlooked was the popular perception of the top authorities in both locations as lacking legitimacy. Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou was elected in a landslide in 2008 and then reelected in 2012, but by 2014 his popularity had plummeted for a variety of reasons: failure to achieve promised economic growth, limited job opportunities for young people, a stagnant standard of living, and worries over his chumminess with Beijing. In Hong Kong, C. Y. Leung had emerged after the Central Government’s first choice, Henry Tang, fell victim to revelations about illegal structures in his home. Ma’s and Leung’s unpopularity was symbolized by their shared nickname “689,” which is also suggestive of a profanity in Cantonese.9 Dissatisfaction with the authorities’ lack of responsiveness was expressed during the movements by the popularity of the song “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from the musical Les Misérables, with new lyrics in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Cantonese. At the same time, the movements highlighted a perceived political threat from Beijing. The CCP certainly favored Ma Ying-jeou’s efforts to strengthen economic and personal ties across the strait and gave him time and space to create conditions conducive to unification. For instance, Beijing called off the competition for diplomatic allies and allowed Taiwan to participate in various capacities in several international organizations. But in the minds of many Taiwanese, Ma was kowtowing to Beijing and not standing up for the interests and sentiments of the people as clearly 9  Ma Ying-jeou was elected by 6.89 million votes in 2008, while C. Y. Leung was elected by 689 votes in the 1,200-member election committee in 2012.

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8Introduction expressed in opinion polls, where respondents were opposed to unification and identified as Taiwanese (and not Chinese). In the Hong Kong case, the threat was more direct. After Hong Kong became a special administrative region of China on 1 July 1997, Beijing repeatedly attempted to assert its policies, increasing its influence in the media, academic institutions, and politics, and placing increasingly stringent conditions on the constitutional reform process toward greater democracy that had been promised in the Basic Law. C. Y. Leung was also seen as unwilling or unable to stand up for the interests of Hongkongers in the face of Beijing’s demands. In both cases, increasing numbers of people, particularly youths, perceived that their futures were being determined by an ever more dictatorial Beijing. This feeling strengthened after the new general secretary of the CCP, Xi Jinping, took office in late 2012 and clamped down on all forms of dissent and efforts to implement the constitutional provisions of rule of law in favor of tightened party control over more and more aspects of daily life in mainland China. Although conditions for collective action were clearly in place, the sparks that lit the prairie fires were the proximate events of the Legislative Yuan’s attempt to hurriedly pass the CSSTA, and the NPC’s 31 August Decision. In both cases, activists and participants obviously believed that the official institutional channels to express discontent were blocked and the only avenue to make their voices heard was to take to the streets. Beyond the structure of opportunity and threat, Ho stresses the need to pay attention to the cultural and symbolic dimensions of the Sunflower and Umbrella movements, which is the central framework for this volume: “The point is that social movements are inevitably a multidimensional process that involves how people organize themselves in order to mount a challenge to the political authorities and their protests would not be effective if they fail to appropriate the preexisting symbols and meaning and elaborate them into a passionate pursuit of the shared goals” (2019, 13). The Sunflower and Umbrella movements share some characteristics—connectivity and spatial occupation—with other recent mobilizations around the world (from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring), even as they are embedded in the cultural repertoires of their respective territories. While each movement articulated specific political claims, both were also symbolic and cultural performances of distinct new political meanings and identities. Comparative Perspective: Expressing and Performing Political Culture Although both movements have been extensively studied, the literature comparing the two is still relatively limited (see Ho 2019 and Jones 2017).

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Existing studies have generally emphasized the shared connection with China, either by casting the movement as reactions to the “China factor” and Beijing’s imperial approach to its borderlands (Ho 2019), or by highlighting the movements’ shared affirmation of a distinct local identity against pan-Chinese articulations (Kaeding 2015). A synthetic internal comparison of the two movements highlights similarities in public opinion support for each movement in its own territory, as well as in the territory of the other movement (Hsiao and Wan 2018). Some attention has also been paid to the Sunflower and Umbrella movements in collections that highlight the new role of public places and forms of public expression in recent social movements in Asia (Chua 2017) and around the world (Hou and Knierbein 2017). Finally, the role of social media has not been explicitly compared in the two movements, but its importance has been studied separately in similar ways (Lee and Chan 2018 on the Umbrella Movement; Chen, Chang, and Huang 2016 and Lin 2016 on the Sunflower Movement). The present collection, while acknowledging the importance of the China factor, proposes a more granular approach that pays close attention to the dynamics and texture of the movements. In order to do so, it brings together not only studies of Taiwan and Hong Kong, but also contributions from both the social sciences and humanities. Viewed as social movements, the Sunflower and Umbrella protests evinced a new balance between online (“connective”) and off-line mobilizations, remaining in a sense “leaderless” despite the emergence of movement leaders. The spatial dimension of the occupations, with their reappropriation and reorganization of public spaces, their participatory and deliberative practices, also determined a “movement ecology” that shaped the dynamics of the movements. At the same time, both movements displayed a spectacular expressive dimension, articulating claims through artwork and ephemera that were self-documented as the movements unfolded.10 Umbrella and Sunflower were not only claim-based, strategic movements but also participative performances. The central role played by their expressive and symbolic dimension challenges some of the tenets of social movement studies: while theories of resource mobilization or political opportunity structure are based on cost-benefit calculations and instrumental rationality, studies of the symbolic dimension emphasize that “the meaning of the action has 10 

Documentary collections of movement materials have been established in Taiwan (see the online databases 318 Civil Movement Archive and Daybreak Project, discussed respectively in chapters 2 and 5) and Hong Kong (in the library of the Chinese University of Hong Kong).

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10Introduction to be found in the action itself more than in the pursued goals” (Melucci 1985, 809). In this perspective, the “disorganization, impermanence, transience” of social movements is what allows them to provide “temporary public spaces,” in which routines of everyday life are broken, thus creating opportunities for new social identities and roles and challenging institutionalized patterns of political behavior (Eyerman and Jamison 1991, 4, 150). For the youthful participants, these “events” (Sewell 1996) might be the defining moments of their life course, having a profound effect on their personal identities and how they see the world around them at the time and going forward. In this sense, while the immediate political outcomes of the movements may be different, both mark deeper shifts in political culture. The sense of frustration with traditional political establishments has given rise to new forms of activism, which is sometimes described as radical (Lam and Cooper 2018). Both movements gave birth to new political parties, which met with success in elections following the movements: the Taiwan presidential and legislative elections in January 2016 and January 2020 and the Hong Kong LegCo election in September 2016 and District Council election of 2019, further buoyed by the protests of that year. However, in Hong Kong, their success provoked increased pushback from the pro-Beijing establishment, leading to disqualifications and a new interpretation of the Basic Law issued by the NPC, while in Taiwan it gave rise to increased tensions between Beijing and the Democratic Progressive Party. Organization of the Book The book is organized around three themes: political dynamics and organization, expressive practices, and the aftermath of the movements. While much scholarship and reporting on the Sunflower and Umbrella movements has stressed the connective, nonhierarchical element of contemporary protests facilitated by new social media, Edmund Cheng argues for the necessity of bringing leadership back in. The two movements were hybrids of collective and connective action where leaders are “choreographers” who make decisions and inspire and organize participants. He notes the critical role of the state, media, and occupiers in identifying leaders, but also the fact that, in Hong Kong, due to the “polycentric protest structure,” leaders also emerged at the local sites who often acted on their own. This stands in contrast to Taiwan, where the main leaders were trapped together in the Legislative Yuan and the protest itself was geocentric, that is, centered at the Legislative Yuan. The leaders gained moral authority and unity against the more radical elements

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11

on the streets. Another major difference was generational, as some of the older leaders in Hong Kong had experienced the brutal crackdown of the Tiananmen Movement in Beijing in 1989 and urged restraint, in contrast to many of the younger leaders. As for the state, the Hong Kong leadership was united against the demonstrators, while in Taiwan there were hardliners and soft-liners who eventually opened the door to a settlement. Ming-sho Ho, Chun-hao Huang, and Liang-ying Lin turn to the rich digital archive of on-the-spot material from the Sunflower Movement to understand the psychological impulses of participants and supporters. The searchable archive contains a variety of objects including artwork, pamphlets, flyers, and meeting records. One central finding was that participants and supporters focused more on the political issues than the economic ones, even though the proximate event was the Legislative Yuan’s hurried passage of a trade bill. The outstanding political claims were defending democracy and supporting Taiwan nationalism (and opposing annexation by China). Emotional expressions, primarily of pride and love for Taiwan, were prominent, followed by fear of Chinese unification. Interestingly, contributions from abroad, many of them from overseas Taiwanese, counted for more than 28 percent of the collection. They conclude that “democratic nationalism” was the most important motive for grassroots participation. Wai-man Lam situates the Umbrella Movement in the history of the evolution of political activism in Hong Kong, under colonialism and beyond, specifically as regards the construction of a Hong Kong identity. She uses the term hybridity to refer to the construction of an identity drawing on Chinese and British legacies. The bulk of the chapter examines three different types of political activism: strategic political activism or civil disobedience, as exemplified by the Occupy Central with Love and Peace initiative that envisioned a Hong Kong identity largely built upon Western conceptions of rule of law and civility promoted by the colonial regime; assertive-expressive political activism, identified with activists such as Joshua Wong, Alex Chow, and other student groups that adopted more confrontational actions during the Umbrella Movement and advocated a Hong Kong identity highlighting its unique hybridity, or “civic localism”; and yong mo 勇武 activism that adopted even more confrontational tactics, not excluding violence, to promote Hong Kong’s autonomy and even independence. Their concept of the Other included not only China and Chinese visitors and immigrants, but also local authorities and other protest groups. She translates yong mo as “valiance,” implying a kind of moral courage to take strong action for a just cause. Yong mo as a strategy has continued to evolve, in large part due to political and cultural

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12Introduction constraints in Hong Kong against such extremism, which were eroded in the Anti–Extradition Movement. Based on participant observation in both the Sunflower and Umbrella movements, Ian Rowen brings a different angle to the story: the role of Chinese tourism in Taiwan and Hong Kong. He uses the economic, social, and political effects of tourism as a window to examine some of the issues that brought out protests. One slogan raised at the time was “Today’s Hong Kong is tomorrow’s Taiwan,” with the swarms of tourists as an indicator. While tourism per se was not a central issue, it embodied many of the protestors’ complaints and fears of the ways Beijing was infiltrating Taiwan and Hong Kong. Three chapters deal with the expressive dimension of the two movements. Brian Hioe examines the visual culture of the Sunflower Movement, with its distinctive carnivalesque dimension, which overturned the usual order of society (as illustrated by the national flag flown upside down on the occupied Legislative Yuan). The imagery was both rooted in the visual history of previous movements and reappropriated by political parties afterward, especially the “third force” parties that emerged from the movement. Hioe emphasizes that the visual culture defined a form of spectacle that was participatory, not passive; it was a crucible of discourse rather than an auxiliary tool of expression. While the visual culture defined the face of the movement to the outside world, its aural culture revealed underlying dynamics and tensions within the movement, gesturing toward different political aesthetics and tactics. In the following chapter, Sebastian Veg argues that music sums up some of the tensions or contradictions of the Umbrella Movement: cosmopolitan and local culture, consumerist and anticapitalist practices, and traditional protest and the new generation. Cantopop and the songs of Hong Kong’s established prodemocracy movement mobilized crowds but were also challenged by indie performers, participative practices, the production of “noise,” and satirical comments on the movement itself. Veg argues that these challenges express a change in political culture, in particular a turn away from pan-Chinese themes and the commercial Cantopop that first represented Hong Kong identity in the 1970s, and toward a local, though cosmopolitan, culture that is in the process of emerging. Filmmakers were an active force in both movements, documenting them for posterity even as they took part in them. Judith Pernin presents a history of activist documentary in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Ironically, while Taiwan activist documentary has a longer history and better institutional support, Hong Kong produced far more films about the Umbrella Movement than Taiwan did about the Sunflower Movement.

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Pernin argues that Hong Kong documentaries have become a way of resisting and creating a new grassroots community based on progressive values and local identities, whereas the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan appears more as a continuation of previous democratic movements, and its chroniclers resort to a more epic or dramatic style. While in Taiwan, the documentary transitioned out of the underground and was integrated into democratic platforms using a more mainstream visual style, in Hong Kong the documentary genre remains outside of the mainstream and is devoted to building a new community at the fringes. The last two chapters deal with the changing political culture in the aftermath of the movements. Lev Nachman asks why new political parties formed out of the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan. Focusing on the two most successful of these, the New Power Party and Social Democratic Party, and based on interviews with their founders, he presents a detailed examination of the perceptions of their leaders about the two major political parties already in existence (the DPP and the KMT) and why the founders determined that they could not join them or other parties, although the parties more or less already articulated their own political stances and ideologies. He concludes that disagreements over tactics and organization were more significant than ideological differences. Finally, Ngok Ma examines the aftermath of the Umbrella Movement. He argues that it did not bring about institutional change as many had hoped, but it can be seen as a “plebeian experience,” a major political awakening that left “traces” on subsequent movements and political developments. His main evidence comes from the experience of new professional political groups that formed in the aftermath of the Umbrella Movement. While these professionals were reluctant to run for functional constituency seats in the 2016 legislative elections, they mobilized very effectively to secure over three hundred seats in the election committee that selected the chief executive in 2017. Hence, although there is still a psychological barrier or threshold that needs to be crossed for a full-time commitment to politics, younger generations of professionals are becoming more politicized, as demonstrated by their role in the anti-extradition protests of 2019. Two provisional conclusions can be drawn from comparing the two movements. First, the Sunflower Movement appears as one important episode within a long series of social movements that have accompanied and enriched Taiwan’s process of democratization, identity formation, and enrooting of democracy. By contrast, Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement marks a qualitative transformation of the territory’s political culture and identity toward a more entrenched form of civic identity and a more

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14Introduction forceful social movement culture. In this respect, strategic choices in the Anti–Extradition Movement of 2019 seem to reflect the participants’ perception of the setbacks of the Umbrella Movement. Second, both movements were participative performances that mobilized cultural frames to act out new forms of civic identity and community deliberation. While they may have struggled to translate into structured political movements (although new parties and political groups did emerge in the wake of both), they represent a shared political experience for one or several generations, whose traces have transformed political culture in both territories. Works Cited Chen Wan-chi, Chang Heng-hao, and Huang Su-Jen. 2016. “Wangluo shehui yundong shidai de lailin? Taiyanghua yundong canyuzhe de renji liandai yu shequn meiti yinsu chutan” [The coming of networked social movements? Social ties and social media in the Sunflower Movement]. Renwen ji shehui kexue jikan [Journal of social sciences and philosophy] 28, no. 4: 467–501. Cheng, Edmund W. 2016. “Street Politics in a Hybrid Regime: The Diffusion of Political Activism in Postcolonial Hong Kong.” The China Quarterly 266 (June): 383–406. Cheng, Edmund W., and Wai-Yin Chan. 2017. “Explaining Spontaneous Occupation: Antecedents, Contingencies and Spaces in the Umbrella Movement.” Social Movement Studies 16, no. 2: 222–39. Chua, Beng Huat, ed. 2017. Inter-Referencing East Asian Occupy Movements. Special issue, International Journal of Cultural Studies 20, no. 2 (March): 121–33. Cole, J. Michael. 2015. Black Island: Two Years of Activism in Taiwan. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace. Davis, Michael C. 2015. “The Basic Law, Universal Suffrage, and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong.” Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 38, no. 2: 275–97. Eyerman, Ron, and Andrew Jamison. 1991. Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Fell, Dafydd, ed. 2017. Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou: From the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers. London: Routledge. Flood, Catherine, and Gavin Grindon, eds. 2014. Disobedient Objects. London: Victoria and Albert Publishing. Hioe, Brian. 2018. “Timeline.” Daybreak Project [interactive encyclopedia and oral history archive of the Sunflower Movement]. https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/07/26/timeline-317-to-322. Ho, Ming-sho. 2015. “Occupy Congress in Taiwan: Political Opportunity, Threat, and the Sunflower Movement.” Journal of East Asian Studies 15, no. 1: 69–97.

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———. 2019. Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hou, Jeffrey, and Sabine Knierbein, eds. 2017. City Unsilenced: Urban Resistance and Public Space in the Age of Shrinking Democracy. London: Routledge. Hsiao, Hsin-Huang Michael, and Po-San Wan. 2018. “The Student-Led Movements of 2014 and Public Opinion: A Comparison of Taiwan and Hong Kong.” Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 3, no. 1: 61–80. Hsu, Szu-chien. 2017. “The China Factor and Taiwan’s Civil Society Organizations in the Sunflower Movement: The Case of the Democratic Front against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement.” In Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou: From the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers, edited by Dafydd Fell, 134–53. London: Routledge. Jianmin jiefang qu xuanyan. 2014. “Jianmin jiefangqu xuanyan” [Manifesto of the Pariah Liberation Area]. www.facebook.com/notes/賤民解放區/​ 賤民解放區宣言/691268437581421. Posted 1 April 2014. English translation, Daybreak. https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/07/21/ manifesto-untouchables-liberation-area. Jones, Brian Christopher, ed. 2017. Law and Politics of the Taiwan Sunflower and Hong Kong Umbrella Movements. London: Routledge. Kaeding, Malte Philipp. 2015. “Resisting Chinese Influence: Social Movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan.” Current History 114, no. 773 (September): 210–16. Lam, Wai-man, and Luke Cooper, eds. 2018. Citizenship, Identity, and Social Movements in the New Hong Kong: Localism after the Umbrella Movement. London: Routledge. Lee, C. K., and Ming Sing, eds. 2019. Take Back Our Future: An Eventful Sociology of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lee, Francis L. F., and Joseph M. Chan. 2018. Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era: The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lee, Francis L. F., Samson Yuen, Gary Tang, and Edmund W. Cheng. 2019. “Hong Kong’s Summer of Uprising: From Anti-Extradition to Anti-Authoritarian Protests.” China Review 19, no. 4 (November): 1–32. Lin Lih-Yun. 2016. “Taiyanghua yundong zhong Taida xinwensuo xuesheng zai ‘E luntan’ de shijian” [The practices of students at “NTU E-News Forum” in the Sunflower Movement]. Chuanbo yanjiu yu shijian [Journal of communication research and practice] 6, no. 1: 251–69. Ma Ngok and Edmund W. Cheng, eds. 2019. The Umbrella Movement: Civil Resistance and Contentious Space in Hong Kong. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. McAdam, Doug, and Sidney Tarrow. 2018. “The Political Context of Social Movements.” In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 2nd ed.,

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16Introduction edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Holly J. McCammon, 19–42. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Melucci, Alberto. 1985. “The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements.” Social Research 52, no. 4 (Winter): 789–816. Rowen, Ian. 2015. “Inside Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: Twenty-four Days in a Student-Occupied Parliament and the Future of the Region.” Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 1 (February): 5–21. Sewell, William H., Jr. 1996. “Three Temporalities: Toward an Eventful Sociology.” In The Historical Turn in the Human Sciences, edited by Terrence J. McDonald, 245–80. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Veg, Sebastian. 2015. “Legalistic and Utopian: Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.” New Left Review 92 (March/April): 55–73. ———. 2016. “Creating a Textual Public Space: Slogans and Texts from Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.” Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 3 (August): 673–702. Wright, Teresa. 2001. The Perils of Protest: State Repression and Student Activism in China and Taiwan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Yuen, Samson. 2018. “Contesting Middle-Class Civility: Place-Based Collective Identity in Hong Kong’s Occupy Mongkok.” Social Movement Studies 17, no. 4: 393–407. Yuen, Samson, and Edmund W. Cheng. 2017. “Neither Repression nor Concession? A Regime’s Attrition against Mass Protests.” Political Studies 65, no. 3: 611–30.

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ONE

Movement Leadership under a Polycentric Protest Structure

EDMUND W. CHENG

With catchy labels such as “Twitter Uprising” and “Facebook Revolution,” the social movements that have occurred since the 2010s have fueled an expanding body of literature on how digital communication technologies play a central role in modern-day protests around the globe. In theorizing this emerging organizational form, Manuel Castells (2015) coined the term networked social movements to characterize contentious actions that occur through Internet social networks and in occupied urban spaces. Often triggered spontaneously by indignation, these movements operate through multimodal and horizontal networks, both online and off-line, forming a space of autonomy that facilitates cooperation and solidarity, encourages deliberation, aims at cultural changes, and undermines the need for formal leadership. While they are rarely planned and programmatic in terms of their demands, they are highly reflective in that protesters constantly interrogate themselves on who they are and what they want to achieve. While Castells’s theorization seems to mirror protesters’ idealistic vision of leaderless movements, Bennett and Segerberg (2013) provide a more operationalized conceptualization of contentious action logics. The authors characterize the action logic observed in recent protests around the globe as “crowd-enabled connective actions,” which occur through the adjoining of individuals and the sharing of personalized content through digital networks. These scholars contrast these movements with conventional ­“organization-centered and brokered collective actions,” which are organized by leaders through collective frames and through organization affiliations. By recognizing the pivotal role of digital communication technologies in contentious politics, these conceptualizations have resulted in many scholarly works showing how social media is a powerful tool for mobilizing the public. “Networked social movements” or “crowd-enabled connective actions” reduce the transaction costs of communication and

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enable an “information cascade” such that the free-riding problem—the classic obstacle of organizing collective actions—can be overcome (Earl et al. 2013). These information cascades also facilitate deliberative, participatory politics during the movements (Maharawal 2013) while expanding the repertoires available for action (Earl and Kimport 2011). Moreover, despite the prevalence of personalized frames, these cascades still help to foster the production of a collective identity (Monterde et al. 2015), for example, through the use of hashtags (Bonilla and Rosa 2015). Other scholars are more skeptical. Some argue that while social media is used for political discussion and to communicate protest information, it is not deeply involved in the calls for participation (Theocharis et al. 2015). Digitally mediated protests also face the problem of sustainability (Juris 2012), because protesters disaggregate as easily as they aggregate. Moreover, by acting as echo chambers, social media can have a polarizing effect on protesters and society at large (Yardi and Boyd 2010), leading to the problem of “cyberbalkanization” (Chan and Fu 2017). Social media may also lead to “slacktivism,” which occurs when people merely support causes on the Internet but do not resort to tangible and physical actions (Morozov 2011). In contrast, governments, which are often the target of protests, have learned to make use of social media to divide and demonize protesters, black out communication, monitor citizens, and mobilize counter-movements (Lynch 2011; Yuen and Cheng 2017). These studies not only show how social media serves as a double-edged sword for collective actions, but also enrich our understanding of how it has constituted modern-day protests. However, the problem with focusing on social media is that protests are analytically recast as fundamentally communicative acts that simplify the complex nature of contentious politics. As these protests are greatly influenced and mediated by digital communication technologies, it is easy to forget that their distinctive organizational and spatial dimensions are just as important for their connective nature. In protests such as Israel’s J14 and Spain’s Indignados movements, multiple protest camps emerged across each country and carried on for a protracted period of time, creating spatially decentralized dynamics and unique place-based features (Sassen 2011; Juris 2012; Marom 2013; Schipper 2017). As Castells (2015) also emphasizes, social movements are networked at different levels and in multimodal forms. It is crucial, therefore, to analyze the connective nature of protests more comprehensively. The emphasis on the communicative aspect has also led scholars to put the analytical focus more on the protesters and less on movement leaders or social movement organizations (SMOs). Despite protesters’ ideological embrace of leaderless and decentralized organizational forms, in

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reality, movement leaders still exist, whether formally or informally. In Paolo Gerbaudo’s words, “contemporary social movements do have their own ‘choreographers’ and these choreographers are not identical with the ‘dancers’ or participants” (2018, 159). Examples are not difficult to find. In Ukraine during the Euromaidan Revolution, even though the protest was widely claimed to be self-mobilized and leaderless, “commandants” had been appointed to lead the protest as spokespeople and negotiators with the government, and some of them were even appointed as government ministers after the movement successfully ousted the incumbent president. In Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising, prominent activists such as Wael Ghonim and Ahmed Maher were the de facto leaders as a result of their fame and active role on the Internet (Gerbaudo 2018, 164). In short, truly leaderless movements are rare, and even if movements claim to be so, powerful informal leaders could dominate, as Jo Freeman (1972) observes in the women’s movement. The role of movement leaders is especially salient for protests in authoritarian contexts for the sake of strategic ­decision-making, where the ultimate goal of the movements is often to democratize the political system or to remove the incumbent dictators rather than merely to induce value changes. Bringing Leadership Back In Despite the effacement and denigration of the role of movement leaders, they are still of critical importance to social movements. Leaders play a significant role in different stages of the mobilization process: they articulate the vision and ideology (Hanisch 2001); they recognize, act on, and create political opportunities (Goldstone 2001; Morris and Staggenborg 2004); they frame the issues and collective identity (Benford and Snow 2000); and they devise movement strategies (Gansz 2000); among many other actions. Nevertheless, even before the rise of crowd-enabled connective actions, leadership received relatively little attention in the study of contentious politics. One reason for this deficiency is the structural bias of mainstream social movement theories. Leaders are often considered to be part of the larger political structure or the instruments for enforcing structural, cultural, and rational imperatives (Aminzade et al. 2001). Even in resource mobilization theories that give more analytical weight to agency, few analyses are devoted to understanding how leaders engage in strategic ­decision-making and how that influences movement dynamics and outcomes. Another reason is that leaders are difficult to clearly define (Earl 2007). Leaders are not necessarily recognized by movement actors

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as leaders, and they also do not necessarily command authority. There can also be different types of leaders in a single movement; some may be formally endorsed by participants, while others informally exercise their power. Although scholars have sought to circumvent the definitional problem by suggesting new ways to conceptualize leaders in terms of their actual tasks and skills (Aminzade et al. 2001; Ganz 2010; Earl 2007), systematic and empirical efforts to understand the role of movement leaders in protests remain surprisingly scant. The emergence of networked movements has made the study of movement leaders particularly timely and important. How do movement leaders make claims and devise strategies in times of decentralized public space occupation? How do they represent and respond to their diverse constituencies when the latter are connected on different organizational and spatial dimensions? More importantly, echoing the inquiry of Aminzade et al. (2001), how do the interactions among movement leaders, government officials, and regular protesters shape the course and outcome of contentious politics? In this chapter, I follow Morris and Staggenborg (2004) in defining movement leaders as “strategic decision makers who inspire and organize others to participate in social movements.” I also see movement leaders, despite being strategic agents, as actors operating within political opportunity structures, yet interacting with unique organizational ecology. By doing so, I hope to avoid the simple conclusion that better decision-making would lead to movement success or that connective actions always produce weak leadership. I also align with Lee and Chan’s (2018) observation that many modern-day protests have blended the protest logics of old organizational-driven collective action and new digitally enabled connective actions. Organizational and Spatial Dynamics Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement (2014) is a prominent example of hybrid collective and connective actions. The movement was a popular protest that spontaneously erupted against concrete government decisions made by China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), which placed various restrictions on the election of the chief executive in Hong Kong. Revising the government’s 31 August Decision became the collective claim that unified most protesters (Lee and Chan 2018). The so-called original intention (chuzhong 初衷) was embedded but also vague. Thus, the protest leaders disagreed on how to interpret it and whether the boundary of contention should involve simply addressing the instrumental claims that sparked the movement or more motivational or structural claims regarding the deep-rooted causes.

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To address the political upheavals, the Hong Kong government responded hastily by sending in riot police, who used tear gas, water cannons, and batons to disband the occupiers. These repressive actions did not disperse the crowd but instead backfired, drawing hundreds of thousands of indignant citizens onto the streets, which resulted in a seventy-nine-day  occupation. Several on-site surveys distributed at different periods of the occupation found that while approximately 25 to 35 percent of the participants were stalwart protesters, the majority of them were newcomers. These newcomers thus had little trust in and loyalty toward traditional SMOs (Cheng and Chan 2017; Ma and Cheng 2019). While the state, mass media, and occupiers identified several students as the formal leaders, these students had to consult with the informal leaders and their on-site and online communities before making any strategic moves. The spontaneous outbreak and mass participation caused a divergence between the leaders’ legitimacy as representatives and their authority to enforce strategies. These decentralized protest structures and networked spaces became the manifestations of “crowd-enabled connective action.” However, spontaneous outbreaks along with prolonged public space occupations also attracted worldwide media attention and allowed many young protest leaders to become symbols of the movement. For instance, Joshua Wong made the cover of Time and Alex Chow was seen on many local and international media outlets. While these individuals had already established organizational linkages with SMOs and political parties during Hong Kong’s Anti–National Education Movement (2012), their leadership was contested until the media designated them as the “faces of democracy” with the legitimacy to represent or the authority to coordinate other SMOs and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The organizational and spatial dynamics encountered by these mediadesignated protest leaders limited their decision-making power. In Hong Kong, a networked yet polycentric protest structure soon emerged at three protest sites, where media-designated formal leaders and “place-based” informal leaders were forced to work together to inspire the wider populace, sharing mobilization resources, analyzing real-time information, and coordinating logistics during the occupation. However, these two groups of leaders were largely divided between functional and operational roles. The former was largely purpose-oriented, whereas the latter was taskdriven. This division in roles produced different interpretations regarding the legitimate constituencies within and beyond the protest sites and reinforced the standoff despite the clear trend of decreased public support over time (Yuen 2018).

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Leaders, Claims, and the Boundaries of Contention Table 1.1 outlines the major claims of the Umbrella Movement and the protest leaders. Although these claims are not entirely contradictory, they differ in aim, scope, and priority, reflecting the division between the media-designated and place-enabled movement leaders, affecting their protest repertoires and defining what constituted success. The Umbrella Movement spontaneously erupted following a government decision that placed various restrictions on the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive. The instrumental claim (see table 1.1), which united the largest number of protesters, merely aimed to overturn the government decision. In addition, the Umbrella Movement featured a second-level claim that aimed to attribute the unpopular government decisions to the regime structure. As indicated in one of the largest on-site surveys, 86.4 percent of the protesters in the Umbrella Movement were motivated to participate in the protest by the claim “demand genuine universal suffrage” (Cheng and Chan 2017). While this motivational claim soon constrained the protest leaders, what qualified as “genuine universal suffrage” remained contested. Although veteran pan-democrats could settle for allowing the opposition to act as candidates, the young student activists insisted that the civil nomination was a formal procedure that had to be included when selecting the chief executive candidates. As the Umbrella Movement evolved into standoffs and fragmented into different spaces, the disagreement over the structural claim gradually caused division among the protest leaders (Ho 2019). The media-­ designated movement leaders either worked with the authorities or mobilized their supporters to stick with the former two relatively concrete and achievable claims. However, the place-enabled leaders, as well as the localist groups (i.e., Civic Passion and Hong Kong Resurgence in Hong Kong), insisted on addressing the deep-rooted causes of global capitalism and identity politics amid China’s capital and authoritarian encroachments. As such, these groups preferred the term revolution and engaged in more militant actions against the authorities. To examine when and how organizational and spatial dimensions shape the decision-making process and strategies of movement leaders, this chapter has adopted a mixed-method approach. First, I conducted seventeen semistructured interviews in Hong Kong with formal leaders— who had organizational affiliations and broad social recognition to define agendas and make decisions—as well as informal leaders—who earned their legitimacy through mobilization and performance at the protest sites or on social media platforms and were actively involved in the decisionmaking process. Second, I performed participant observation during

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Table 1.1 The Leaders and Their Associated Claims of the Umbrella Movement Protest Claims

Leaders’ Positions

Instrumental

Against the NPCSC’s 8.31 Decision (fandui Renda 831 反對人大 831)

Agreed upon by all parties in the five-party platform

Motivational

Demand genuine universal suffrage (Wo yao zhenpuxuan 我要真普選)

The leaders disagreed on the definition of universal suffrage

Structural

Anti-mainlandization (kangju daluhua 抗拒大陸化)

Supported by informal leaders but contested by formal leaders

Source: Interviews with protest leaders, Hong Kong, October 2014. See also Ma and Cheng (2019, 11).

various episodes of deliberation between the formal and informal leaders and their functional networks and perceived constituencies. Third, I determined the frequency of the protest claims by various SMOs on Facebook to analyze whether the change in online opinions corresponded to strategic actions or inactions of the movement leaders. Finally, at the protest sites, preliminary discussions and information dissemination were made possible by the use of semiexclusive platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram. Due to ethical considerations, I did not report these conversations, but they nonetheless helped me identify the sequence of the ­decision-making process and verify the reliability of the informants’ personal accounts. Movement Leadership under a Polycentric Protest Structure The Umbrella Movement took over the long-planned Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), a civil disobedience campaign initiated by law professor Benny Tai Yiu-ting in January 2013. Coined the “most lethal weapon,” the OCLP served as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Beijing’s authorities over the implementation of universal suffrage in Hong Kong in accordance with international standards. Protesters planned to block roads to paralyze the city’s financial district until the police removed them in an orderly fashion. At most, planners anticipated ten thousand participants over a three-day campaign. However, after students stormed Civic Square on 26 September and the police fired tear gas to disperse

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them on 28 September, the organized campaign turned into a spontaneous occupation. Attracting approximately 1.2 million participants, the occupation added two new protest sites and extended the demonstrations for another two and a half months (Cheng and Chan 2017). This spontaneous mass occupation created the image of a self-­organized and nonhierarchical movement. The slogan “no central command, only the masses” (沒有大台,只有群眾) became the modus operandi that pro­ democracy politicians, activists, and occupiers broadcasted. At occupied sites, leaders and protesters were networked through peer-to-peer messaging services such as WhatsApp, FireChat, and Telegram and were seen as having valor through the use of innovative repertoires, which allowed for the fusion of functional and operational roles that sustained the decentralized protests (Veg 2016). On online platforms, protest communities were connected through social media such as Facebook and YouTube, discussion forums, and citizen-based media platforms, which facilitated the sharing of real-time information and the expression of diverse political views (Bennett and Segerberg 2013; Lee and Chan 2016a). Despite the absence of central leadership, the organizational structure of the Umbrella Movement was not leaderless. On the one hand, a formal decision-making body known as the five-party platform (wufang pingtai 五方平台) was established to represent the student organizations. This included: (1) the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS); (2) Scholarism, the original organizers; (3) the cofounders of OCLP; and veteran leaders, including (4) pan-democrat political parties and (5) prodemocracy NGOs. While the five parties largely represented mainstream political factions, they omitted localists such as People Power, Civic Passion, and the Hong Kong Resurgence Order, which had been increasingly vocal on social media and were influential among the youth. The body was also stationed at both the Mongkok protest site and the central command of the formal leaders at the Admiralty protest site (Yuen 2018). On the other hand, these different self-organized groups served as the impromptu centers of influence connecting protesters who had little organizational allegiance but helped carry out enormous operational tasks. Spatially, these self-organized groups can be divided into periphery defense teams and insider supply stations. Whereas the former guarded the protest sites, monitored the frontline barracks, patrolled for suspicious persons, and negotiated with the police and transportation companies, the latter reallocated supplies, recruited volunteers, and arranged activities. In late October, the informal leaders at the protest sites were admitted as the sixth party. Because of these coordinated voluntary actions, the protest sites did not descend into chaos even when the state suspended public services,

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including policing, health care, and garbage removal. Whereas the formal leaders played functional roles in framing the protest and negotiating with authorities, the self-organized groups performed the daily operations and spatial arrangements. Similar to what occurred in occupy movements worldwide, the Umbrella Movement’s horizontal and volunteer participants sustained the occupation through the use of networked digital activism and aggregating autonomous individuals (Juris 2012; Castells 2015). While the movement itself may have been horizontal in manifestation, the leadership of the protest featured clear hierarchical structures within their own organizations. The HKFS, the most widely accepted leader, operated by consensus among its eight constituent universities. Even Joshua Wong, who appeared to be a charismatic leader, was subject to a significant degree of checks and balances within Scholarism. In this light, this polycentric protest structure resulted in more disputes than connections and shaped the dynamics and outcomes of the movement. First, the structure separated the protest leaders into formal and informal factions holding varied degrees of decision-making legitimacy and veto power authority; second, it produced multifaceted loyalties and identities for protesters sharing different functional and operational roles; and finally it shifted the protest goal from revising the government’s decision to sustaining the decentralized occupation to reinventing a (fragmented) collective identity. The Umbrella protest leaders were consistently confronted with the dilemma of collective action; connective interactions with informal leaders emerged at the three protest sites, and radical political factions dominated social media. This polycentric protest structure amplified the differences in the claims, constituencies, and repertoires of the movement leadership and shaped the trajectories of protest dynamics. Contested Organizational Structure Generally, each protest event in post-2003 Hong Kong was organized by one SMO that was then assisted by other SMOs, political parties, and NGOs.1 The protest leadership therefore knew their core members and allies and had earned their trust and support. Because the Umbrella Movement was spontaneous and operated on a new scale in terms of protest participation, the media-designated leaders were simply unprepared for taking up the leadership role. Embedded in the memories of prior protests, organizational networks became the legitimate medium for determining what should be achieved, 1 

This refers to the issue-specific protest event rather than the annual rallies and vigils. See Cheng (2016) for details.

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how to negotiate, and whom to trust. Generational differences regarding the answers to these questions soon spawned severe tension among the leaders of the five-party platform. While the HKFS and Scholarism continued to possess the authority for final decision-making, the OCLP, the pan-democrats, and NGOs respectively were responsible for the moral legitimacy, external access, and mobilization resources that were essential for sustaining the occupation. Hence, the groups had to work with one another, but they were also motivated to seek advice and support from their organizational networks to obtain reliable information and make tactical decisions. At the high tide of the movement during late September and early October, the international media had already noted the similarities between the Umbrella Movement and the Tiananmen protests.2 To both the veteran democrats and young protest leaders, the Tiananmen protests represented a turning point in prodemocracy movements, illustrating how dissentients could challenge a hegemonic state power through appropriating the use of public space (Hershkovitz 1993). However, the veteran democrats also regarded the Tiananmen protests as a tragedy involving the protracted process of a standoff and, ultimately, bloodshed. The veterans’ deep personal involvements at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and their more than two-decade-long mourning for the June Fourth events that took place at Victoria Park helped them to consider the consequences of massive student-led movements. The “lesson of June Fourth” was often simplified to the tragic outcome associated with the protests in the square, where the radicals replaced the moderates (guangchang zhengzhi 廣場政治), and that oppression was inevitable (Cheng and Yuen 2019). This collective memory shared by the veteran politicians and NGO activists motivated them to resist escalation and arrange for a strategic retreat in the Umbrella Movement from the onset.3 In contrast, many student protest leaders were inspired by the student altruism and democratic values displayed at Tiananmen Square. A more nuanced memory of staging democracy instead of avoiding oppression was created of the movement, which was evident in the artworks and slogans at the protest sites (Esherick and Wasserstrom 1990; Veg 2016). Moreover, the student leaders were also embedded in a personalized and fresh memory of the eventful protests in Hong Kong and abroad (Cheng 2016; Lee and Sing 2019). The leaders of the HKFS had engaged in direct action 2  See, for instance, “Hong Kong Protests: Echoes of Tiananmen,” BBC, 2 October 2014; “Will Hong Kong Protests End Like Tiananmen Square Did?” NBC, 3 October 2014. 3  Interviews, pan-democratic legislators, November 2014; protest leaders, October 2014.

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including the siege of the Legislative Council in 2010 and were attracted by the potential of crowd-enabled connective actions around the world, which constituted the collective memory of protests for a new generation of protesters. The leaders of Scholarism, in particular, managed to mobilize a lengthy occupation of Civic Square and gain territory-wide support during the Anti–National Education Movement, which forced the government to concede. The student leaders thus had a much higher tolerance of radical repertoires and higher expectations regarding the protest’s outcome.4 A number of claim-making and strategic-action plans were developed under such fragmented leadership. Similar to other decentralized protests, the different groups explored all kinds of options to pressure the authorities. Some localist groups considered occupying Golden Bauhinia Square on 1 October (National Day) to protest the national sovereign and to instigate the identity claim; some student leaders proposed occupying the Legislative Council, as inspired by the Sunflower Movement, to paralyze government operations and distinguish the regime’s soft-liners from the hard-liners. Several politicians scheduled boycotts to wreck economic activities and increase their leverage against the business sector (Umbrella People 2015). However, after consulting with association members, the NGOs in the five-party platform conveyed that they lacked the capacity to mobilize citywide school boycotts or worker strikes.5 The majority of the pan-democrats found that their constituents were antagonized by police brutality but also demanded the restoration of law and order and thus feared public opinion might soon turn against the occupation.6 Meanwhile, the police were repeatedly seen moving tear gas and rubber bullets into the government’s headquarters between 29 September and 1 October. Rumors about the use of rubber bullets and the intent to dispatch the People’s Liberation Army were widespread in digital communications. In an e-mail sent to over one hundred academics and politicians on 30 September, Law Chi-kwong, an academic and a moderate pan-democrat who had good access to the special administrative region (SAR) government, asked his friends “in tears” to retreat, as his insider source at the apex of the hierarchy had revealed to him that an ultimatum for “imminent action” had been issued. 4  The OCLP’s leaders, who had the same memories as the veteran democrats but emphasized democratic deliberation during their preparation for Occupy Central, were perpetually caught in the dilemma of avoiding state suppression and ensuring territory-wide legitimacy. 5  Interviews, Scholarism leaders, November 2014. 6  Interviews, OCLP leaders, October 2014.

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Due to the different memories of prior protests and asymmetric information, the student leaders tended to interpret the leaks as a bluff.7 However, to be accountable to the well-being of the occupiers, they compromised with the veterans and agreed to restrain from taking any action that would lead to state suppression. For example, Scholarism launched a human chain outside Golden Bauhinia Square to prevent protesters from entering and disrupting the official ceremony held on National Day. The HKFS then issued a relatively mild ultimatum (as follows) on behalf of the protest leaders on 2 October, which served to define the claims and the issues of contention.8 1. Chief Executive C. Y. Leung has lost the people’s trust and has no legitimacy to govern; 2. Constitutional reform is [the] only agendum to be discussed in the student-government dialogue; 3. Equal political rights should be established and genuine universal suffrage and democracy should be implemented; 4. Under the framework of “one country, two systems,” Hong Kong issues shall be settled in Hong Kong, and political issues shall be settled politically. On the second point, the 2 October ultimatum did not address the demand to reject the NPCSC’s 31 August Decision, but instead replaced it with more vague constitutional reform. On the third point, the demand that the chief executive candidate be selected by civic nomination, which had appeared in the HKFS’s and Scholarism’s statements since the school boycotts and was framed as a precondition for ensuring genuine democracy, was also removed. On the fourth point, by limiting the boundary of contention to Hong Kong, the protest leaders implicitly promised that they would not spread protests to mainland China. According to an NGO representative and an HKFS leader who had participated in the decisionmaking, the statement was not drafted by any of the members of the fiveparty platform, but instead was proposed by two academics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Many student leaders were still under detention [after the storming of Civic Square]. The statement was circulated and discussed via Whats­ App. . . . ​Except for the Democratic Party, none of the others were very supportive of the statement. But none of us were utterly against it. People 7  8 

WhatsApp messages, which were widely reported in the press at the time. See the HKFS’s archives.

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were busy to brief the press, talk to our associations’ members, and find ways to avoid repression. . . . ​Thinking back, [the decision was] unsatisfactory as outsiders seemed to have fed us the terms in the ultimatum.9

One of the OCLP’s cofounders stated that a middleman connected to Beijing relayed a message to him on 3 October, saying that the central authorities had formulated a “no concession, no bloodshed” policy before announcing their decision in the New York Times.10 Another veteran pandemocrat said that on the same date, the chief executive also responded to the ultimatum and appointed the chief secretary, Carrie Lam, to conduct a dialogue with the students. This trajectory echoed the New York Times insider source that Beijing was the ultimate decision maker. While there is insufficient evidence to suggest that the regime fully acknowledged the protest leaders’ options and preferences, the leaders’ memories of protests and the organizational network helped the regime to make a sound adjustment. Meanwhile, the protest leaders of the HKFS and OCLP were considered to be middlemen; former activists working in the government and professors from the University of Hong Kong were used to relate the terms during the dialogue. The pan-democrats solicited insider information to learn who in the government was trustworthy and whether the division in Hong Kong reflected a division in Beijing. However, a series of organized and contentious events effectively postponed the dialogue to 21 October and indicated that the protesters could not capitalize on this division, if it ever existed. On the one side, the proregime groups launched countermovements and applied court injunctions, the triads assaulted the Mongkok occupiers, the police beat activists, and the chief secretary refused to let Joshua Wong and other members of Scholarism participate in the dialogue.11 The day before the scheduled dialogue, the High Court granted preliminary injunctions to clear the protest sites. On the other side, these events antagonized the protesters and forced the protest leaders to take a more rigid stance. While the veterans insisted that they must explore a split with the regime, these events caused the youth to doubt whether the typology of the hard-liners and soft-liners was meaningful or whether it was artificially constructed to absorb the leaders’ energy and stall the protest’s momentum.12 9 

Interview, OCLP cofounder, 15 July 2016. K. Bradsher and C. Buckley, “Beijing Is Directing Hong Kong Strategy, Government Insiders Say,” New York Times, 17 October 2014. 11  For a timeline of the events of the Umbrella Movement, see Ma and Cheng (2019, appendix 1). 12  Interviews, OCLP, HKFS, Scholarism leaders, October through December 2014. 10 

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Before the government-student dialogue that occurred on 21 October, it was agreed that both sides would demonstrate the desire to end the standoff. The SAR government promised to submit a report to the central government that outlined public opinion regarding constitutional reform in exchange for the students’ acknowledgment of the good faith of the softliners. To the OCLP middlemen and the SAR government, the dialogue was a symbolic attempt at increasing their leverage in future negotiations. The leaders of the HKFS had to achieve concrete concessions before they could convince the occupiers to return home. The middlemen walked away, whereas the students were saluted as heroes at the main stage of the Admiralty. The conflict between the youths and veterans in the protest leadership further intensified. Some of the young leaders were convinced that they might have missed the opportunity to escalate the protest when its momentum was high, whereas the veterans regretted that they gave up proactivity and voluntarily retreated when the regime was divided. Because these fundamental differences were not resolved, the televised dialogue failed to reach any consensus. “Hard-liners” refers to those individuals who adopted a legalistic framing that stressed the political instability and economic costs associated with what they saw as unlawful occupation. For instance, the chief executive suggested he possessed evidence that protests leaders were financed by foreign forces aiming to subvert the Chinese regime. The police commissioner also backed his frontline commanders’ use of coercive tactics against protestors.13 In contrast, “soft-liners” are individuals who took a grievance framing that recognized that deep-rooted causes such as social immobility and ineffective consultation led to this unprecedented occupation. The chief secretary, for instance, told protestors that since the movement had successfully aroused civic and political awareness, they should abandon protest sites to engage in consultative dialogues with the government. The financial secretary also proposed the delivery of action programs and supported the realization of the government-student dialogue on 24 October.14 Unlike as shown in the transitology literature, where conflicts among the ruling elite gradually pave the way to regime instability and change (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986), both hard-liners and soft-liners in Hong Kong observed the boundaries set by Beijing authorities and hence could not offer meaningful concession to the protestors. In other words, the 13 

“Three Clowns of the ‘Occupy Central’ Can Escape from Hong Kong but Not Responsibilities,” Ta Kung Pao, 29 October 2014; interview, HKFS leaders, March 2015. 14  “Occupy Central: Full Coverage of Student-Government Talks,” South China Morning Post, 21 October 2014; Interviews, OCLP leaders, July 2016.

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Hong Kong government was not the final arbiter in the negotiation; it had to observe the central government’s interests and interference. The presence of a higher power in Hong Kong but not in Taiwan limited the options available to the elites and limited the protestors’ trust in the authorities’ capacity to honor the deal. This difference structurally shaped the diverse outcomes of the two movements even though they shared similar levels of mass mobilization. Nonetheless, the recognition from the state, media, and masses granted the protest leaders the legitimacy and authority to lead an unprecedented occupation for which they were cognitively and organizationally unprepared. Clearly, the autonomy and responsibility they enjoyed are markedly different from the ideal form of crowd-enabled connective action. Movement leadership, in this regard, concerns not only how past protest events—or, more precisely, the contrasting memories of the veterans and the young leaders—had shaped interpretations of the best strategic options, but also how existing organizational networks and divisions came into being, which, in turn, had been deepened by the regime’s appropriation. Fragmented Spatial Contingencies In the face of a postdialogue situation where the concession of the regime was infeasible and when most of the occupiers had refused to give up, the Umbrella Movement entered the stage of a standoff (Cai 2016). A majority of the public, which was sympathetic to the protesters in October, turned to demand a strategic retreat or a restoration of order. Still, a significant minority continued to support the occupation throughout the movement (Ho 2019, 137). Under this dilemma, the primary aim of the movement shifted from obtaining tangible concessions and rallying mass mobilization to sustaining the occupied zones and developing a prefigurative resistance—where protestors expressed the political ends of their actions through creating alternative social arrangements and everyday resistance to spread, practice, and sustain their goals (Yates 2015). As such, the protest leaders began to identify and explore questions such as the following: who are the people (shei shi qunzhong 誰是群眾), and to whom should they be accountable? Space soon became the most reliable reference for leaders to be accountable for their respective constituencies and explore the direction of future tactics. This not only refers to the center-periphery contention between the veterans and youth leaders, but also informed the formal and informal leaders who were divided by functional and operational roles. Table 1.2 outlines the interplay between the proactive and reactive strategies. After the student-government dialogue, the formal leaders held

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Table 1.2 Conflict between the Formal and Informal Leaders of the Umbrella Movement Main conflict

Proaction by formal leaders

Counter-action by informal leaders

Center-periphery 23 October OCPL and HKFS propose an on-site referendum

25 October Informal leaders veto the referendum

Functional-­ operational

19 November A group of masked netizens storms the Legislative Council Building

15 November Pan-democrats propose a ­territory-wide civil referendum

Center-periphery 30 November 22 November HKFS calls for the siege of Groups of occupiers from the government headquarters Mongkok encircle Admiralty’s main stage Functional-­ operational

1 December 28 November Scholarism members go on a Hundreds of localists initiate hunger strike at Civic Square a “Shopping Revolution” in Mongkok

four retreats that were vetoed by the informal leaders or localists who favored more radical repertoires or holistic claims. The veteran leaders considered their constituency to be the wider public, including their supporters and voters, and hence favored a retreat as soon as possible. The youth leaders, who emphasized their moral obligation to those at the protest sites, refused to abandon the occupiers. As a compromise, they settled with an on-site referendum to explore the major demands of the occupiers and how they could be persuaded to agree to leave. However, the negotiations became so lengthy and divided that the referendum options were amended several times. Eventually, the informal leaders who formed the six-party platform vetoed the referendum on the date it was supposed to commence. Likewise, the pan-democrats’ proposal, which outlined a shift from street politics to electoral politics, was also abandoned. A clear trend was that the authority had gradually shifted in favor of the informal leaders, and the repertoires had become increasingly militant. The strategic actions and reactions were defined by the participants’ place-based identities.

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Such spatial fragmentation was derived from the different place-based identities of those involved and depended on the tensions that existed between the student leaders and informal leaders both on-site and online. The leaders of the HKFS and Scholarism who were part of the occupy movement at the Admiralty site emphasized that the movement was peaceful, rational, and nonviolent. Through coordinating with the NGOs and informal leaders, these leaders established a marshal system to arrange for talks, distribute supplies, brief the media, and guard the protest site. In contrast, the localist and informal leaders who were part of the occupy movement at the Mongkok site criticized middle-class civility and stressed the creativity and voluntarism of the grassroots movement. While this typology of ideals may obscure the complexity of the protest sites, it reflects cyberbalkanization and opinion radicalization among youths (Chan and Fu 2017). In virtual spaces, the protesters interacted with online opinions, but they were ultimately constrained by the on-site ecology. The social media postings of Civic Passion consistently called the movement the Umbrella Revolution to signify its radical claims in terms of social and institutional changes. The Facebook page of Hong Kong Resurgence advocated for militant actions at the Mongkok site to differentiate this group from those who engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience. Such opinions and actions were often dominated by radicals who might not have appreciated the threats in the field and the difficulties in negotiating with the government while insisting on their original intentions such as “inclusion for civic nomination” and “the withdrawal of the NPCSC 31 August Decision.” Anyone who attempted to deviate from these claims was attacked and considered a traitor. Although these online opinion leaders and their onsite supporters might have lacked decision-making legitimacy, they possessed “veto power” authority.15 The opinion leaders who were peripheral to the protest leadership mobilized a series of anticenter events via Facebook and WhatsApp. On 25 October, a group of occupiers rushed and reclaimed Lung Wo Road after rumors had circulated that police would soon clear the barricades near CITIC Tower following the court injunction. This spontaneous action resulted in violent confrontations. The video of this action caused public outcry and refueled the protracted occupation. On 19 November, numerous protesters stormed the Legislative Council building because of inaccurate information regarding a copyright bill nicknamed “Article 23 for the Internet” that was to be passed. Media footage showing protesters breaking glass and assaulting security guards was soon televised and 15 

Participation observation, November and December 2014.

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spread across social media both locally and globally. The leaders of the HKFS quickly condemned this violence that violated the rules of peaceful disobedience, while the localists insisted that they had been right to engage in militant action. On 22 November, dozens of protesters answered an Internet appeal to confront the undemocratic protest leadership. They marched to the main stage at the Admiralty protest site and carried placards stating, “the main stage does not represent us.” They demanded the dismissal of the marshal system established by the protest leaders aiming to maintain order, which nonetheless restricted their storming of the legislative building and other autonomous actions. While no one claimed responsibility, leaders from Civic Passion and Hong Kong Resurgence were present during the assaults and conflicts. After the clearing of the Mongkok site on 27 November, radical protesters further protested at the main stage of Admiralty through wildcat strikes. The HKFS eventually yielded to the peripheral pressure that criticized inaction and demanded escalation. On 30 November, it declared on its Facebook page that “peaceful resistance is a notion of action, not just a ‘sit-in.’”16 Thousands of protesters soon marched to the government headquarters; some were wearing helmets and shields and carried rods. After repeated confrontations, the siege resulted in the most violent episode of the movement. Dozens of protesters and seventeen police officers were injured, forty protesters were arrested, and more than sixty protesters were hospitalized. Twenty-three out of twenty-seven pan-democrat legislators publicly renounced the escalation to protect themselves from being accused of supporting violence. To avoid any further physical confrontations, the OCLP trio surrendered themselves to the police. Faced with the withdrawal of support, five Scholarism members launched a hunger strike on 1 December. This soft strategy did not restore the protest’s momentum but arguably relegitimized the nonviolent repertoire. Nonetheless, the student leaders failed to contain the radical localists through their escalation but gave up their commitment to nonviolent civil disobedience. They were then subverted by the more proactive performance of the “Shopping Revolution” in Mongkok, where the localists took the lead. In contrast, conflict was frequent and intense not only among the veterans, youths, and localist leaders but also between the peripheral defense teams and core supplier stations who acted as informal leaders. Suffering from constant police surveillance, intimidation, and enormous pressure, the peripheral groups, which were supposed to be more militant, actually supported and promoted various retreat mechanisms initiated by the 16 

“Wei zhengzong tu tanhuan zhengfu” [Surrounding the government headquarters to paralyze government operation], Mingpao, 1 December 2014.

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formal leaders. In contrast, the inner supplier groups, which were protected and hence enjoyed ample time and space, insisted on sustaining the protest. This latter group regularly interacted with the localist groups online and the militant groups at Mongkok to contest the leadership at the main stage. According to two informal leaders at station S7: We assisted the police to remove the barriers blocking Queensway to allow supply trucks to enter and park at Admiralty Center and to reduce traffic congestion in Central. It helped us to earn public sympathy and show good faith for the dialogue without intervening [at] the main protest sites at Harcourt Road. In a minute, we were encircled by groups of occupiers one after the other. Some accused us of betraying the original intention; some named us as traitors of democracy; and some of them even threw their hamburgers from McDonald’s toward us. . . . ​It was so ironic that they were able to consume hamburgers simply because the trucks were allowed to get in to reload supplies.17

Similarly, the leaders of the Barriers Team, who occupied the outskirts of the protest sites, were also overloaded and overstressed with their duties: “All of us were tired. We were working sixteen hours a day. We guarded the barriers and checked police deployment. We prevented counter-occupiers from entering and avoided occupiers fighting with them. Most of us resigned but some still kept a day-time job. We knew that the situation could not last for long. But as the guardians, we wouldn’t abandon the others but must be accountable to them” (interview, 29 November 2014). This spatial conflict illustrates the divergence between task-oriented and purpose-oriented informal leaders; the former sought concrete resolution and the maintenance of order, while the latter refused to compromise and engaged in prefigurative politics. In the end, of the 209 people arrested by the police after the Admiralty protest site was cleared on 11 December, a majority were members of the five-party platform, followed by the marshal team, the defense team, and individual occupiers. Almost none of the individuals arrested were a part of the localist and militant factions, and very few came from the supplier stations. Traces of the Umbrella Movement in the Anti-Authoritarian Protests After a period of increased crackdown and movement abeyance in the post-Umbrella period, millions of Hong Kong citizens took to the streets to demonstrate against an extradition bill that would have sent Hong Kong people charged with crimes in China to stand trial in the mainland. While 17 

Interview, informal leaders, 14 October 2014.

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new manifestations of the Anti–Extradition Bill Movement erupted in the political environment of summer 2019, they were also mediated by organizational and spatial configurations dating back to the Umbrella Movement of 2014 (Cheng 2020). The perceived failure of the seventy-nine-day public space occupation in 2014, the increased division among protest camps, and the success of the counter-mobilization efforts thereafter all played crucial roles in shaping protesters’ motivations, structure, and strategy in the present movement (Lee et al. 2019). First, in terms of motivations, although the Anti–Extradition Bill Movement originated from dissent against a single policy initiative, the protesters’ collective motivations for political reform and against the establishment illustrated the accumulated grievances toward the political system and various authoritarian encroachments in the last decade. Despite the absence of leaders to adjust protest frames and coordinate actions, protesters quickly dropped the expedient demand that called for the resignation of the major officials responsible for introducing the bill. Instead, they achieved an implicit consensus that priority should be given to investigating the police and implementing universal suffrage. The former is crucial not only for addressing the wrongdoings throughout the movement, but also for preventing Hong Kong from becoming a police state. The latter is fundamental for making the SAR government accountable to its citizens. In short, the movement evolved into one with the broader goal of resisting the authoritarian control of Hong Kong society. Second, in terms of structure, even though Beijing authorities’ hardline policy in the post-Occupy period effectively impeded traditional movement organizations and imprisoned leading activists, it also created the conditions for the rise of a leaderless organizational structure. This leaderless structure was sustained through digital media and online deliberation on Telegram and LIHKG, which also served as mobilizing platforms and information sources. These digital platforms enabled self-mobilization, sometimes of people from diverse backgrounds. Although digital platforms were crucial in facilitating self-mobilization, rapid dissemination of information and, at times, collective deliberation and self-restraint among participants, they were assisted by on-the-ground networks and facilitators that had emerged earlier. For instance, the majority of the organizers of the citywide and district rallies were politicians or activists who had been actively participating in community movements since 2014. Similarly, the student leaders and young politicians who earned territory-wide fame during the Umbrella Movement continued to be seen as the faces of the movement, who then took up a role in representing and lobbying for Hong Kong in the international arena.

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Third, in terms of strategy, the defining organizational principle, “be water,” and the associated fluidity and diversity of the tactics adopted in the Anti–Extradition Bill Movement were the antithesis of the long, static occupation in the Umbrella Movement, which stirred up discontent among the wider population and hampered the morale of the protesters. Similarly, the action protocols, “climbing mountains together, making your own effort” and “do not split, do not sever our ties,” which stressed solidarity and mutual respect between nonviolent and militant protesters, were surprisingly effective in redressing the deep and evolving divisions between the nonviolent and militant camps during and after the Umbrella Movement. These protocols helped to facilitate the coexistence of peaceful rallies and militant confrontations. Once in place, these action protocols constrained and guided the responses of the participants in the face of radical actions, such as the storming of the Legislative Council building and the seizure of airport terminals. In parallel, the diffusion of the Lennon Wall in different districts in Hong Kong was actually a materialization of the plan of “blooming flowers into the communities” that was proposed by the nonviolent camp during the Umbrella Movement. Conclusion This chapter goes beyond the dichotomy of strong versus weak movement leadership, in which strong leaders are said to be able to explore political opportunities while weak leaders cannot. The leaders of the Umbrella Movement were bought to the main stage by the unprecedented scale of the protests and then were designated as leaders by the mainstream media and social media. Embattled in spontaneous outbreaks, both groups of leaders were equally unprepared for coordinating their allies and leading the masses, who may or may not have recognized their legitimacy and authority in the spontaneous movements. The traditional collective action framework that depends on hierarchal order and resource mobilization could no longer work but gave way to dispersed organizational networks and spatial identity. The movement’s leadership and its organizational and spatial dynamics should be seen as an intervening process, one that mediates the channel for mobilization, the construction of collective frames, and the flexibility of exit options. On the one hand, the organizational networks and memories of prior protests divided the movement leaders and affected what they perceived as the best feasible strategies. On the other hand, spatial conflicts and placebased identities emerged from the protest sites and shaped the movement

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leaders’ perceptions of legitimate constituencies, divided their accountability, and gave rise to personalized frames. In this light, the leaders of the Umbrella Movement were neither weak nor uninformed. They, like the ruling elite, were constrained by the shadow of Beijing authorities, which did not have a presence in the Sunflower Movement. They achieved fewer concessions and constantly had to alter their strategies and goals not only because they were subjected to a rigid and united regime, but also because they were embedded in the hybridity of connective and collective actions, both on-site and online. Constrained by the polycentric protest structure, the Umbrella leaders enjoyed little autonomy and authority but encountered contrasting placebased constituencies and identities. A similar dilemma was amplified in the 2019 Hong Kong protests, where the protesters learned from the configurations to mediate the polycentric organizational structure to adopt a close-to-ideal leaderless movement and to adopt a fluid strategy in mitigating public space. While this leaderless movement has been conducive in terms of mobilizing collective actions and producing generalized claims, it remains futile in offering tangible alternatives as it evolves from the stage of mobilization of the masses to the state of negotiation with authorities. Works Cited Aminzade, Ron, Jack A. Goldstone, and Elizabeth J. Perry. 2001. “Leadership Dynamics and Dynamics of Contention.” In Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, edited by Ron Aminzade, 126–54. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Barker, Colin, Alan Johnson, and Michael Lavalette, eds. 2001. Leadership and Social Movements. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Benford, Robert D., and David A. Snow. 2000. “Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment.” Annual Review of Sociology 26, no. 1: 611–39. Bennett, W. Lance, and Alexandra Segerberg. 2013. The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Bonilla, Yarimar, and Jonathan Rosa. 2015. “#Ferguson: Digital Protest, Hashtag Ethnography, and the Racial Politics of Social Media in the United States.” American Ethnologist 42, no. 1: 4–17. Cai, Yongshun. 2016. The Occupy Movement in Hong Kong: Sustaining Decentralized Protest. New York: Routledge. Castells, Manuel. 2015. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

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Chan, Chung-hong, and King-wa Fu. 2017. “The Relationship between Cyberbalkanization and Opinion Polarization: Time-Series Analysis on Facebook Pages and Opinion Polls during the Hong Kong Occupy Movement and the Associated Debate on Political Reform.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 22, no. 5: 266–83. Cheng, Edmund W. 2016. “Street Politics in a Hybrid Regime: The Diffusion of Political Activism in Post-Colonial Hong Kong.” China Quarterly 226: 383–406. ———. 2020. “United Front Work and the Mechanisms of Counter-Mobilization in Hong Kong.” China Journal 83: 1–33. Cheng, Edmund W., and Wai-yin Chan. 2017. “Explaining Spontaneous Occupation: Antecedents, Contingencies and Space in the Umbrella Movement.” Social Movement Studies 16, no. 2: 222–39. Cheng, Edmund W., and Samson Yuen. 2019. “Memory in Movement: Collective Identity and Memory Contestation in Hong Kong’s Tiananmen Vigils.” Mobilization 24, no. 4: 419–437. Earl, Jennifer. 2007. “Leading Tasks in a Leaderless Movement: The Case of Strategic Voting.” American Behavioral Scientist 50, no. 10: 1327–49. Earl, Jennifer, and Katrina Kimport. 2011. Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Earl, Jennifer, Heather McKee Hurwitz, Analicia Mejia Mesinas, Margaret Tolan, and Ashley Arlotti. 2013. “This Protest Will Be Tweeted: Twitter and Protest Policing during the Pittsburgh G20.” Information, Communication and Society 16, no. 4: 459–78. Esherick, Joseph W., and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. 1990. “Acting Out Democracy: Political Theater in Modern China.” Journal of Asian Studies 49, no. 4: 835–65. Freeman, Jo. 1972. “The Tyranny of Structurelessness.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 17: 151–65. Ganz, Marshall. 2000. “Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California Agriculture, 1959–1966.” American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 4: 1003–62. ———. 2010. “Leading Change: Leadership, Organization, and Social Movements.” In Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, edited by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana, 1–42. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press. Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2018. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press. Goldstone, Jack A. 2001. “Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory.” Annual Review of Political Science 4, no. 1: 139–87. Hanisch, Carol. 2001. “Struggles over Leadership in the Women’s Liberation Movement.” In Leadership and Social Movements, edited by Colin Barker, Alan Johnson, and Michael Lavalette, 77–96. Manchester University Press. Hershkovitz, Linda. 1993. “Tiananmen Square and the Politics of Place.” Political Geography 12, no. 5: 395–420.

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Ho, Ming-sho. 2019. Challenging Beijing’s Mandate from Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Juris, Jeffrey S. 2012. “Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere: Social Media, Public Space, and Emerging Logics of Aggregation.” American Ethnologist 39, no. 2: 259–79. Lee, Ching Kwan, and Ming Sing, eds. 2019. Take Back Our Future: An Eventful Sociology of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lee, Francis L. F., and Joseph M. Chan. 2016a. “News Media, Movement Organization, and Collective Memory Mobilization in Tiananmen Commemoration in Hong Kong.” Media, Culture & Society 38, no. 7: 997–1014. ———. 2018. Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era: The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. New York: Oxford University Press. Lee, Francis L. F., Samson Yuen, Gary Tang, and Edmund W. Cheng. 2019. “Hong Kong’s Summer of Uprising: From Anti-Extradition to Anti-Authoritarian Protests.” China Review 19, no. 4: 1–27. Lynch, Marc. 2011. “After Egypt: The Limits and Promise of Online Challenges to the Authoritarian Arab State.” Perspectives on Politics 9, no. 2: 301–10. Ma, Ngok. 2019. “Rude Awakening: New Participants and the Umbrella Movement.” In The Umbrella Movement: Civil Resistance and Contentious Space in Hong Kong, edited by Ngok Ma and Edmund W. Cheng, 77–98. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Ma, Ngok, and Edmund W. Cheng, eds. 2019. The Umbrella Movement: Civil Resistance and Contentious Space in Hong Kong. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Maharawal, Manissa McCleave. 2013. “Occupy Wall Street and a Radical Politics of Inclusion.” Sociological Quarterly 54, no. 2: 177–81. Marom, Nathan. 2013. “Activising Space: The Spatial Politics of the 2011 Protest Movement in Israel.” Urban Studies 50, no. 13: 2826–41. Monterde, Arnau, Antonio Calleja-López, Miguel Aguilera, Xabier E. Barandiaran, and John Postill. 2015. “Multitudinous Identities: A Qualitative and Network Analysis of the 15M Collective Identity.” Information, Communication, and Society 18, no. 8: 930–50. Morozov, Evgeny. 2011. The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World. London: Penguin. Morris, Aldon D., and Suzanne Staggenborg. 2004. “Leadership in Social Movements.” In The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, edited by David Snow, Sarah Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 171–96. New York: John Wiley and Sons. O’Donnell, Guillermo, and Philippe C. Schmitter. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Ogan, Christine, and Onur Varol. 2017. “What Is Gained and What Is Left to Be Done When Content Analysis Is Added to Network Analysis in the Study of a Social Movement: Twitter Use during Gezi Park.” Information, Communication and Society 20, no. 8: 1220–38. Sassen, Saskia. 2011. “The Global Street: Making the Political.” Globalizations 8, no. 5: 573–79. Schipper, Sebastian. 2017. “Social Movements in an Era of Post-Democracy: How the Israeli J14 Tent Protests of 2011 Challenged Neoliberal Hegemony through the Production of Place.” Social and Cultural Geography 18, no. 6: 808–30. Theocharis, Yannis, Will Lowe, Jan W. Van Deth, and Gema García-Albacete. 2015. “Using Twitter to Mobilize Protest Action: Online Mobilization Patterns and Action Repertoires in the Occupy Wall Street, Indignados, and Aganaktismenoi Movements.” Information, Communication and Society 18, no. 2: 202–20. Treré, Emiliano. 2015. “Reclaiming, Proclaiming, and Maintaining Collective Identity in the #YoSoy132 Movement in Mexico: An Examination of Digital Frontstage and Backstage Activism through Social Media and Instant Messaging Platforms.” Information, Communication and Society 18, no. 8: 901–15. Tufekci, Zeynep. 2014. “Social Movements and Governments in the Digital Age: Evaluating a Complex Landscape.” Journal of International Affairs 68, no. 1: 1–18. Umbrella People. 2015. Bei shidai xuanzhong de women [We are chosen by the time]. Hong Kong: Baijuan Publisher. Veg, Sebastian. 2016. “Creating a Textual Public Space: Slogans and Texts from Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.” Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 3: 673–702. Yardi, Sarita, and Danah Boyd. 2010. “Dynamic Debates: An Analysis of Group Polarization over Time on Twitter.” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 30, no. 5: 316–27. Yates, Lukes. 2015. “Rethinking Prefiguration: Alternatives, Micropolitics and Goals in Social Movements.” Social Movement Studies 14, no. 11: 1–21. Yuen, Samson. 2018. “Contesting Middle-Class Civility: Place-Based Collective Identity in Hong Kong’s Occupy Mongkok.” Social Movement Studies. Advanced online publication. Yuen, Samson, and Edmund W. Cheng. 2017. “Neither Repression nor Concession? A Regime’s Attrition against Mass Protests.” Political Studies 65, no. 3: 611–30.

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TWO

The Sunflower Imagination The Movement Perception and Evaluation from the Grassroots

MING-SHO HO, CHUN-HAO HUANG, AND LIANG-YING LIN The Sunflower Movement of 2014 originated from a dispute over a freetrade agreement with China (the Cross-Strait Service and Trade Agreement; CSSTA), which Ma Ying-jeou’s Kuomintang (KMT) government forcibly pushed through the legislature. To prevent its final passage, a student-led sit-in protest took place and unexpectedly evolved into an occupy movement that lasted for twenty-four days. The movement ended peacefully; in its wake, further trade liberalization with China was halted and the KMT suffered a major defeat in the 2016 election, conceding the presidency and legislative majority to the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Newer political parties representing the younger generation emerged, and social movements concerning nuclear energy, same-sex marriage, and labor issues gained new momentum. In hindsight, the Sunflower Movement of 2014 belongs to an unusual category of “eventful protests” for its large-scale and intensive participation as well as radical transformation in consequences (Ho 2019, 3–8). It is one of the rare, albeit significant, moments when people are able to make their own history. Eventful protests differ from the routine ones that take place in an organized and prepared fashion and end predictably, usually with minimal disruption to the public order. Della Porta (2014) has used the term eventful protest to understand the massive uprisings in Eastern Europe (1989) and in the Middle East and North Africa (2011). In a sense, the scale of Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement is comparable to these consequential events. Situated in Taiwan’s context, there had been a noticeable surge of social protests in the preceding years (Fell 2017; Ho 2019, 71–94). Protest activisms by younger Taiwanese on the issues of nuclear energy, media monopoly, and urban renewal were on the rise, and these campaigns

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culminated in the occupation of the legislature in 2014, arguably the crest of this mobilization cycle. Given the Sunflower Movement’s undisputed historical significance, many scholarly inquiries focus on its social basis. Who took part in the unprecedented movement? Who were its supporters? How can we understand the mental pictures of those who were involved in this unusual event? And if the Sunflower Movement constituted a turning point in Taiwan’s political history, what were the psychological forces that propelled the massive citizen participation? While Taiwan’s media conducted surveys on the public attitude during the legislature occupation, most academic works relied on post-hoc surveys based on telephone or Internet sampling. Hsiao and Wan (2017) found that 53% of respondents adopted a favorable attitude toward the Sunflower Movement. Young people, non-Mainlanders, and pan-Green voters were more likely to hold an approving opinion. Wu and Liao (2016) maintained that the worry about the “China factor” contributed to the movement support; similarly, Tsai and Chen (2016) found the evaluation of “mainland China attitude” to be the most important variable. Chen and Yen (2017) looked at the role of nationalistic sentiment. Nationalist attachment to Taiwan and anti-China feeling were positively correlated with movement support, but chauvinism (or the feeling of national superiority) was not. Aside from nationalistic and partisan identities, the perceptions of economic victimization and threat to democracy were found to be statistically significant (Ho and Lin 2019). These studies largely confirmed the received understanding of the Sunflower Movement; its rank-and-file followers were mostly young, skeptical about cross-strait economic integration, voted for pan-Green parties, and identified themselves as Taiwanese. However, there are limits in these survey-based studies. The nationwide telephone survey necessarily included those respondents who were neither supportive of nor opposed to the Sunflower Movement when the protest was happening. These unconcerned or neutral opinions were more likely to be affected by the following development. Since the Sunflower Movement was mostly seen as a success, post-hoc surveys could deflate the proportion of antiSunflower opinions. Moreover, it can be fallacious to simply equate those positively correlated attitudinal variables (China skepticism, democratic values, and economic pessimism) to the cause for the movement. It is possible that people came to accept these ideas exactly because of the Sunflower Movement, which threw a national spotlight on these issues so as to persuade those who were previously unconcerned to join the ranks. There exists an inevitable interplay between the movement and the subsequent popular opinion, as people are continuously revising their ideas. In

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short, one-shot and post-hoc surveys provide an important glimpse into the mental world of movement supporters, but their research conclusions need to be read with a cautious note. Alternatively, there are studies that analyze the data collected by onsite sampling of the movement participants. National Taipei University’s Department of Sociology launched a research project when the sit-in protest was still unfolding. This research has the valuable benefit of singling out those who were physically present on the scene and recording their on-the-spot opinions, thus enabling a more focused look at movement participants. However, due to the constraints of face-to-face interviews, the questionnaire has to be short and most questions are factual rather than attitudinal. Chen and Huang (2015) examined the demographic composition of Sunflower Movement participants as well as the school and disciplinary background of student participants. Chen, Chang, and Huang (2016) found that participants from online media tended to stay longer than those who were mobilized by off-line personal relationships. Finally, there are studies that take an in-depth look at the different groupings formed in the occupation zone. Just like the contemporary large-scale occupy protests taking place elsewhere in the world, the Sunflower Movement proceeded as a “movement of movements,” composed of numerous spontaneous subgroups with different political tendencies and demands (Chen 2017). Studies on student journalists (Lin 2016), a proindependence organization called the Wing of Radical Politics (Shen 2017), the left-wing outfit Pariah Liberation Area (Jianmin jiefang qu 賤民解放區; Pariah Liberation Area Editorial Team 2016), and indigenous people (Juan 2015) fall into this category. While these studies provide a close-up understanding of participants in their own terms, they emphasize their heterogeneity to the extent that an overview picture becomes more difficult, if not impossible. Moreover, there are inherent limitations to the technique of opinion survey, on-site or by telephone, since respondents are required to fit into the analytical scheme devised by the investigators. Theoretically, researchers can improve the defect by framing the interview questions as close to the everyday world of respondents as possible. But, the questionnaire remains a preconstructed framework imposed upon respondents. Such incongruence becomes a more severe problem in the contemporary activisms, because an ethos of “personalization of contentious politics” (Bennet and Segerberg 2013, 23) has become a dominant norm in the protest scenes. Since most people are not mobilized by preexisting organizations or parties, they see their participation as autonomous and voluntary, and regard their presence as self-expressive and self-satisfying. As such, an uncritical use of opinion survey easily ends up not as a mapping of respondents’

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inner world, but rather a pigeonholing of them into a rigid classification that they found highly alienating. There is another related shortcoming. Properly administrated, opinion surveys bring about reliable information regarding factual and attitudinal data. But when it comes to the emotional aspect, a standardized questionnaire often fails to capture this subtle dimension. There is an erroneous assumption that sees people’s opinions and attitudes as more or less rational and stable and their emotions as irrational and changeable. In fact, thinking and feeling are best seen as integrated, both present in protest participation (Aminzade and McAdam 2001; Jasper 1998). Thus, people were provoked, outraged, and righteously indignant when they saw a trade deal that was detrimental to their political and economic interests had been rudely railroaded through the legislature. As such, the attitudinal questions on a respondent’s value, identity, and economic prospects touch upon subtle emotional processes, yet the latter is suppressed in the rationalistic and cognitive design of questionnaires. This chapter attempts to present a thick description of the mental universe of Sunflower followers by understanding how they see the movement in their own eyes, articulate their own moral visions, and share their authentic personal feelings. In this chapter, supporters are defined as those who uphold the movement goals, and participants as those who were at least once physically present in the occupy zone. Clearly all participants are supporters, but not vice versa. Even without directly contributing to the movement, supporters also play a critical role through their presence because it demonstrates the movement’s popularity so that the government is less likely to resort to force. We proceed from the assumption that an atypically large protest is propelled by strong and unique psychological impulses. We could gain more insight into the powerful dynamics of the Sunflower Movement if it were possible to take a snapshot of the minds and hearts of its participants and supporters at an exceptional moment, uncontaminated by subsequent rationalization and revision. Instead of using a respondent-unfriendly analytical framework, we could gain a more grounded understanding if protesters were to speak out with their own voices and in their own languages. For this reason, this chapter examines the wealth of documentary materials written by the supporters and participants themselves. Veg (2016) offers a close look at more than one thousand written and visual materials displayed during Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement to understand the dynamic of a “textual public space.” Our study has a similar intention to give voice to the anonymous participants, but, as explained later, we are able to proceed in a more methodological way thanks to the existence of a well-preserved digital archive in Taiwan.

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Research Data This study uses an online database called the 318 Civil Movement Archive (http://public.318.io). This digital archive originated from a joint effort by students, artists, and academics to preserve the rich artworks, flyers, pamphlets, letters, meeting records, and so on produced shortly before the Sunflower Movement leaders executed their decision to withdraw on 10 April 2014. The collection proceeded like a last-minute salvage campaign because participants were keenly aware that a great episode of popular resistance was coming to a close and these materials needed to be protected somehow before the order was restored. The Sunflower Movement unleashed a tremendous explosion of creative and expressive energy, as many people produced artistic works spontaneously. Chang Hsiao-hung (2014) observed that the occupied plenary chamber of the legislature amounted to a 360-degreee amphitheater with protesters’ paintings and a makeshift barricade out of bundled chairs and tables as installation art on display. Minato Chiriho (2015), a Japanese visual artist, wrote a book to explore the revolutionary poetics of the movement. As such, the aesthetic consideration was the primary motive behind the conservation campaign, but it ended up as a rich archival database. Three research institutes of Academia Sinica provided resources, while numerous students and academics were involved in collecting, moving, storing, and cataloging these materials found inside and outside the occupied legislature. In Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, the creation of a “Lennon Wall” in the occupation zone in Admiralty invited participants to express their opinions by writing on sticky notes. The protest in Taipei did not give rise to such a concentrated area of opinion sharing; as such, the materials collected in this archive originated from many corners, both inside and outside of the legislative buildings. The digitalization took two years, and the result is an online searchable database, accessible for research and other purposes upon registration. As of September 2018, there were 21,030 cataloged items available for online inspection, and all of them have digital images and descriptive metadata information. For our research, we selected the items categorized as “writing” (shuxie 書寫), which include 5,557 pieces of handwriting on papers, letters, cards, and banners. In order to focus on the participants and supporters, we excluded the following types: (1) memos and minutes among the core participants, (2) daily work logs, (3) news releases, (4) banners and posters, (5) writings from the opponents, and (6) other unsuitable documents—for instance, postcards with nothing but signatures. After this screening, there remain 4,201 written documents. Since the online archive has done a wonderful job in classifying and digitizing these materials, we could easily

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assess the data with personal computers without the need to go through the originals. The subsequent coding and content analysis was done by the second and third authors of this chapter. Since we had more than one person who read and coded these materials, the result is expectably more consistent, or with higher inter-rater reliability, to use the methodological jargon. While coding the factual dimensions of these writings (such as author identity) was less complicated, when it comes to cognitive, evaluative, and emotional aspects, more explanations on the operation are needed. We will describe our classification and decisions where relevant. The preliminary descriptive information is as follows: in this sample, there are 2,869 (96.6%) single-author items, 2,981 (99.3%) items that contain only the author’s own writing (no citations or quotations), and 2,396 (79.8%) items that have no hand-drawn or preprinted images, but only verbal messages. Mailed-in items (841) make up 28% of our sample, and their authors were clearly not present in the protest zone at the moment of writing. However, some of the documents collected at the scene were also written by people who were physically absent. Some Sunflower participants from central and southern Taiwan mounted writing campaigns and carried their collection when traveling to Taipei. Only a small subset of them (329, or 21.8%) contain the date information; among them, 143 (43.5%) were written on March 30, the day when an unprecedented mass rally was held, purportedly with a half million participants. Figure 2.1 represents a typical item in our collection. International writers, including overseas Taiwanese, make up a considerable portion of our sample (1,199, or 28.5%), which testifies to this unusual protest’s global reach. Their written documents are easily recognizable because many were sent via air mail or written in foreign languages. The preeminence of international writers in our sample also reveals an important clue. Writing letters or postcards functions like a psychological compensation when one cannot actually be present and yet still wants to contribute to the movement. If one has the opportunity to be intensively involved, chances are she or he is less likely produce these writings. How the international writers’ views differ from the domestic one will be analyzed later in the chapter. Among the domestic contributors (3,002), 1,229 (40.9%) chose to disclose their identities; their classification is arranged in table 2.1. Among the domestic contributors, student writers make up only 33%. The percentage is lower than expected because the Sunflower Movement leaders and rank-and-file followers were mostly students, and the National Taipei University’s on-site survey showed 56.0% of its respondents were students (Chen and Huang 2015, 151). There can be many possible explanations

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Figure 2.1 A “Writing” Sample (#18703, http://public.318.io/, accessed 19 September 2018)

for this result. Student participants might have been more deeply involved than nonstudents, making the former less motivated to share their writings. Alternatively, nonstudent participants and supporters might have been more willing to make their identities known precisely because they knew such a revelation would help to neutralize the criticism of the movement as “immature.” Whether they chose the characterization of “citizen,” “working person,” or “parent,” it was a self-­conscious attempt to broaden the appeal of the movement. In other words, the distribution presented in table 2.1 should not be taken as a representative profiling of Sunflower Movement

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Table 2.1 Domestic Author Identities (n=1,229) Identity

Number

Percentage

“Citizens” (yiban minzhong 一般民眾)

671

54.6

Students, including student organizations

405

33.0

Working people (shangbanzu上班族)

81

6.6

Parents or relatives (of students)

58

4.7

Movement organizers or members

8

0.7

Scholars and academics

3

0.2

Politicians

1

0

supporters and participants, because author identities were revealed and emphasized reflectively for strategic and other purposes. The Cognitive Dimensions A large episode of contentious politics inevitably attracts heterogeneous participants from a wide array of ideological backgrounds, who somehow find certain aspects of the movement to which they can personally relate. A study on Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution finds its participants more ideological diversified than its opponents (Beissinger 2013). In the Arab Spring, commentators noted that protesters were united by what they are opposed to, rather than a common demand or program (Noueihed and Warren 2012, 6). While the Color revolutions and the Arab Spring uprisings had unpopular rulers as their targets, other contemporary protest activisms, such as the global justice movement (Fominaya 2010) and the Occupy Wall Street Movement of 2011 (Graeber 2013), took pride in being leaderless and diffuse in their demands. Hours after student protesters stormed the legislature, a core leadership structure that was capable of articulating its demands emerged in the Sunflower Movement. However, this does not mean that its participants and supporters necessarily saw eye to eye with the leaders’ definition of the situation. An analysis of the cognitive world of these writings helps to shed light here. The first issue is about the nature of the movement. Was the Sunflower Movement a student movement, a citizen movement, an anti-China

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revolt, or an anti–free trade uprising? The question is about the nature of the movement as well as its orientation. The name of the movement comes from an incidental gift from a florist on the second day after the students entered the legislature, and the media immediately captured and circulated the image. The epithet happened to be in congruence with the time-honored tradition in naming student movements after flowers or fruit (the Wild Lily Movement of 1990 and the Wild Strawberry Movement in 2008), and one might even argue its sunny and positive imagery helped to gain public acceptance. Nevertheless, the core participants never took a liking to it and avoided using that term in public. Lin Fei-fan, the “commander-in-chief” of the movement, once jokingly criticized the name as an aesthetical disaster.1 Nevertheless, in spite of the reluctance on the part of movement leaders, the floral imagery became the most popular among participants and supporters. Whether in print or in drawings, sunflower appears in 481 items, or 79.4% of those with a visual image.2 In addition, the core participants resented the characterization of the protest as a student movement. Toward the end of the occupy protest, there emerged a formal decision to adopt the name “March 18 Citizen’s Movement” (Sanyiba gongmin yundong; Yen et al. 2015, 142), which was also used by the digital archive. The choice signified an attempt on the part of insiders to present a more inclusive message rather than merely identifying as a student movement. However, our sample indicates that the official redefinition was not successful. In analyzing our sample, we paid attention to the way writers characterized or identified the Sunflower Movement. Only those writings that contained specific reference to this question were singled out for further classification. Among the 516 items (17.2%) that have a clear reference to the movement identity, 369 (71.5%) adopt the “student movement” label, whereas the “citizen movement” and “social movement” labels appeared only in forty-three cases (8.3%). Evidently, the popular understanding of the Sunflower Movement as a student campaign took root in spite of the self-effacing attempts of its leaders. Our sampled writings also make references to events in the real world. Seen together, they constitute a cognitive universe of the Sunflower participants and supporters, highlighting what accounted as the prominent reality for them. Here, our reading focuses on the explicit references to external facts or events in the writings. There can be multiple “citations” 1 

See Ke Zongwei, “Banye ganqiao Lin Feifan: Taiyanghua pohuai xueyun meigan” [Lin Fei-fan’s Midnight Profanities: Sunflower Is an Aesthetic Disaster for the Student Movement] April 9, 2014, China Times, https://bit.ly/2Cilinc, accessed 16 October 2018. 2  Unless indicated otherwise, the following analysis pertains to domestic writers only.

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or none in a writing sample, depending on how the authors perceive the world. The frequency distribution can be seen as a measurement of the salience of the external facts or events in their subjective evaluation. We prepared nineteen coding options for this question, and table 2.2 lists some of the results of our analysis.

Table 2.2 References to External Realities (n=2,150) Fact or Event

Number

Percentage

Precedents of the movement Procedural injustice (“black box” and Chang Chingchung’s thirty-second incident, in which the KMT lawmaker chaired the internal administration committee of Taiwan’s legislature and railroaded the free-trade bill)

412

19.2

Party politics, including the railroading of Ma Yingjeou and the KMT and the inactivity of the DPP

401

18.7

The government’s weakness toward China

252

11.7

Economic hardship, livelihood difficulties, low wages

70

3.3

Generational injustice and unfairness for young people

59

2.7

372

17.3

The March 30 rally

88

4.1

Occupying the Executive Yuan (March 23–24)

82

3.8

Major events of the movement Occupying the legislature (March 18)

Challenges for the movement State violence and the use of force by police Biased reporting in the media Counter-protests and harassment by gangsters

108

5

45

2.1

6

0.3

Others Supervision over cross-strait negotiations Support from overseas Taiwanese and students

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64

3

859

40

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In our sample, there are 852 domestic items (28.4%) that do not explicitly refer to an existing event or fact, and we selected the remainder (2,150) for a detailed content analysis. As for the cause of the movement, the Sunflower supporters and participants adopted an unambiguously political rather than economic reading. Writings that mention procedural injustice (19.2%), party politics (18.7%), and weakness toward China (11.7%) clearly surpass those that touch upon economic hardships (3.3%) and the younger generation’s plight (2.7%). In a sense, the Sunflower Movement drew its strength more from people who were dissatisfied with the political controversy of the CSSTA than from those who were worried about its economic consequences. In part, this is due to the successful framing of CSSTA opponents, the Democratic Front against Cross-Strait Service and Trade Agreement, which was formed in July 2013, one month after the signing of the CSSTA. The organization popularized the notion that the free-trade agreement was a “black box” that the ruling party forcibly promoted to please China. Apparently, such framing gained currency and became the dominant interpretation of the Sunflower followers. In contrast, the relatively low attention to economic issues deserves a closer look. While Ma Ying-jeou has persistently emphasized the CSSTA’s economic benefits, both before and after the eruption of Sunflower Movement, its opponents also made efforts to highlight its potential economic harms. Yet, when these participants and supporters actually penned their ideas, economic and generational hardships took a back seat. One of the possible explanations is that economic discontent per se is not a strong enough motivation for people to join a protest. It is only when they understand that their economic future will be affected by political decisions that they realize that something can be done to prevent things from getting worse. The second coding cluster is related to the events that unfolded during the Sunflower Movement. Three major events are often referred to in the sample; they are the occupation of the legislature on 18 March (17.3%), the mass rally on 30 March (4.1%), and the occupation of the Executive Yuan on 23 and 24 March (3.8%). It is noteworthy that the most violent episode (the Executive Yuan incident) and the largest event (the 30 March rally) do not receive the most mentions. Clearly, for the Sunflower Movement constituencies, seizing the plenary chamber of the Legislative Yuan remains the signature act. Also, as the occupation went on throughout the movement, it provided a concrete symbol with which people could identify. On the challenges for the movement, the writing samples cited the following phenomena (arranged in order of frequency): police violence (5%), biased media (2.1%), and counter-protests and gangsters (0.3%). Even though the violent clash in the sit-in protest at the Executive Yuan was not often

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cited, the police use of force still weighed heavily among the movement participants and supporters. That the same police eviction tactics could be applied to the protesters inside the legislature lingered as a major concern, far exceeding that of hostile media and gangster harassment. Surprisingly, the demand to enact a law to supervise cross-strait negotiations receives only meager attention (3%). The request was raised in the second week of the occupation movement because the movement leaders saw Ma Ying-jeou as unlikely to renegotiate the CSSTA. In addition, that a group of protesters disrupted the normal functioning of a democratically elected legislature also incurred criticism for being undemocratic. As such, the Sunflower leaders shifted the focus to the procedural demand for rigorous oversight and review, rather than the previous substantial one. Yet, the lukewarm attitude among the followers indicates the new movement goal had only a limited grassroots appeal. Another unexpected finding is that 40% of the writings mentioned support from overseas Taiwanese immigrants and students, the most-cited external reality in our analysis. Since table 2.2 looks only at the domestic writings, it excludes the self-reference among the overseas supporters. Evidently the Sunflower Movement drew its strength from the overseas communities. To lend support, Taiwanese in forty-nine cities scattered across seventeen countries orchestrated a global relay campaign to demonstrate their solidarity with the 30 March rally in Taipei. That these incidents of international coordination were often cited among the domestic writers points to an interesting aspect of transnational activism. The Sunflower Movement’s overseas supporters acted upon their spontaneous decision, without being solicited by the domestic leadership. Although these immigrant initiatives probably had limited results upon their host countries, they had the effect of lifting the morale among participants and supporters based in Taiwan. There was clearly an ever-increasing feedback loop from Taiwan to Taiwanese abroad, which then returned home. A Democratic Nationalism People tend to pay attention to things that they care about the most. In other words, perception of the external reality is intimately related to the value system that people have internalized. This cognitive analysis indicates that participants and supporters focused more on the political effects of the CSSTA rather than the economic ones. Here we need to unpack what the political issues involved by taking a closer look at how these writings legitimatized the unusual act of legislature occupation. In this analysis, we closely examine the prescriptive language, rather than the merely descriptive one in our collection. For instance, a statement that

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Taiwanese youth find it hard to find a decent job can be purely descriptive and without normative judgment, but it becomes laden with value when the fact is stated with a sense of disapproval. Describing a thing is related to evaluating it, but not inseparable. When people express their approval or disapproval, they usually start from a more or less implicit value assumption. For instance, in Taiwan’s recent public discourse, youth economic difficulties were mostly discussed from a perspective of generational justice. There existed a collective resentment among younger Taiwanese—the older generations criticized them as weak and dodging hard work while at the same time systematically relegating them to low-paid, unstable jobs with no future. Therefore, it takes more interpretative effort to decipher and systemize their unspoken value orientations. Table 2.3 presents the values that participants and supporters apply to the Sunflower Movement. The values here are the normative grounds that writers use to justify their participation or support. In order to facilitate the understanding of our coding procedure, we also list some typical phrasings that carry those identified values. Democracy is the most mentioned value in our sample, represented in 59.1% of the writings. The Sunflower writers condemned the way the CSSTA was processed, stating that it amounted to a flagrant violation of procedural justice, and the campaign was praised as a defense for democracy. For instance, a high school student wrote the following lines: “I was born in 1996 when Taiwan first held the presidential election by popular vote and Mr. Lee Teng-hui was elected. Since the first air I breathed was full of democracy and freedom, there is no reason why I should not come here to defend the democracy. . . . ​When I knew my birthright democracy and the civil noncooperation movement that I learned from civics class were endangered by the government force, I knew we would never be merely the audience” (#10379). Another writer claimed the movement “has awakened our democratic consciousness that has long been dormant” and hoped that this event could inspire the people “who were disappointed in politics because of the blue-and-green conflict” (#10293). It should not be a surprise to find that the theme of an endangered democracy enjoyed the most popular attention, since movement leaders spoke voluminously about it. They justified the act of paralyzing the legislature on the ground that lawmakers themselves had violated the proper procedure. On the streets, there emerged a series of deliberative democracy forums on the CSSTA, which served not only to deepen the understanding of the disputed trade agreement among participants, but also dramatized an idealized version of the rational and balanced discussion— a contrast to how elected politicians actually processed the review.

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Table 2.3 Values in Justifying the Sunflower Movement (n=1,678) Value

Typical Phrasing

Number

Percentage

Democracy

“Defending democracy,” “procedural justice,” opposing the “black box” or “more transparency,” “government leaders should listen to people,” and so on.

992

59.1

Nationalism

“Support for Taiwan independence,” Taiwan as the motherland, identity and pride of being Taiwanese, opposing China’s annexation attempt and united front policy, denouncing politicians’ weakness toward China, emphasizing the cultural and institutional differences, and using derogatory terms for China and Chinese.

923

55

Nonviolence

Encouraging the movement leaders to exercise restraint, denouncing the police use of force, and so on.

57

3.4

Generational justice

Describing the economic woes of young people, demanding government support, and so on.

21

1.3

Opposition to free trade

Criticizing neoliberalism.

1

0.1

Note: Only 1,678 items (55.9%) contain a value statement. The classification is not mutually exclusive because a writing sample can reference more than one value.

Nationalistic attachment (55%) emerged as the second most popular reason to justify the Sunflower Movement, closely trailing democratic values. Here are some examples: “Taiwan is small, but with your perseverance, it is no longer that tiny. Let’s go, for Taiwan and for our homeland” (#10002). “Thank you [the students] for the effort that is done for the sake of Taiwan and the people living on this land” (#10004). “I am so proud of being a Taiwanese. Hey, friends, you know why? That is because each of you deeply love our beautiful island that has nourished us” (#10022). These writings commonly refer to the Sunflower Movement as a courageous attempt to “protect Taiwan” (shouhu Taiwan守護台灣), or as a campaign for the “land” (tudi土地) or the “island” (dao 島). And they typically

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end with exhortations like “God bless Taiwan” (tianyou Taiwan 天佑台灣) or “Let’s go, Taiwan” (Taiwan jiayou 台灣加油). Although the term nationalism often invokes the connotations of xenophobia or self-aggrandizing gestures, such chauvinistic remarks were largely absent in the nationalistic sentiments expressed in these writings. Most of the time, our authors identified Taiwan as the weaker and thus the vulnerable side of the freetrade deal with China; therefore, the Sunflower Movement was seen as a self-defensive act. This is reflected in the fact that there are more writings with reference to Taiwanese nationalism (839, 50%) than those that mention opposition to China (131, 7.8%). When China appears in these writings, the emphasis is usually placed on the fear of being taken over politically or being crowded out in the job market by an influx of Chinese immigrants. Taken together, democratic principles and nationalistic aspirations made up the overwhelming majority of these writings (94.8%). Thus, the driving impulse for the grassroots participation is best characterized as a “democratic nationalism,” or a worldview that understood Taiwan as a self-determining community with its own distinctive identity. The Sunflower Movement was able to attract the allegiance of a large number of citizens precisely because they saw these values were put at risk with closer economic integration with China. The Sunflower Movement was alternatively characterized as a nonviolent resistance, a youth movement, or a left-wing opposition to free trade. Table 2.3 indicates that these labels or values were significantly less commonly identified in the writings of participants and supporters, representing 3.4%, 1.3%, and 0.1% of the total, respectively. Taiwan does not have a living tradition of civil disobedience, so assertive pursuit of political rights that directly confronts the law tends to be frowned upon. Although democratization has institutionalized street demonstrations more or less as a permanent feature in the nation’s political life, most people still hold a negative view of protests. Sunflower Movement participants, knowing that they were constrained by a conservative political culture, seemed to proceed with the understanding they had to fulfill their citizen duties in order to gain social legitimacy in the occupy zone. A considerable demonstration of their civic-mindedness emerged with volunteering en masse in altruistic activities, such as taking out the garbage, resource recycling, and free tutoring. A high school student claimed the protesters were not the so-called mob (baomin 暴民) because “nonviolent civic movement represents the true voice of some people” (#12927). The orderly scene brought about by “peaceful resistance” (heping kangzheng 和平抗爭) left a miraculous impression on one writer, who vowed not to forget the “simple and beautiful cohesion” she or he saw (#12928).

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While the Sunflower Movement is mostly recognized as a youth movement in terms of its participant profile, which was also corroborated in the on-site survey mentioned earlier, it is a surprise that the value of generational justice was seldom raised. In addition, the principled opposition to all free-trade agreements was barely cited in the writings. The near invisibility of class politics among grassroots participants and supporters threw into stark relief that some hardcore activists were living in their own ideological neverland. For instance, there was a statement by the National League of Workers of Closed Factories (Quanguo guanchang gongren lianxian 全國關廠工人連線), a labor movement outfit, which denounced electoral democracy as a political sham, opposed the nationalistic understanding of Chinese threat, and rejected all free-trade agreements as fundamentally exploitative. The statement called for reinvigorated class politics and direct democracy.3 Similarly, Pariah Liberation Area, another group that emerged during the occupy protest, unveiled an announcement that vehemently denounced the Sunflower leadership and contended that “neoliberal money politics” was the root cause of all evil.4 Evidently, such a hard-left and sectarian understanding was not shared by the majority of Sunflower Movement followers. In sum, Sunflower Movement participants and supporters were more drawn to high-level political issues, such as Taiwanese nationalism and democratic values, while generational and class politics assumed a less salient place. Passionate Politics Citizens took part in the Sunflower Movement not only because they recognized their interests were about to be jeopardized, but also because this understanding entailed strong emotional reactions. They might have been indignant over the government’s decision to ram through a disputed agreement with China, or perhaps they admired what movement leaders did or said. In other words, the emotional process was an integral part of the citizen participation. Here we coded the expressions of personal feeling in our sample. In total, 1,412 items (47%) clearly conveyed emotional tones in the writing; they are classified in table 2.4. Admittedly, the distinction as to whether a statement is expressed in a neutral tone or with emotional coloring is always blurry. To complicate the matter, there are times when the affective 3  See a statement from the National League of Workers of Closed Factories on Facebook, https://bit.ly/2Cjfqua, accessed 20 September 2018. 4  See https://bit.ly/2CR0LHH, accessed 20 September 2018.

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Table 2.4 Emotional Expressions (n=1,412) Emotion

Typical Phrasing

Number

Percentage

Pride

“It is great to have you [protesters],” “You are Taiwan’s pride,” and so on.

633

44.8

Love

“Taiwan is our lovely mother,” “Taiwan not for sale,” and so on.

632

44.8

Fear

Mentioning the dreadful consequences of free trade with China, “Taiwan is not Hong Kong,” and so on.

199

14.1

Anger

Dissatisfaction and disappointment with Ma Ying-jeou, the opposition party, the legislature, police, movement leaders, and so on.

138

9.8

Guilt

Senior citizens’ regret for not having done more for young people, feeling sorry for not being able to stay in the occupied zone, and so on.

84

5.9

Note: The classification is not mutually exclusive.

meanings are nonverbally conveyed. For instance, a seemingly neutral description might end with an emotionally laden drawing, such as a big heart for Taiwan. Here we have to rely on the principle of “inter-rater reliability,” which means the consistency between the readings of the second and third coauthors. Evidently, pride and love are the most commonly expressed feelings. Quite a number of people felt proud of what the movement had achieved, particularly the visible demonstration of solidarity and mutual help and care in the occupied zone. The occupy protest was perceived as heroic, warm, and inspiring, and was said to bring new hopes to the country. At the same time, love was usually projected toward Taiwan or originated from a shared Taiwanese identity. This identity came with the characterization of the island as a nurturing mother, while the CSSTA was portrayed as an act of betrayal or an outright sellout of something that was dear to the writers. Fear is the third most frequent emotional expression. It often came with an imagined status of affairs that writers abhorred, such as being forced into unification with China or a loss of political freedom. The frequently seen slogan “Today’s Hong Kong is tomorrow’s Taiwan” (jinri Xianggang

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mingri Taiwan 今日香港明日台灣) amounted to a vivid declaration of such anxiety. By contrast, anger had a wide array of targets. Ma Ying-jeou and his ruling party certainly bore the brunt of popular disenchantment; however, there were also expressions of dissatisfaction directed toward the weakness of opposition parties, police use of force, biased media reporting, and even leadership decisions. Lastly, there existed candid revelations of a sense of guilt. Senior citizens regretted that they had not done enough for the younger generation. High school students felt sorry that their classmates remained captivated by Korean television series when the nation had plunged into a great crisis. People who could not make it to the protest scene or contribute their own effort had the feeling of being dishonorable deserters who forsook their sacred duty. Existing research found that the emergence of a movement is often accompanied by a change in emotional expressions. Negative feelings such as shamefulness, loneliness, fear, and sorrow have to be remade into positive ones including pride, solidarity, and anger. The former usually bring about a debilitating sense of powerlessness, discouraging people from taking part in the movement activism, whereas the latter results in hopefulness and a heightened sense of one’s own efficacy (Britt and Heise 2000; Gould 2002). Our analysis concurs with this finding in that the expression of positive emotions (pride, love, and anger) clearly outnumbers the expression of negative ones (fear and guilt). Suffice it to say that the Sunflower Movement was able to tap into such an unprecedented level of participation precisely because it successfully aroused positive emotional responses from citizens. The Views from Hong Kong and Japan As stated earlier, international contributions take up nearly 28.5% of our sampled writing, and they offer an interesting contrast to domestic writers in how the Sunflower Movement was perceived and evaluated. Among the 1,199 writings from abroad, 691 (57.6%) originated from Hong Kong and 492 (41%) were from Japan. The rest came from Canada, China, France, Macao, Malaysia, South Korea, and the United States. Some of the international writings originated from overseas Taiwanese. Since our discussion here focuses on the perception of foreigners, this section excludes the contributions of overseas Taiwanese. The robust support from Hong Kong was largely a result of mutual learning in which both societies came to face the pernicious outcomes of China’s deepening interference. It is currently fashionable to speak of sharp power—a coordinated campaign by a hostile foreign power to exploit the vulnerabilities of open society in order to further its geopolitical agendas.

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Figure 2.2 The Bulletin Wall at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (#12958, http://public.318.io/, accessed 17 October 2018)

Hong Kong and Taiwan have long been testing sites for such operations from Beijing. In early 2013, Hong Kong’s Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign proposed the idea of mass civil disobedience with the goal of a democratic suffrage for its chief executive. After one year of campaigning, the movement appeared to lose steam, while Beijing still had not softened its dogged opposition to Western-style free elections. At the same time, radicals grew increasingly impatient with the perceived excessive moderation among movement leadership. The timely eruption of Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement hinted at the possibility of a massive sit-in protest without a lengthy process of discussion, voting, and negotiation. Through the prism of the Sunflower Movement, many of Hong Kong’s prodemocracy activists discovered what they did not have, namely, the determination and decisiveness to launch a disruptive sit-in. In addition, some Hong Kong university student leaders launched a solidarity campaign for the Sunflower Movement and later transported the writings on the campus bulletin wall to Taiwan. Figure 2.2 shows how these writings first appeared at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Support from Japan, in contrast, did not have an origin in the preceding movement politics. That Taiwan and Japan had already encountered the more coercive presence of China’s rising power was certainly an important factor. However, aside from the push factor, many Japanese had begun to feel intimately connected to Taiwan after the latter was the top international donor following the 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown (Nojima 2017). Japanese’s goodwill toward Taiwan grew visibly, which paved the way for a spontaneous outpouring of support for the Sunflower Movement. In fact, some of the postcards from Japan mentioned the 2011 disaster in particular (see fig. 2.3); for the

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Figure 2.3 A Postcard from Japan (#20452, http:// public.318.io/, accessed 17 October 2018)

Japanese, showing their international solidarity with Taiwanese protestors amounted to a declaration of their heartfelt gratitude. There exist some interesting differences between domestic writings and those that came from Hong Kong and Japan. In terms of citations of external reality, international writers tended to focus more on state violence or the use of force by police (16.7%) than the domestic writers (5%). It is possible that international sympathizers were more influenced by the news reports of dramatic incidents, whereas domestic participants and supporters had more on-the-ground understanding so that they turned

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out to be less anxious about this particular matter. Foreign contributors were less likely to mention the precedents since their attention typically emerged only after the eruption of the Sunflower Movement. The percentages that referred to procedural injustice (2.8%), party politics (3.4%), and economic hardship (0.1%) were significantly lower than in the Taiwanese group (19.2%, 18.7%, and 3%, respectively). In terms of value, international writers were less likely to express love for Taiwan (27.8%, compared to 50% for domestic writers), but they turned out to be more vocal regarding China’s political agenda (17.3% versus 8%). It seems that Sunflower’s international supporters were more likely to view the incident from a geopolitical perspective by emphasizing the external threat to Taiwan’s own survival. Interestingly, foreign supporters justified the movement in terms of nonviolence (35.7%) much more than the Taiwanese did (3.4%). Presumably the rhetoric of nonviolence resistance enjoyed a wider international currency because it had been an established guiding philosophy underpinning major civil rights movements around the globe without having taken root in Taiwan. Discussion and Conclusion The rich collection of the 318 Civil Movement Archive made it possible to take an in-depth look at the inner world of the Sunflower Movement rank and file. Unlike traditional surveys, which are usually administered after the fact and force the respondents to select from preformulated answers, the spontaneous writings revealed a more diverse and colorful universe of motives and emotions, which helped us to unravel the powerful impulses that propelled the protest. In a sense, the writing samples amounted to a self-invited opinion poll among participants and supporters, which proceeded in an unstructured and open-ended manner. Writers were not coerced to confront unfamiliar questions, but simply put down their authentic feelings and reflections as they saw fit. Although this chapter does not use statistical methods, the sample size in our study (n=4,201) is actually larger than that of a typical random telephone survey, which samples around 1,000 respondents. One of our main findings is that grassroots participants did not always embrace the vision articulated by the movement leadership. Being the initiators and the official spokespersons, core student participants possessed the power to define the movement demands and to request collaboration from their supporters. Unlike other leaderless protests elsewhere in the world, the Sunflower Movement proceeded in a centralized fashion with a decision-making core that functioned up to the last day of the incident. Yet, in spite of this, we found some noticeable areas where the rank and

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file departed from the leaders’ definition of situation. While student leaders resisted the sunflower epithet, the crowd heartily welcomed it as a badge of identity. For politically correct reasons, the characterization of “student movement” was vetoed for a more broadly based “citizen movement.” However, the image of a student movement took root in the minds of participants and supporters in defiance of the official rechristening. In particular, there are two places where leaders and their followers demonstrated marked differences. First, while the leaders’ official statement did not touch upon the themes of Taiwanese identity and the threat from China, grassroots writings were vocal in their nationalistic aspirations. Taiwan was said to be engulfed in a survival crisis of the nation, which called forth patriotic contributions from its citizens. While the student leaders deliberately shunned the phrase “love for Taiwan” as a cheap and meaningless cliché, particularly among the DPP politicians, the crowd appeared to be energized by such nationalistic imagination. Secondly, while anti-CSSTA activists made an effort to highlight its negative economic impacts, both before and after the students’ storming of the legislature, economic grievances, youth plight, and the dangers of free trade or neoliberalism did not assume a prominent place in the popular writings. In a sense, Sunflower grassroots participants adopted a political and nationalistic framing rather than an economic one. To gauge the divergence between the leaders and their followers, one can read the official statement by the Black Island Youth Front (Heise daoguo qingnian zhenxian 黑色島國青年陣線), the anti-CSSTA student organization, which was posted on Facebook the day protesters launched their sit-in. The declaration started with a litany of young people’s economic complaints and described the CSSTA as a threat to Taiwan’s small and medium enterprises and the working class. The Black Island Youth Front activists emphasized that they did not “oppose anything from China” (feng Zhong bifan 逢中必反) and all the free-trade agreements, including the CSSTA, were equally exploitative and unfair.5 The statement received more than twenty-three thousand likes on social media (as of October 2018) and remains the fullest exposition of the thinking among student leaders. Our detailed examination of rank-and-file writings indicates that Sunflower participants and supporters did not resist the CSSTA simply because it is a free-trade agreement, but precisely because it was related to China. In a sense, the grassroots participants adopted the opposite standpoint because they were more likely to “oppose anything from China.” 5 

See The Black Island Youth Front’s statement on 18 March 2014 on Facebook, https://bit. ly/2yJQicC, accessed 17 October 2018.

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The democratic principle, however, was a commonly shared value between leaders and followers. The activists’ framing of the CSSTA as a murky black box in which transparency and oversight were nonexistent turned out to resonate strongly with the public. That Taiwan’s lawmakers were prevented from carrying on politics as usual because of a popular sit-in protest perfectly symbolized the rejection of a backroom deal. As such, a democratic nationalism appears to be the most appropriate explanation for the groundswell of citizen participation during the Sunflower Movement. How do we explain the considerable divergence between the leaders and followers on the issue of Taiwan nationalism? If such difference was noticeable during the legislature occupation, why was there no split within the movement camp? Or alternatively, why did the movement leaders not frame their demands or narratives differently in order to appeal to the grassroots participants? To be sure, there were proindependence organizations present at the Sunflower Movement that tried to advance their political agenda in the occupation zones. Among them, the Wing of Radical Politics (Jijin ce yi 基進側翼), a youth-driven proindependence group, was vocal in its criticisms of the Sunflower leadership because the latter avoided mentioning “the China factor” and chose to focus on the procedural issues (Shen 2017, 78–79). Although the Wing of Radical Politics activists were at times present in the decision-making meetings, they were not able to influence the movement’s direction, and hence felt marginalized by the leadership. The Sunflower leadership chose to deemphasize Taiwanese nationalism not because of their private aversion, but most likely for tactical reasons. The members of the core leadership (the so-called nine-person decisionmaking group) were firmly proindependence, yet they chose to frame the protest entirely in procedural terms probably because they intended to maximize popular support by avoiding partisan labels. If hints of nationalism were found in their major demands, the Sunflower Movement might have lost its credibility as a nonpartisan citizen’s movement. Finally, although Taiwan nationalism was conspicuously absent in the movement’s formal demands and discourses, leaders took care to express their individual preferences in other ways. In the concluding speech of the 30 March rally, which claimed to attract half a million participants, Lin Feifan powerfully argued that Taiwan’s future should not be decided by Ma Ying-jeou, but rather by its twenty-three million people. Such assertion of self-determination was sure to please those nationalistic participants and supporters. Moreover, on 7 April, the anniversary of Cheng Nan-jung’s self-immolation, many student leaders took the podium by reiterating Chen’s famous proindependence remarks. In other words, the Sunflower

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leaders attempted to strike a delicate balance by simultaneously appealing to neutral citizens with demands that focused on the procedural issues and to nationalistic participants and supporters with symbolic gestures and utterances. In hindsight, they have successfully achieved this difficult goal. Works Cited Aminzade, Ron, and Doug McAdam. 2001. “Emotions and Contentious Politics.” In Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, edited by Ron Aminzade et al., 14–50. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Beissinger, Mark R. 2013. “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.” American Political Science Review 107, no. 3: 574–92. Bennett, W. Lance, and Alexandra Segerberg. 2013. The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Britt, Lory, and David Heise. 2000. “From Shame to Pride in Identity Politics.” In Self, Identity, and Social Movements, edited by Sheldon Stryker, Timothy J. Owens, and Robert W. White, 252–68. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Chang Hsiao-hung. 2014. “Zhe bushi taiyanghua, zhe shi dadao yishu de yishu xingdong” [This is not a Sunflower Movement, but an artistic campaign to overthrow art]. Accessed September 20, 2018. ARTALKS. http://talks. taishinart.org.tw/juries/chh/2014041101. Chen, Fang-Yu, and Wei-Ting Yen. 2017. “Who Supports the Sunflower Movement? An Examination of Nationalist Sentiments.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 52, no. 8: 1193–212. Chen, Ketty W. 2017. “Democracy, Occupy Legislature, and Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.” In City Unsilenced: Urban Resistance and Public Space in the Age of Shrinking Democracy, edited by Jeffrey Hou and Sabine Knierbein, 133–44. London: Routledge. Chen Wan-chi, Chang Heng-hao, and Huang Su-Jen. 2016. “Wangluo shehui yundong shidai de lailin? Taiyanghua yundong canyuzhe de renji liandai yu shequn meiti yinsu chutan” [The coming of networked social movements? Social ties and social media in the Sunflower Movement]. Renwen ji shehui kexue jikan [Journal of social sciences and philosophy] 28, no. 4: 467–501. Chen Wan-chi and Huang Su-Jen. 2015. “Lifayuan wai de chunna: Taiyanghua yundong jingzuozhe zhi renkou ji canyu tuxiang” [Outcry outside the legislature: A portrait of Sunflower Movement sit-in demonstrators]. Taiwan shehuixue [Taiwanese sociology] 30 (December): 141–79. della Porta, Donatella. 2014. Mobilizing for Democracy: Comparing 1989 and 2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Fell, Dafydd, ed. 2017. Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou: From the Wild Strawberries to the Sunflowers. London: Routledge. Fominaya, Christina Flesher. 2010. “Creating Cohesion from Diversity: The Challenge of Collective Identity Formation in the Global Justice Movement.” Sociological Inquiry 80, no. 3: 377–404. Gould, Deborah. 2002. “Life during Wartime: Emotion and the Development of ACT UP.” Mobilization 7, no. 2: 177–200. Graeber, David. 2013. The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement. New York: Allen Lane. Ho, Ming-sho. 2019. Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Ho, Ming-sho, and Thung-hong Lin. 2019. “The Power of Sunflower: The Origin and the Impact of Taiwan’s Protest against Free Trade with China.” In The Umbrella Movement: Civil Resistance and Contentious Space in Hong Kong, edited by Ngok Ma and Edmund Cheng, 279–310. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press. Hsiao, Hsin-Huang Michael, and Po-San Wan. 2017. “The Student-Led Movements of 2014 and Public Opinion: A Comparison of Taiwan and Hong Kong.” Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 3, no. 1: 61–80. Jasper, James M. 1998. “The Emotion of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotion in and around Social Movements.” Sociological Forum 13, no. 3: 397–424. Juan, Chun-ta. 2015. “Shehui yundong zhong de zuqun xiangxiang: Yi fanfumao yuanqing luntan weili” [Ethnic imagination in social movements: A case study of an indigenous youth forum]. Taiwan yuanzhuminzu yanjiu xuebao [Journal of the Taiwan Indigenous Studies Association] 5, no. 1: 157–86. Lin Lih-Yun. 2016. “Taiyanghua yundong zhong Taida xinwensuo xuesheng zai ‘E luntan’ de shijian” [The practices of students at the “NTU E-News Forum” in the Sunflower Movement]. Chuanbo yanjiu yu shijian [Journal of communication research and practice] 6, no. 1: 251–69. Minato Chiriho. 2015. Geming de zuofa [The ways of making a revolution]. Taipei: PsyGarden Publishing. Nojima Tsuyoshi. 2017. Taiwan shinian dabianju [Taiwan’s great changes in a decade]. Taipei: Linking Publishing. Noueihed, Lin, and Alex Warren. 2012. The Battle for the Arab Spring: Revolution, Counter-Revolution, and the Making of a New Era. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pariah Liberation Area Editorial Team, ed. 2016. Jianmin jiefang qu, 2014–2015 [Pariah Liberation Area, 2014–2015]. Taipei: Pariah Liberation Area. Shen Ching-kai. 2017. “Fankang de jijin yiyi: Jijin ceyi yu 318 taiyanghua yundong” [The radical significance of resistance: The Wing of Radical Politics

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party and the March 18 Movement (Sunflower Movement)]. Taiwan xuezhi [Monumenta Taiwanica] 15 (April): 73–95. Tsai Chia-hung and Chen Lu-huei. 2016. “Zhongguo yinsu huoshi gongmin bufucong? Cong dingqun zhuizong yangben tantao taiyanghua xueyun zhi minyi” [The China factor or civic disobedience? Explaining support for the Sunflower Movement with panel data]. Renwen ji shehui kexue jikan [Journal of social sciences and philosophy] 27, no. 4: 573–603. Veg, Sebastian. 2016. “Creating a Textual Public Space: Slogans and Texts from Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. ” Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 3: 673–702. Wu Jieh-Min and Liao Mei. 2016. “Zhanling, dapo mingdinglun” [Occupy as a refutation of determinism]. In Zhaopo: Taiyanghua yundong de zhenfu, zongshen yu shiyu [Shining through: The scope, depth, and horizon of the Sunflower Movement], edited by Lin Hsiu-hsin and Wu Rwei-ren, 115–61. Taipei: Rive Gauche. Yen Shan-nung et al. 2015. Zhebushi taiyanghua xueyun [This is not a Sunflower Student Movement]. Taipei: Yunchen wenhua.

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THREE

Hybridity, Civility, and Othering In Search of Political Identity and Activism in Hong Kong

WAI-MAN LAM

In the months after June 2019, the protests against the Extradition Bill in Hong Kong fundamentally altered the territory’s image as a place of political apathy. With leaderless, anonymous, and confrontational resistance, the protests also signified an important turn in social unity in Hong Kong, in which the opposing factions wo lei fei fei 和理非非 (peaceful, rational, nonviolent, and no profanity) and yong mo 勇武 (valiance) have stood and fought together without interfering with the other’s approach. As the protests signify important changes in civil society and the local culture, it is worth looking back at the cultural trajectories that have led to these developments. The political culture of Hong Kong has undergone significant changes in recent years, especially around the time of the Umbrella Movement, with the emergence of various brands of localism and activism, as well as enhanced social divisions due to different political beliefs and strategies in pursuing democratization in Hong Kong. Using the postcolonial concepts of hybridity and othering, this chapter reviews the development of political identity and political activism in Hong Kong from colonial times up to the period of the Umbrella Movement.1 It assumes that the hybrid political culture of Hong Kong nourished during colonial times has created room for the growth of a distinctive dual Hong Kong identity 1  An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the conference “Sunflowers and Umbrellas: Social Movements, Expressive Practices, and Political Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong,” organized by the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, on 16 and 17 March 2018. The author wishes to thank Professor Thomas Gold and Professor Sebastian Veg for their kind invitation, and the participants of the conference for their helpful comments. The author would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

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after the territory’s return to China. The local Hong Kong identity would also unavoidably be internally inconsistent and disunited with strong tendencies to “otherize the Other” because of its multiple and truncated cultural sources. With a focus on the development of political activism, this chapter unravels the meaning and significance of the narratives of civil disobedience and yong mo as political strategies during the period of the Umbrella Movement in late 2014. I argue that the strategies of civil disobedience and yong mo, differentiated into negotiative activism, assertive-expressive activism, and yong mo activism, with their acceptance of confrontation and militancy as political strategies in pursuing democratization, signify important deviations in Hong Kong’s political culture marked by depoliticized inclinations and civility, and the dual identity of Hong Kong Chinese. The brands of activism and their dissensions are considered natural developments in a historically hybrid political culture. The budding tendencies of confrontation in the brands of activism at that time, nevertheless, articulated the activists’ collective reflections on the necessary actions to be taken to reinstate Hong Kong’s constitutional ideals and reconstruct the local Hong Kong identity. The following analysis is based on interviews with protest participants and various published sources. Political Identity, Decolonialization, and Activism Whereas the process of identity construction takes place in every society, it is a particularly interesting subject of study in colonial and postcolonial societies (e.g., Anderson 1991; Derrida 1981; Smith 2001; Triandafyllidou 1998). This chapter conceptualizes identity from a poststructuralist perspective as defining the “one who is” by identifying the “sameness” of individuals through which they are recognized as members of a community. In that, the process of self-definition necessarily defines the “one who is not,” or the Other, and how the oneself is different from the Other. The definition stresses the self-perception of the uniqueness of oneself. Depending on the perceived extent of threat to one’s identity, one may or may not feel the need to eliminate others because of the perceived uniqueness and difference. Scholars have pointed out that colonialism rules by both physical and ideological forces. To maintain control, colonizers develop systems or policies that enable their power to extend over the colonized territory and people. Ideologically, colonizers cultivate belief systems beneficial to their rule and maintain a hierarchy of cultural superiority. Of relevance here, such belief systems are often depoliticized and denationalized, and, in the name of saving souls, aim to make the indigenous people more

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“civilized”—that is, more like the colonizers. The term civility, in the European sense, refers to values such as dignity, respect, politeness, and tolerance. As some would argue, these values aim at producing a peaceful coexistence with others, including the colonizers (Haiven 2017). Thus, despite the ethical values, civility is an important ideological category that helps depoliticize the indigenous people and facilitate social stability in colonial rule. Citing Frantz Fanon, Glen Coulthard argues that the colonized are trained to elicit the colonizers’ recognition by adopting their standards. Revolutionary moments come only when the colonized reject the colonial politics of recognition and start to look upon and/or rebuild their own traditions as a source of self-empowerment. The struggle leads them to strive for a new sense of self and a postcolonial political order (Coulthard 2014; Haiven 2017). Decolonization thus involves conscious reflection, adoption, and/or rejection of the values, including civility, socialized by former colonizers and the reconstruction of one’s personal identity in terms of his or her relationship with politics and the nation. In reality, decolonization is always a complex story. Under British rule, Hong Kong was depoliticized and fed with a strong sense of political powerlessness. Civility and the rule of law had been cultivated by the British as important elements of the colonial order in the society. Although Hong Kong carries a tradition of political activism, political radicalism was minimal until the protests against the Extradition Bill in 2019 (e.g., Lam 2004; Szeto 2004). While political activism signifies the readiness to participate in politics, which may or may not aim at bringing about fundamental social and political changes, political radicalism refers to the beliefs, critiques, or actions of people that advocate complete and fundamental social and political changes to the current value systems and structures (Dictionary.com; Oxford Dictionaries). The latter entails the idea that political change has to “come from the root” (Vocabulary. com) and includes a readiness to participate in illegal, and sometimes violent, political action targeting thorough social and political changes (Moskalenko and McCauley 2009, 239–60). It should also be noted that radicalism is different from extremism. Being a contested concept, radicalism has been a signifier of mainly left-wing progressive, liberal, and prodemocracy political forces. It is affiliated with a progressive reformism rather than utopian extremism, “whose glorification of mass violence radicals generally rejected” (Bötticher 2017, 74). Although radicalism is critical of authoritarianism and outdated political order, it is selective on the use of political violence. It is also emancipatory in nature, relatively tolerant of different ideas, and seeks to extend human rights, as compared to extremism that considers violence as legitimate and conformity as desirable. As such, radicalism, although often stigmatized, bears no

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essential link to terrorism and may be considered as legitimate resistance to corrupt regimes (Bötticher 2017). Notably, Hong Kong was denationalized along with being depoliticized. The development of Chinese nationalism had been highly discouraged by the colonial government (e.g., Morris and Vickers 2015, 305–26). While the Western world was set as an exemplary to colonial Hong Kong, China was the opposite. By the time of the political handover in 1997, Hongkongers had already acquired a hybrid ethnic identity with elements of Chineseness, Westernness, localness, and cosmopolitanism. The Hong Kong identity, as described by Homi Bhabha, is a cultural hybridity that is far from univocal or unambiguous, and which has access to two or more sources. Such an identity is both internally contentious and unstable, but is facilitative of new outlooks (Bhabha 1994; 1996, 87–106). So, one may imagine, since the colonial identity construction was successful in Hong Kong, the reconstruction of a politicized, empowered, and national self has been difficult. Indeed, the series of political incidents that besieged the two decades of posthandover Hong Kong are the histories of Hongkongers making choices among different ethnic identities, and rediscovering their relationship with politics and how much they would value the key beliefs culturally constructed by the colonizers and selectively perpetuated by China, their new sovereign. Whereas colonial identity was hybridized by the time of the political handover, decolonization in Hong Kong has been a process of soul-searching and identity building. The emerging local identity during the Umbrella Movement placed more emphasis on being Hongkongese, as reflected in the discourse of the Hong Kong Nation, indicating that Hong Kong is neither Chinese nor British, but Hong Kong itself. Also, the different types and intensity levels of political action signify some Hongkongers’ determination to empower themselves and to pursue their aspired identities and values. Some political actions are confrontational and violent, embodying the rejection of civility as a basic standard of political strategy, which is to decolonize even the key civil society standards inherited from the British and which is upheld by the posthandover Hong Kong and Chinese governments in the name of “rule of law.” Importantly, these political actions represent the locals’ attempts to take control of their political destiny by self-redefinition, repoliticization, and political self-empowerment—discouraged if not forbidden by the governments both before and after the political handover. As argued by Bhabha, colonial hybridity is, interestingly, a strength in itself. It represents the third space, the in-betweenness, where the colonized straddle two cultures, attempting to acquire the ability to negotiate the differences between them, hence facilitating the emergence of new political identities and positions (Bhabha 1994; 1996, 87–106).

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Stigmatization of Political Activism and China as the Other Hong Kong’s political stability during its colonial era has been called a miracle. Notwithstanding empirical and academic challenges, colonial rule in Hong Kong had never faced any significant radical attempts by Hongkongers to overthrow it. Previous studies show that the colonial government’s success was attained, to some extent, by projecting a fear of communist China as the Other. In the years and even decades after World War II, the local public imagination of communist China was commonly associated with negative terms such as poor, backward, politicized, politically unstable, and authoritarian whereas Hong Kong was civilized, prosperous, economically oriented, politically stable, and free. It was claimed that Hong Kong could flourish in its borrowed place as it had trodden down a path different from that of China (e.g., Cooper 2018, 94–113; Mathews, Ma, and Lui 2008). Notably, the colonial government’s attempts at denationalization were coupled with attempts at depoliticization, stereotyping politics as something dangerous, bad, and associated with the communist subversion of peace and order in Hong Kong. As a result, the culture of depoliticization, embedded with extreme sensitivity about political involvement and a negative view of politics, functioned to limit or undermine collective mobilization by constructing a local identity that detached itself from politics but remained pinned to stability, freedom, and the rule of law. The view was supplemented by portraying economic and political developments as mutually exclusive (Lam 2004). The consequence was self-repressed political activism and minimal political radicalism in Hong Kong during this period; any political activism was commonly perceived as related to communist agitation. In reality, the most significant radical political activities in the 1950s and 1960s in Hong Kong were indeed about Chinese politics—for instance, the intense political struggles between the pro-Taiwan and pro-Beijing activists in the territory. These political sentiments led to the 1956 Riots during which pro-Kuomintang (pro-Taiwan) activists attacked pro-Beijing activists in the competition for supporters in the political labor movements, and the 1967 Riots that were started by pro-Beijing activists in Hong Kong, echoing mainland China’s Cultural Revolution. During this period, the colonial government played one side against the other by balancing the power of the pro-Beijing and pro-Taiwan factions, and deliberately repressed the popularity and influence of pro-Beijing elements in Hong Kong. The colonial government even successfully quelled the 1967 Riots with general public support and enhanced political legitimacy. Notably, those demanding relatively fundamental social reforms during this period, for example,

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the equal pay movement, employed moderate actions to achieve their goals even though the political demands were fundamental. Some political radicalism did survive among certain groups of young people and university students in the late 1960s and the 1970s. The influence of Trotskyists was evident in the radical youth movement, which adopted both a thorough critique and confrontational action that targeted colonial rule in Hong Kong, and capitalism and imperialism in general. The movement was short-lived, but its legacy was far-reaching, including the generation of several action-oriented local organizations such as the April Fifth Action Group. Another example is the well-known political strife between the pro-Beijing student camp and the social-action student camp in the 1970s, reflecting how radicalism in regard to Chinese politics had continued in the student movement. While the former aimed at promoting PRC nationalism and leaving the dark nature of colonial governance intact to expose itself in Hong Kong, the latter focused on challenging the colonial government in order to introduce social and political reforms. The period thus saw the emergence of radical actions targeting the colonial government rather than communist China. Examples include the first and the second campaigns for Chinese to be an official language, and the Godber scandal in which university students demanded the colonial government implement measures to curb corruption, which led to the establishment of the Independent Commission against Corruption. As protests were utterly illegal at the time, it was common for the general public to criticize young people’s political actions. More often than not, activists were chastised as disruptive and parallels were drawn with the Red Guards in China, followed by an assertion that people in Hong Kong just wanted stability and prosperity. Meanwhile, the colonial government resorted to arresting people for illegally assembling and protesting using certain repressive colonial laws and regulations, such as the public order ordinance. These government actions prompted young activists to question why such laws deserved obedience. They even deliberately challenged these laws by simply breaking them (Lam 2004, 206–8). Subsequently, depoliticization facilitated an expanding development of the restricted concept of the rule of law in Hong Kong (Lam 2020). Despite limited data, it is obvious that popular understandings of the purposes of law in the 1980s and 1990s were incoherent. For instance, in a survey conducted by Siu-kai Lau and Hsin-chi Kuan in 1985, 68.1 percent of respondents stated that the goal of law was to protect citizens’ rights to choose any moral criteria, and 17.2 percent considered that the goal of law was to compel citizens to abide by society’s definition of right and wrong (Lau and Kuan 1988, 47). Their 1988 survey also found that 41 percent of the respondents chose law as the most important factor in maintaining social

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stability (135). The dilemma remained: if a law is unjust and infringes on people’s rights, would or should people still obey it? Overall, political activism was self-suppressed whereas political radicalism was minimal, short-lived, and mostly associated with Chinese politics and conceived as communist agitation. The colonial government might have encountered fundamental critiques, but it was rarely challenged. Paradoxically, colonial rule in Hong Kong was sheltered from political challenges through the stigmatization of activism and radicalism that was commonly associated with the prevalence of the conceptual Other—communist China. Hong Kong set out on the path of decolonization during the political transition from the 1980s to 1997. A more cosmopolitan and hybridized ­Chinese–Hongkonger–Westernized identity emerged as Hong Kong became more affluent. With the crackdown on the student movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989, China continued to be seen as the Other in the local public imagination. The democratic reforms of Chris Patten, the last Hong Kong governor, helped strengthen people’s identification with universal values such as freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, and thus filled up the local identity that emerged in the 1970s with more substantive contents. The cultural identity of Hongkongers became even more hybridized. This period also saw a growing number of political groups and expanding political participation that used a language of rights and freedom to ask the colonial government for more domestic reforms and greater protection before it left. There was increasing political activism undergirded by a language of universal values and operating on the principle of civility. Examples of significant local political movements in the transition period included protests against the Tiananmen crackdown in China, democratization reforms, and the campaign for Hongkongers’ right of abode in Britain after 1997. By the time of the political handover, Hongkongers generally had retained the cultural Chinese qua cosmopolitan identity. As suggested by Bhabha (1994), the hybridity of the colonial identity serves as the third space by which the colonized use what they have learned from the colonizers to shape their identities and fight for their interests. Living with the Other and the Revival of Political Activism The return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 as a special administrative region marked the beginning of Hong Kong’s “living with the Other” period. In the post-1997 era, both the Hong Kong and Chinese governments started renationalization on all fronts. This included an emphasis on national education and setting hegemonic political standards of patriotism for the selection of the chief executive and principal officials of

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Hong Kong. There was also increasing criticism, if not condemnation, of Hongkongers by pro-Beijing media and Chinese officials as unpatriotic, ungrateful, jealous of the success of mainland Chinese, and blindly nostalgic for the colonial past. The government’s attempts at renationalization triggered intense ideological conflicts between the Hong Kong and national identities. Polls found that a dual identity of Hongkonger and Chinese prevailed, except in the first few years after the political hand­ over and until 2014. The proportion of people who regarded themselves as Hongkonger has risen over the years and surpassed the dual identity as the most popular option since 2014 (e.g., Lam 2018a). After the political handover, there emerged not only political activism but also political radicalism with more confrontational actions. For example, the League of Social Democrats (LSD), formed in 2006, is distinguished for its socialist democratic beliefs and confrontational strategies. Its founder Kwok-hung Leung (Long Hair) had been jailed for burning the national flag and was disqualified from being a legislator. Together with the LSD, People Power, formed in 2011, is also notable for its political action. Party leader and legislator Raymond Yuk-man Wong carried out violent protest actions in the legislature, such as throwing a glass at then chief executive C. Y. Leung. At the same time, alternative and new media flourished in Hong Kong. Key opinion leaders on social media, Internet forums, community radio, and television programs have prompted a wave of drastic critiques of the Hong Kong government and communist China. The aggravated feeling of alienation among some has incited activism in Hong Kong, along with growing local efforts to explore, protect, and nourish political identities and beliefs. In the rising tide of politicization, there was an increasing number of participants, civic groups, and new media agents of varied backgrounds. Their political agendas and corresponding actions varied, ranging from the protest against the national security bill (2003) to the local heritage preservation movements (2006 and 2007), the anti–express rail protest (2009), the de facto referendum campaign (2010), the protest against the national education curriculum (2012), the Occupy Central Campaign, which turned into the Umbrella Movement (2014), the anti–parallel trading protests (2015), and the Mongkok unrest (2016). These campaigning and protesting strategies were actionoriented, diverse, and sizeable, ultimately demanding a truly democratic government, genuine political autonomy for Hong Kong, and even separation of Hong Kong from China. Among the political events mentioned here, the series of heritage protection movements since 2006, which employed occupation as a protest strategy, were the turning point that triggered more widespread street activism

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(Cheng 2016). In the protest against the demolition of the Star Ferry Clock Tower, activists staged hunger strikes and climbed up the clock tower to try to stop the demolition. These actions were unprecedented at the time. Similar performative actions were adopted in the anti–express rail protest during which protestors practiced a prostrating walk like that of Tibetan pilgrims and besieged the Legislative Council building where the debate on the rail budget was in process. Thereafter, confrontation and physical force became prevalent in the local protest scene with the protest against the national education curriculum in 2012 yielding apparent success. The government’s proposal to introduce moral and national education as a compulsory subject suffered a major setback and was withdrawn after ninety thousand protestors rallied outside the government headquarters. Political activism in Hong Kong has been on the rise since 1997, along with several significant changes. First, while the Chinese authorities and the Hong Kong government remain the most important targets of challenge, new targets have also emerged: mainland Chinese tourists, property owners, and Chinese immigrants. Since 2003, as the Chinese authorities have become more overtly involved in Hong Kong’s affairs, China as the Other has been inextricably tied to the developing activism in Hong Kong. Second, instead of being a subversive tool of the Chinese communists, political activism has been taken by some as a justified means for political struggle, fighting for democracy, expression of political emotions and identities, and even public education. The culture of depoliticization was fundamentally questioned as the Occupy Trio (Benny Tai, Kin-man Chan, and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming) proposed the use of civil disobedience to strive for genuine democracy. China’s 8.31 (31 August) Decision in 2014 came as the last straw. By subjecting the future elections of Hong Kong’s chief executive to the screening of a small-circle nomination committee, it was believed that no genuine democracy could take place in Hong Kong. Locals widely interpreted the act as a betrayal of the promise of the Hong Kong Basic Law and the denial of their very identity, notably their constitutional ideals. The result was the Umbrella Movement, which signified a fundamental questioning of the culture of political self-restraint, a reframing of the belief of the rule of law and the local identity, and a reclaiming of constitutional ideals. In what follows, the features of different brands of activism, including embedded political ideals and views on political action, civility, and Hong Kong identity, will be analyzed. Negotiative Political Activism The act of civil disobedience was unprecedented in Hong Kong before the Occupy Central Campaign. In March 2013, the Occupy Trio called for

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an electoral system complying with international standards and containing local deliberation and authorization in realizing genuine universal and equal suffrage in Hong Kong. To achieve the goal, they advocated for civil disobedience protests, which though illegal were meant to be nonviolent. The campaign consisted of a series of actions: signing a covenant, deliberation day, citizen authorization, and civil disobedience. One action followed by the next would be taken when talks between the authorities and Hong Kong citizens failed (Occupy Central Manifesto 2014). Based on this plan, the campaign organized deliberation days and referendums, which led to arguments over the relevance and effectiveness of the campaign on the one hand and protest actions for the same demands by other players on the other. Instead of the planned course of events, the Occupy Campaign was kicked off one day early when tens of thousands of people gathered at Admiralty after the police used pepper spray to disperse protestors outside the government headquarters. The occupation in Admiralty and subsequent occupations in other parts of Hong Kong were named the Umbrella Movement. It is evident that the Occupy Central Campaign represented a significant moment of reflection on one’s relations with politics. Instead of clinging to the culture of depoliticization, the campaign organized direct protest against the authoritative decision of the Chinese government to not grant Hong Kong genuine democracy as promised. It also embodied fundamental critique and confrontational action against the authorities. Civil disobedience became the participants’ tool to assert their rights and realize their constitutional ideals. The campaign also provided new conceptual categories to reshape the conventional public understanding of civility and the rule of law. As discussed earlier, Hongkongers generally stood by the principle of obeying the law, the lower end of the concept of the rule of law. The justification for an act of civil disobedience would thus require the justification of the right to break the law in the first place. Despite the different interpretations of the rule of law, Benny Tai’s “tiered approach,” which integrated both formal and substantive notions, had driven the Occupy Central Campaign and the Umbrella Movement (e.g., Craig 1997, 467–87; Tai 2017, 141–62; Waldron 2016).2 According to Tai, there are four distinguishable levels of the concept. The first level is the existence of the law, meaning that the 2 

The formal notion addresses the principles and manner by which the law is administered, and the required procedures and institutions. The substantive notion explicates that other than the principles and procedures of the administration of the law, the scope of the rule of law should also embrace the protection of individual rights, justice, and democracy. The general protection of rights and contents of government policies thus matter in achieving the ideals of the rule of law.

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major activities in the society are covered by law. The second level requires that government officials and citizens are bound by law and abide by the law, implying the necessity of an effective mechanism to ensure the rule of law. The third level is about limitation, which means that governmental powers are subject to legal limitation. The fourth level is justice attained through law in which fundamental rights, such as procedural rights, civil rights, political rights, and social and economic rights, are to be protected. Citing Brian Tamanaha (2004), Tai further argued that the rule of law includes a belief in legality, a law-compliant attitude, some critical attitudes, and a rights consciousness. Based on the tiered approach, the highest notion of the rule of law is constituted by a basket of ideas about law and government. If these ideas are not fulfilled, citizens may then exercise their right of civil disobedience but with full knowledge of the legal implications. By proposing the concept of the rule of law, Tai successfully articulated that the act of civil disobedience broadened the understanding of the rule of law and enriched the imagination of political repertoires of Hongkongers. Rather than depoliticization, this form of activism suggests the necessity of deviation from the principle of civility and adoption of civil disobedience as political action. Paradoxically and strategically, this form of activism was intended to be peaceful, self-restrained, and even rational. Its whole narrative was crafted within a framework of civility. As stated, the ultimate aim of the campaign was not occupation but to increase the protestors’ bargaining power and press the government into dialogue. The deliberation days were aimed at educating participants to carefully consider their level of involvement and also to empower the campaign through soliciting more support for the act of civil disobedience. Campaign organizers stressed that their actions would be totally nonviolent and therefore no physical contact or force would be employed, and that civil disobedience would be the last resort only when all other legal means had been exhausted. Indeed, the organizers were ready to compromise if their basic demands were met. According to Kin-man Chan, the campaign was meant to be a peaceful movement upholding a culture of negotiation. To quote: “If we did not use a peaceful movement [to push for negotiation] . . . ​no one would want to negotiate anymore and violent guerrilla actions would occur.” Benny Tai admitted that some people disliked his ideas of deliberation days or referendums because such actions were not radical enough (K. Cheng 2017), and political confrontation was proposed to save Hong Kong from further cleavage. Civility, rationality, and self-restraint thus featured the Trio’s justification for the act of civil disobedience and their negotiative activism. As such, the Trio’s proposals seemed to share an affiliation with progressive reformism. The fact that the Trio had put so much emphasis

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on nonviolence is worthy of further exploration, which seems unique to Hong Kong’s social movements and depoliticized culture. With regard to the constructions of Hong Kong identity, negotiative activism attempts to realize certain Western democratic ideals and universal values, including the rule of law, deliberation, consensus, and autonomy in Hong Kong. Its narrative has the staples of cosmopolitanism and civility, and is built upon Western conceptions. What the protesters aspired to achieve resembled the democratic and hybrid identity intentionally and unintentionally cultivated by the colonial Hong Kong government since the 1990s. What was different may be that negotiative activism attempted to embrace all those who were willing to talk. Despite its challenge to the Chinese and Hong Kong governments, it did not otherize them, as the Trio had emphasized their intent for dialogue and negotiation. Its narrative had attempted to include rather than to exclude, which acted against the part of the psyche of the local political culture that proposes confrontation. While the moral and constitutional ideals of this activism are admirable, its paradoxical nature lessened its appeal. Some considered this “civil disobedience 1.0” (Chan and Ng 2017), not radical enough to pressure the governments. Moreover, its civilized, rational, and negotiative nature had held it back from becoming the vent for the repressed anger, hatred, fear, and sense of alienation and disempowerment some Hongkongers had accumulated during the process of decolonization and recolonization. The direct result was the “civil disobedience 2.0” of the Umbrella Movement. Assertive-Expressive Political Activism Dubbed “civil disobedience 2.0” (Chan and Ng 2017; Lian 2015), ­assertive-expressive political activism refers to the forms of critique and action employed by Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) during the Umbrella Movement. Their actions, by nature, are inarguably more confrontational. Scholarism has gained popularity and a political legacy through its youthful activism and leadership, as well as its success in the fight against the national education curriculum. The HKFS and Scholarism, dissatisfied with the Occupy Trio’s delay in actually starting the declared occupation, called for class boycotts before the final breakout of the Umbrella Movement. They were the ones who broke into Civic Square on 26 September 2014 and effectually sparked the movement. Moreover, Joshua Wong, the leader of Scholarism, also held a hunger strike toward the end of their struggle. They were highly and openly critical of the 8.31 Decision. Both student organizations insisted on civil nomination as one of the methods to elect the chief executive, reflecting their strong demands for realizing constitutional ideals in Hong Kong.

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This brand of activism was relatively more assertive of Hongkongers’ individual and collective political empowerment. In terms of identity, the student groups (essentially Scholarism and the HKFS) during the Umbrella Movement had clearly distinguished themselves from the Occupy Trio and traditional democrats as well as the yong mo faction. These parties, together with the authorities and the proestablishment camp, were perceived by the student groups as the Other. Tactics-wise, they considered the Trio’s civil disobedience actions and the traditional democrats too moderate. They regarded nonresistance to possible police arrests in the protests as too passive. Instead, they proposed actively using their bodies and roadblocks to obstruct police action during protests. While they maintained the principles of nonviolence and minimum confrontation, they would proactively assert their space in the encounters with the police by moving forward slowly and with their hands up. This gesture was both assertive and expressive of one’s power. In this tactic, “activists refrain themselves from resorting to violence while pushing nonviolent action to the threshold. In this way, on the one hand, the widest spectrum of ‘spectators’ of the protests would be gathered, and possibly ultimately triggering disproportionate violence on the side of the authorities on the other hand. The dissent against the authorities so aroused could then be transformed into public support of the movement and a greater empathetic participation in subsequent quasi-violent actions” (Lian 2015; my translation). Moreover, this activism had not addressed, as much as the Trio did, the legal and moral implications of participation in breaking the law. During the Umbrella Movement, the students disagreed with the Trio’s strategy to call off the occupation if the government refused to negotiate with them and their demands went in vain. They also disagreed that another de facto referendum triggered by the resignation of pan-democratic legislators would be an alternative protest method. As dialogue and compromise failed, Scholarism and the HKFS parted with the Trio (Chan and Ng 2017), and with their ideas of civility and nonviolence. Thus, far from being depoliticized, the student groups, from the beginning of the movement, demonstrated a strong sense of political self-empowerment and significant breakthroughs in their standards of civility and choice of political tactics, ranging from accommodative to relatively confrontational ones. This helps explain the ever-heightened acceptance of militant protest strategies by both the young people and the wo lei fei fei faction, which led to a growing and steadfast civil society unity in the protests against the Extradition Bill in 2019. That said, it should be noted that this camp of Occupy Central participants still distanced themselves from the yong mo faction. First, like the Trio, they acknowledged the possible positive effects of civil disobedience

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on civil awakening. For example, to quote Alex Chow, former secretarygeneral of the HKFS, who explained why he participated in the rehearsal of the Occupy Central Campaign on 2 July 2014, “With regard to ‘2 July Occupy Admiralty,’ which was in effect a rehearsal of Occupy Central, HKFS followed its practice and did not apply for ‘Notification of Public Meeting / Public Procession’ under the Public Order Ordinance. The intent was to kick-start civil disobedience . . . ​and to prepare the public in overcoming the fear of civil disobedience.” Civil disobedience, said Chow, was “mystified by the Trio, and stigmatized by the proestablishment faction, while only students were ready to step forward to rehearse in front of the public, and this is a very unhealthy development for the social movement” (Au 2014; my translation). Echoed by Billy Jing-En Fung, former president of the University of Hong Kong Student Union, “When the ‘protectors of law’ are not functioning, civil disobedience serves as ‘the last resort’ against authoritarianism. Civil disobedience as a means embeds the public urge for collective values, and by no means does it equate with revolution, nor does it effectually overturn the authorities. Civil disobedience is calling upon the people of Hong Kong, and the global society concerned at large, to formulate into solidarity, putting forward demands to the local and central governments” (Au 2014; my translation). Second, the activism proposed by yong mo activists, one without a baseline, appeared too unrealistic and ineffective in face of the hardline authorities and the generally conservative Hongkongers (Cheung 2014). Different from the yong mo activists, Scholarism and the HKFS would call themselves social movement activists rather than revolutionaries. To quote Joshua Wong’s views of yong mo as an example: “Are you sure about staging revolutions? Are there resources to buy arms necessary for revolutions when Hong Kong is not even able to equip itself with pistols? Where is the room and who are the financiers for violent revolution? Besides, one without the determination to fight until death is not qualified to call oneself a revolutionist” (Meme News 2014). Wong frankly admitted that he was not prepared to give up his life and that “I have no idea if the localist opinion leaders would insist on fighting for independence even at the expense of personal safety. What I could do and would only do in the movement is whatever possible but within the principles, baselines, and personal capacities. . . . ​I would rethink my action if I would be charged with rioting and sentenced to eight years of imprisonment” (Yuen 2016; my translation). The pragmatic attitudes and self-restraint in this brand of activism partly explains the conflicts between the leaders of the Umbrella Movement and the yong mo activists in the clearance of the Admiralty site. Yong

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mo activists resented the leaders’ call for nonresistance and their condemnation of those who attempted to clash with the police (Cheung 2014). Ironically, the delusion surrounding the concept of martyrdom for Hong Kong, as stated by Wong and others, had evolved in the post–Umbrella Movement years. In 2019, protestors against the Extradition Bill shouted out loud “if we burn, you burn with us” and that “one after another we would rise to fight.” Yong mo activism and the local political culture have been rekindled. It is unclear how the assertive and confrontational inclinations of the Umbrella Movement gradually evolved into expressive dispositions with art creation, performance, talks, and singing as the movement significantly expanded. As An Tu observed, the movement became expressive and artistic more than instrumental as it gradually developed (Veg 2016). Even though the original instrumental demands the occupiers made had already failed, the movement was sustained without further specific demands. The “claims” displayed in slogans, artwork, and so on at the occupation sites were only expressions of the broader democratic nature of the movement itself (An 2014; Veg 2016, 699). Indeed, the movement was peaceful, orderly, and creative. In the illegally occupied areas, protestors demonstrated good order and morals, voluntarily clearing garbage and building communal rapport to keep the area neat and tidy. Protestors further beautified the occupied area with artwork and built staircases, study corners, battery charging stations, first aid stations, a files and archives service, and even movie showrooms. The occupied area in Admiralty in particular was described as comparable to a socialist utopia (Cheung 2014). One may even surmise that the ways the movement was sustained vividly reflected its embedded tendencies of self-restraint, civility, a sense of political powerlessness, and pragmatism. As rightly captured by Veg, the Umbrella Movement, like the public sphere in the nineteenth century, “became depoliticized and impoverished, as critical discussion bowed to cultural consumption” (2016, 692). Discursively, the assertive-expressive radicalism deployed a language of justice and constitutional ideals similar to the Occupy Trio’s. Differently from the Trio, it set up more Others in its criticisms, which included the Chinese authorities, the Hong Kong government, the proestablishment camp, the traditional democrats, the Trio, and yong mo activists. It was not as inclusive as the Trio’s narratives and was more inclined to endorse an advanced notion of the rule of law and carry out direct action. In this perspective, it represented a greater deviation from Hong Kong’s depoliticized cultural past. As analyzed earlier, this activism was assertive as well as pragmatic and expressive. One may say the activists wanted to

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straddle a middle way, but the balance was difficult to gauge. This difficulty may partly explain the depoliticized turn in the latter period of the Umbrella Movement. With regard to its identity narratives, this activism emphasized the uniqueness of Hong Kong and the importance in preserving Hongkongers’ cosmopolitan, democratic, Westernized, and diverse (hybrid) core values against the encroachment of the Other, especially China. It directly challenged Beijing’s 8.31 Decision and aimed at achieving genuine democratic self-determination locally through nonviolent actions. It embodied a kind of “civic localism,” reflected in the political platforms of Demosistō, which was formed by the former leaders of Scholarism in 2016 (Lam 2018b, 83–84). Yong Mo Activism The resistance strategies of yong mo have been associated with the various brands of localism in Hong Kong. Although localist organizations, such as Hong Kong Indigenous, the Hong Kong National Party, Youngspiration, Civic Passion, and Hong Kong Resurgence, have different political agendas for Hong Kong, they are all highly critical of the Chinese authorities, Chinese nationalism, mainland visitors, and mainland immigrants. Moreover, they also share views on the separation of Hong Kong from China and use confrontational strategies, including violence (Lam 2018b, 72–93). The last point implies that the localist strategies are no longer self-restrained or operate on the principle of civility. Rather, they are a drastic disjuncture from the past, aiming to challenge the authorities, preserve Hong Kong’s uniqueness, promote its autonomy and even independence, and achieve genuine democracy. In this sense, they adopted a new Hong Kong identity and political tactics by radical negations of their perceived Other and the conventional tactics. The Other variously included the authorities, the proestablishment camp, mainland visitors and immigrants, traditional democrats, the Trio, the student groups, apathetic Hongkongers, and even some localists themselves. The conventional tactics were denounced as wo lei fei fei (peaceful, rational, nonviolent, and no profanity). Paradoxically, this activism aimed to achieve constitutional ends via unconstitutional means. It is commonly believed that even before the Umbrella Movement, Civic Passion, People Power, and Wan Chin (founder of the Hong Kong Resurgence) promoted militant street politics. The localist organizations, despite differences in their justifications, converged on their opposition to negotiation, civil disobedience, and the Trio’s conception of the rule of law. Instead, they advocated militant protest struggles against the police and attacks on government facilities. They

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did not buy into the legal or moral justification for prosecution of illegal political acts and suggested protestors wear masks during yong mo. During the Umbrella Movement, the yong mo faction pushed a “no-leader movement.” They criticized the leadership of Scholarism and the HKFS as weak and urged decentralized decision-making at the occupation areas. No longer abiding by the principle of civility, they promoted the elevation of resistance and confrontation (Cheung 2014). There are several justifications for the escalation of more direct action by this brand of activism. First, for the yong mo activists, civility and peaceful resistance, as core elements in Hong Kong’s political culture, were no longer appealing. Like any discourse that seeks a break from the past, this narrative began with setting up a key target of challenge. Wo lei fei fei was depicted as the resistance strategy of traditional democrats that was rigidly bound by civility. Traditional democrats, mainly the Democratic Party, were seen as part of the establishment. The localists criticized traditional democrats for repetitive protest strategies, such as peaceful demonstration, signature campaigns, and letter petitions, over the past twenty years. Wo lei fei fei was considered ineffective and even fake resistance. Not only was peaceful resistance ineffective in realizing democracy, the strategy was also unrealistic in the situation of Hong Kong. To the localists, peaceful resistance can be effective only in Western democratic societies where basic human rights are protected. Hong Kong, however, is facing an authoritarian Chinese regime that is much stronger. Activists thus need to reformulate their strategies and resort to militant resistance. The localists referenced Nelson Mandela to justify the effectiveness of militancy. Although Mandela was a symbol of the peaceful movement against apartheid in South Africa, he was also the leader of armed resistance and the founder of the Spear of the Nation (Umkhonto weSizwe), which endorsed the strategies of sabotage, guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and open revolution. It was the combined efforts of both peaceful and militant means that brought about the success of the anti-apartheid movement (In-Media News 2017; Luk 2016). Second, in this activism, yong mo was set up as a practical and effective alternative to peaceful resistance. For instance, Ray Toi-yeung Wong, founder of Hong Kong Indigenous, argued that yong mo could liberate people from their self-restraint of nonviolence and political alienation, and thus regain their power to fuel an effective opposition. In this sense, yong mo was an important step helping to break the cultural spell of depoliticized civility and restore political self-empowerment in Hong Kong (Stand News 2017f). Similar views that yong mo would make a breakthrough in Hong Kong’s political stagnation by exposing all sorts of conflicts were common among the localists. To quote such a view:

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What is needed most in Hong Kong now? How can one overcome the political stagnation in Hong Kong? To me the only thing is violence, civil violence! Such violence does not necessarily bring about success to the revolution; rather, it would cause it failure, pushing Hong Kong into an ultimate political stagnation. Having said that, the only means to break the stagnation and find a way out is violence, and nothing other than violence. Violence magnifies all dilemmas and exposes all hidden conflicts! (Lee 2015; my translation)

Meanwhile, yong mo was conceived by some localists as the last resort to offer Hong Kong practical help at a critical moment of vulnerability to China. For instance, to Wan Chin, Hong Kong was like Poland under the Nazi rule. The localists would need to buy time to win substantive achievements for Hong Kong’s autonomy or independence as quickly as possible (Stand News 2017d). Third, yong mo was given moral meaning to legitimize its importance. The action was just because the governments were authoritarian and lacked legitimacy. For instance, Wan Chin argued that because the Chinese rule was despotic, people were justified to use force. He said: “People are entitled to resort to violence in fighting against totalitarian rule and authoritarianism. If not taking up guns and swords, one has to at least obstruct the functioning of tyranny and halt social order to cause the authorities the biggest headache and to awaken the citizens at large” (Chin 2011; my translation). Similar arguments were made by Hong Kong Indigenous. To quote Edward Tin-kei Leung’s deliberation on the outbreak of the Mongkok civil unrest: [T]he hardline and arrogant authorities have miscalculated their legitimacy in overpowering the civility. . . . ​ The SAR government blatantly alienates the people, oppresses the people. The people are the foundation of any government, and it is impossible for the authorities to control everything in society. No government could stand and not be overturned when the people step forward to fight. What happened on Lunar New Year Day [the Mongkok civil unrest] signaled a red light to the authorities that they must stop. (Youtube 2016; my translation)

Ray Toi-yeung Wong stated that they would not back off even though they were labelled as mobs. He said: “The movement to recover Hong Kong was severely criticized in the beginning, and all along we have been labeled by the authorities, media, and citizens as rioters destroying social order. Yet our faith is unfailing. In face of a government that despises the people and ignores our demands, the people are left with no choice but to defend our home and in our own way” (Hong Kong Indigenous 2016; my translation).

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Meanwhile, yong mo was regarded as just since it represented significant historic moments of political awakening in Hong Kong. For some localists, such as Chung-ching Kwong, yong mo represented responsibility and sacrifice. She used to condemn “yellow ribbons” (huangsi dai 黃絲 帶), leftards (zuojiao 左膠), pan-democrats (fanmin 泛民), and “Kongformists” (Gangzhu 港豬) as irresponsible. To her, the only proper thing to do was to “awaken with the readiness to sacrifice, take up your responsibility toward Hong Kong, and step forward and yong mo and fight” (Stand News 2017e; my translation). For localist organizations like Hong Kong Indigenous and the Hong Kong National Party, Hong Kong should be decolonized, take charge of its own fate, and elect its own government. Radical action would be needed to achieve this. Hong Kong remained a colony without any grip on its own destiny. Hongkongers had no say on its return to China; it was the British and the Chinese who decided the fate of Hong Kong. In terms of power structure and appropriation of interests, Hong Kong people are not allowed to choose their own government (Radio Free Asia Cantonese 2017a). Ideologically, some had attempted to free Hongkongers from a colonial cultural bias and reclaim the positive meaning of violence (physical force) in Chinese culture. The ideological resource used, from Chinese tradition, was distinctive from that of other localists who tended to desinicize their identity and justify their actions with Western language. For example, Wan Chin opposed wo lei fei (peaceful, rational, and nonviolent) and reconstructed it as wo, lei, yong mo (peaceful, rational, courageous, and valiant). He quoted Confucius as saying that mo [valor] is the courage to realize wisdom and compassion; like Sun Yat-sen’s determined revolts and Jesus sacrificing himself, all are a kind of violence. It was indeed brainwashing associating mo with irrationality. The mo in yong mo, the mo in valor and in righteousness, is interpreted as “violence,” but wo lei fei is but a curse to any meaningful revolt as if “nonviolence” is the only criterion for peace and rationality. Violence is ruled out as nonpeaceful and nonrational in all circumstances. Nevertheless, the underprivileged should not be denied the ultimate resort to violence once peaceful means fail them. (Chin 2011; my translation)

The localists proposed yong mo because peaceful resistance strategies no longer worked in Hong Kong, and yong mo was considered practical, effective, and morally just and legitimate. This activism represented a significant deviation from Hong Kong’s culture of depoliticized civility at an important moment in the city’s process of decolonization. Unlike the previous two narratives, this activism was discursively hybrid. Its radical

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critique and radical action are justified on both pragmatic and moral grounds, encompassing both Chinese and Western ideas. The reinterpretation of the value of mo (violence) suggested by Wan Chin was grounded on a Chinese cultural perspective that was somehow hardly appealing to all the localists. Another common justification was the example of the Spear of the Nation that was based on Western experience. However, the successful revolutionary experience of the African National Congress is yet to be fully analyzed in relation to the situation of Hong Kong. The hybridity, obviously, was constituted by the localists’ various proposals for Hong Kong and the embedded Hong Kong identity. From the proposal of Hong Kong becoming an autonomous city-state within China based on its acclaimed Huaxia culture (modernized Chinese culture inherited and developed by Hong Kong) to Hong Kong independence based on its civic and cosmopolitan traditions, the localists demanded protection and recognition of legitimate political status for the uniqueness of Hong Kong’s identity and culture (Lam 2018b). It is obvious that the yong mo activism and its pro–Hong Kong independence platforms embodied a lot of anger, hatred, and anxiety as part of the response to the political crisis. As such, the narrative had a host of enemies in defining a genuine Hong Kong identity, including the Chinese authorities, the mainland visitors, mainland immigrants, traditional democrats, Scholarism, the HKFS, apathetic Hongkongers, and some of the localists themselves (Stand News 2017a; 2017b). The process of otherizing was rapid and unpremeditated, demonstrating an identity politics driven by an urge to keep defining and redefining oneself and the localists’ sense of urgency for themselves and Hong Kong. That said, like other brands of activism discussed earlier, yong mo activism originated from the hybrid Hong Kong culture. While it looks different from the negotiative and assertive-expressive activism, it is hardly separable from them. Being a militant activism, yong mo activism is strategic, assertive, and expressive. While militant acts are strategically used for a greater success in pursuing democratization in Hong Kong, they are also assertive actions to affirm Hongkongers’ political power and the sentimental and symbolic expressions of the commitment to sacrifice for Hong Kong as opposed to creating a real disturbance to everyday life. Yong mo activism is an elevated expression of negotiative and assertive-expressive activism. With hindsight, the affinity of the different types of activism that emerged in the 2010s helps explain the growing unity of various camps of activists in the 2019 protests against the Extradition Bill.3 3 

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for the insightful comments here.

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The localists’ yong mo activism and their proindependence political identity have been criticized as half-justified and theoretically unarticulated. Indeed, in the period of the Umbrella Movement, the conceptual contents of this activism have yet to be fully articulated. In order to demonstrate the moral value of yong mo and its related political proposals, critics thought the localists needed to search for the right moral language and ideological traditions. Judging from the depoliticized tradition and rarity of political radicalism in Hong Kong, such criticisms could be easily understood. Yet, from an outsider’s perspective, Elton Wing-ching Chan’s interpretation of the moral imperative of the independence movement in Hong Kong and also its strategy of yong mo deserves further thought. To quote him: Supporters of independence, aware of the reality constraints and in full knowledge of the low chance of success, are still supporting independence. . . . ​The independence movement is a call of conscience on the part of those Hong Kong people totally disappointed with the Chinese government for breaking its promise of “one country two systems.” More importantly, why are more and more pragmatic Hongkongers turning to empathize with an apparently unrealistic independence movement? The independence of Hong Kong has evolved into a “moral imperative” transcending linear calculations of interests. (Chan 2016; my translation)

However, the development of yong mo in Hong Kong has certainly been difficult, if not impossible, because of both political and cultural constraints. By its very nature, no state would stand for its sovereignty being challenged. The government’s series of measures to disqualify proindependence or proautonomy legislative candidates and even elected legislators, and its introduction of the national anthem bill to the legislature in early 2019, well illustrated this point. Also, the localist camp was far from united, and not every localist would live up to his or her proclaimed commitments. Culturally, Hongkongers are criticized for their colonial mentality and lack of “resistance subjectivity,” a criticism commonly held by the localists. As stated by Edward Tin-kei Leung: Hongkongers have been colonized for such an extended period. In the absence of an effectual decolonization process, we are lacking an adequate sense of self. Unlike Taiwanese, whose sense of self is strong and steadfast to defend their homeland. . . . ​So, what does decolonization mean for Hong Kong? It is when the people of Hong Kong reclaim their collective sovereignty, when power is firmly in the hands of Hong Kong people. Not until then will Hong Kong be an entity in its own right. (Radio Free Asia Cantonese 2017b; my translation)

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This resistance subjectivity would be important if Hongkongers still aspired to resist. As Po-chung Chow observed: The formation of the subject of resistance evolves in the prolonged course of resistance. To this end, it contains countless invisible struggles of countless real individuals. The struggles include how to overcome the fear of possible violence against law enforcement officials, the dynamics of empowerment and solidarity in the process of actions, and a redefining of the value of one’s own life. Essentially, the construction of the subject of resistance is a key condition to the expansion and sustainability of the democratic movement. (Chow 2015; my translation)

Strategically, Brian Kai-ping Leung, one of the editors of Hong Kong Nationalism (Undergrad 2015), pointed out the weakness of localist camps continually radicalizing themselves. He said: “The tactic to further radicalize and further extrematize to arouse growing public support is no longer working. It is pointless for localist groups to continue otherizing all other factions. Rather, they have to rebuild the trust with these organizations such that they can grow and develop” (Stand News 2017a; my translation). Probably because of these constraints, yong mo strategies were adjusted afterward as witnessed in the protests against the Extradition Bill. For instance, some suggested that multiple methods needed to be used, including seeking support from international communities (Stand News 2017c). How to understand this important break or outgrowth in Hong Kong’s political cultural tradition? How to reasonably evaluate the contribution of yong mo activism to transforming the depoliticized and civility culture in Hong Kong, the local identity, and the territory’s path of decolonization? How has it led to the protests against the Extradition Bill in 2019, which fundamentally altered the political culture and future of Hong Kong? These are questions deserving deep reflection. Conclusion In the by-election of the Hong Kong Legislative Council following the Mongkok civil unrest in early 2016, Edward Tin-kei Leung received more than 66,000 votes. Then in the Legislative Council election in September 2016, the two candidates from Youngspiration together received almost 64,000 votes. The five candidates of another localist political alliance, Civic Passion–Proletariat Political Institute–Hong Kong Resurgence Order, gained more than 154,000 votes. The social influence of the localist candidates was indeed undeniable. In addition, a study conducted in

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2016 found an unexpectedly high degree of acceptance for various confrontational tactics. For instance, 33 percent of respondents were “strongly accepting” or “accepting” of participation in rallies, petitions, marches, and protests not approved by the police; 19.4 percent accepted occupying public spaces; 16.1 percent accepted occupying government buildings; 14.1 percent accepted throwing objects at officials or those with opposing views; 8.5 percent accepted attacking government buildings; 7.9 percent accepted calling people to use provocative bodily tactics; 7 percent accepted assaulting the police; and 6.9 percent accepted resorting to violence (Lam 2018a). There is no doubt that political activism and yong mo have left a mark on the local culture. Does this mean that Hongkongers’ support for the rule of law has lessened or evolved to the Western standard? Research indicates that the mean score of support for a higher-level notion of the rule of law has actually increased from 2012 to 2016. And the support for the rule of law is significantly correlated with the respondents’ support for the Umbrella Movement. This implies that some likely see the Umbrella Movement as a manifestation of the principle of the higher level of the rule of law (Lam 2020). All these findings together may even signify that some Hongkongers, like the yong mo activists, perceive confrontational tactics as a good way to realize a higher-level notion of the rule of law and to respond to calls for justice in Hong Kong. In conclusion, this chapter unravels the meaning and significance of the narratives of civil disobedience and yong mo as political strategies around the period of the Umbrella Movement in late 2014, with reference to the development of negotiative activism, assertive-expressive activism, and yong mo activism. It argues that the hybrid political culture nourished since colonial times has facilitated the growth of these brands of activism. They represent the attempts to recover Hong Kong’s constitutional ideals and future, and to reconstruct the Hong Kong identity based on common aspirations. Their political tactics are also important breaks from Hong Kong’s depoliticized political culture embodying a common belief in selfrestraint and civility. While the Trio’s negotiative activism was more affiliated with progressive reformism, both the assertive-expressive activism of the HKFS and Scholarism and the yong mo activism of the localists embodied serious attempts of political emancipation from the self-imposed spell of depoliticized civility as well as authoritarian rule. As shown in this chapter’s analysis, the developing political activism and radicalism were inspiring even though the conceptual and ethical contents of some brands could be further articulated. Their soul-searching purpose, nevertheless, remains incomplete due to the authorities’ various measures to contain and crush the protesters, notably the youthful ones with the power to threaten national unity. The brands of political activism

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discussed here have undergone challenges, from dissolving themselves to toning down their political platforms. This chapter serves as a record of a particular twist in Hong Kong’s political history before it reaches the point of no return. Works Cited An Tu. 2014. “Zhanzhong yihou: ‘Hou zhanling’ shidai de juewang douzheng” [After Occupy Central: The hopeless post-occupy struggle]. Mingpao, 14 December. Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso. Au Lok-yung, Lee Hiu-ting, Law Yui-chin, and Chow Chi-fai. 2014. “‘Zheng gai wuwang, Xianggang wuwang, ziji ye meiyou xiwang’—Chongfan zhan zhe xianchang” [“Political reforms in vain, Hong Kong is hopeless, and I am hopeless”—Returning to the occupied site.] Xueyuan [Undergrad], 20 September. Bhabha, Homi. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. ———. 1996. “The Other Question: Difference, Discrimination, and the Discourse of Colonialism.” In Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader, edited by Houston Baker Jr. et al., 87–106. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bötticher, Astrid. 2017. “Towards Academic Consensus Definitions of Radicalism and Extremism.” Perspectives on Terrorism 11, no. 4 (August): 73–77. www. terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/623. Chan, Elton Wing-ching. 2016. “Huiying Gang du, xu zhengshi qi daode yiyi” [Response to Hong Kong independence, the need to face its moral meanings]. Duan chuanmei [Initium media], 24 May. Chan Kin-man and Vitrierat Ng. 2017. “Bentu, yongwu yu quanru: San hou Xianggang de shehui qushi” [Localism, radicalism, and cynicism in post– Umbrella Movement Hong Kong]. Zhongguo dalu yanjiu [Mainland China studies] 60, no. 1: 19–36. Cheng, Edmund W. 2016. “Street Politics in a Hybrid Regime: The Diffusion of Political Activism in Post-Colonial Hong Kong.” China Quarterly 226 (June): 383–406. Cheng, Kris. 2017. “Umbrella Movement Protests Delayed the Rise of Radicalism in Hong Kong, Says Cofounder Kin-man Chan, Three Years on Hong Kong.” Free Press, 28 September. Cheung Yick. 2014. “‘Helifeifei’ vs. ‘Yongmopai’—You Yusan geming kan Xianggang minzhu sheyun luxian de fenlie yu chongtu” [“Peaceful, rational, nonviolent, and inoffensive-language action” versus “militant action”: Conflicts between different streams of Hong Kong democracy movements in the Umbrella Revolution]. Furen wenzhi [VJ Media], 17 December.

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Chin Wan. 2011. “Chenyun zhuanlan ‘Zhuanjiao’ wo lixing, suoyi wo yongwu” [Wan Chin column Round the corner: I am rational therefore I am militant]. Am730, 24 May. Chow Po Chung. 2015. “Du Chao Yun wenzhang ‘Ji tui lian’” [Reading Chiu Wan’s article “On leaving the federation”]. Xianggang duli meiti wang [Hong Kong in-media net], 28 February. Cooper, Luke. 2018. “You Have to Fight for Your Own: Self-Alienation and the New Hong Kong Nationalism.” In Citizenship, Identity, and Social Movements in the New Hong Kong, edited by Wai-man Lam and Luke Cooper, 94–113. London: Routledge. Coulthard, Glen. 2014. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Craig, Paul P. 1997. “Formal and Substantive Conceptions of the Rule of Law: An Analytical Framework.” Public Law (Autumn): 467–87. Derrida, Jacques. 1981. Positions. Translated by A. Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Haiven, Max. 2017. “Beyond the Violence of Colonial Civility: The Art of Raven Davis.” In The Art of Civil Action: Political Space and Cultural Dissent, edited by Philipp Dietachmair and Pascal Gielen, 115–36. Amsterdam: Valiz. Hong Kong Indigenous. 2016. “Huang Taiyang gei Xianggangren de zuihou yiduan luyin: Ning wei yusui, buzuo waquan” [Ray Toi-yeung Wong’s last recording to Hong Kong people: Rather die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees]. Facebook, 10 February. https://zh-cn.facebook.com/hkindigenous/ videos/黃台仰給香港人的最後一段錄音寧為玉碎不作瓦全以下為文字版 please-refer-to-the-later-paragraphs-for-english-ver/1686064351647470/. In-Media News. 2017. “Huang Taiyang dui Yang Jichang: Yongwu dui helifei?” [Ray Wong vs. Yeung Ke-cheong: Militant vs. peaceful, rational and nonviolent?], 27 April. Kuan, Hsin-chi, and Siu-kai Lau. 1989. “The Civic Self in a Changing Polity in Hong Kong: The Case of Hong Kong.” In Hong Kong: The Challenge of Transformation, edited by Kathleen Cheek-Milby and Miron Mushkat, 109–10. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong. Lam, Wai-man. 2004. Understanding the Political Culture of Hong Kong: The Paradox of Activism and Depoliticization. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. ———. 2018a. “Changing Political Activism: Before and after the Umbrella Movement.” In Hong Kong Twenty Years after the Handover: Emerging Social and Institutional Fractures after 1997, edited by Brian Chi-hang Fong and Tai-lok Lui, 73–102. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2018b. “Hong Kong’s Fragmented Soul: Exploring Brands of Localism.” In Citizenship, Identity, and Social Movements in the New Hong Kong: Localism after the Umbrella Movement, edited by Wai-man Lam and Luke Cooper, 72–93. London: Routledge.

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———. 2020. “Belief in the Rule of Law and Its Resilience in the Hong Kong Political Identity.” In China’s National Security: Endangering Hong Kong’s Rule of Law?, edited by Cora Chan and Fiona de Londras, 61–86. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Lau, Siu-kai, and Hsin-chi Kuan. 1988. The Ethos of the Hong Kong Chinese. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Lee, Yee-ling. 2015. “Dui jiuyue nianqiri jingcha qing chang de yixie xiangfa— Hujiao penwu yu Xianggang geming” [Some thoughts about the police purge on 27 September: Tear gas and Hong Kong revolution]. Xianggang duli meiti wang [Hong Kong in-media net], 27 September. Li Cho-kiu. 2018. “Yongwu kangzheng: Xianggang de zhishi fenzi yu baoli/wuli de guannian” [Militant resistance: Hong Kong intellectuals and the concepts of violence/force]. In She yun niandai: Xianggang kangzheng zhengzhi de guiji [The age of social movements: Paths of Hong Kong’s resistance politics], edited by Edmund Wai Cheng and Samson Wai-hei Yuen, 207–21. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. Lian, Joseph. 2015. “Baoli bianyuan lun: San pai kangzheng luxian de keneng huihe dian” [Theory on the margins of violence: Possible convergence of the three routes of resistance]. Duan chuanmei [Initium Media], 28 September. Luk Chan. 2016. “Cong fei baoli dao baoli: Mandela yu ‘Minzu zhi mao’” [From nonviolent to violent: Mandela and “Spear of the Nation”]. Furen wen zhi [VJ Media], 2 March. Mathews, Gordon, Eric Kit-wai Ma, and Tai-lok Lui. 2008. Hong Kong, China: Learning to Belong to a Nation. London: Routledge. Meme News. 2014. “Huang Zhifeng lun ‘geming’” [Joshua Wong on “revolution”]. 31 December. Morris, Paul, and Edward Vickers. 2015. “Schooling, Politics and the Construction of Identity in Hong Kong: The 2012 ‘Moral and National Education’ Crisis in Historical Context.” Comparative Education 51, no. 3: 305–26. Moskalenko, Sophia, and Clark McCauley. 2009. “Measuring Political Mobilization: The Distinction between Activism and Radicalism.” Terrorism and Political Violence 21, no. 2 (April): 239–60. Occupy Central Manifesto. 2014. Accessed 1 February 2018. http://oclp.hk/ index.php?route=occupy/book_detail&book_id=11. Radio Free Asia Cantonese. 2017a. “Xianggang nian nian wei jie zhi, baoli kang­zheng yin shizhi yi” [Twenty years of Hong Kong decolonization in vain, violent resistance came forth]. YouTube, 15 June. www.youtube.com/watch​?​v​ =​U7HW​0DOyb3U. ———. 2017b. “2047 da bian zao lailin, gufule zhichi zhe!” [Early arrival of the big change in 2047, letting its supporters down!], YouTube, 16 June. www. youtube.com/watch?v=s-1RDpzdUPA. Smith, Anthony. 2001. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Oxford: Polity Press.

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Stand News. 2016a. “Gang du dengchang, shang: Tamen shi heshi biancheng ‘du pai’ de?” [The emergence of Hong Kong independence, part 1: When did they become the “independence groups?”]. 15 August. ———. 2016b. “Liang Tianqi: Yongwu kangzheng wei zou dao jintou dan youshi yao he li fei shi jihui” [Edward Leung: It is not the end for militant resistance yet, but sometimes peaceful, rational, and nonviolent rallies should also be held]. 4 December. ———. 2017a. “Bentu xiuzhifu 2, xuanshi fengbo: Shi shui sha sile ‘du pai’?” [Local Pauses 2, Oath-taking controversy: Who killed the “independence groups?”]. 7 February. ———. 2017b. “Bentu xiuzhifu 3, ‘Xianggang minzu’ san nianji: Zhi ke xiang­ xiang de gongtongti” [Local Pauses 3, “Hong Kong nation” third anniversary: A community that can only be imagined]. 13 February. ———. 2017c. “Bentu xiuzhifu 4, mincui lingxiu, xueshenghui zhang, Zhengzhi jingying” [Local Pauses 4, populist leader, student union president, political elite]. 17 February. ———. 2017d. “Bentu xiuzhifu 5, Chen Yun jiedu: Cong ‘baoshou zhuyi xintu’ dao ‘shi yao yulun lingxiu’” [Local Pauses 5, Wan Chin’s interpretation: From “Disciple of conservatism’ to “Doped opinion leader”]. 20 February. ———. 2017e. “Bentu xiuzhifu 8, yige 20 sui bentu pai shaonü de fansi” [Local Pauses 8, Reflections of a twenty-year-old female localist]. 25 February. ———. 2017f. “Huang Taiyang: Yongwu kangzheng sichao ding bi zaixing jiqu jingyan zhuan qu dixia hua” [Ray Toi-yeung Wong: The spirit of militant resistance is bound to resurge, learn from experience and turn underground]. 22 April. Szeto, Mirana May. 2004. “The Radical Itch: Rethinking Radicalism in Contemporary Chinese Societies.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley. Tai, Benny Y. T. 2017. “Civil Disobedience and the Rule of Law.” In Civil Unrest and Governance in Hong Kong: Law and Order from Historical and Cultural Perspectives, edited by Michael H. K. Ng and John D. Wong, 141–62. London: Routledge. Tamanaha, Brian. 2004. On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Triandafyllidou, Anna. 1998. “National Identity and the ‘Other.’” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21, no. 4 (July): 593–612. Undergrad. 2015. “Xianggang minzu lun” [Hong Kong nationalism]. Xianggang daxue xueshenghui [Hong Kong University students’ union]. Veg, Sebastian. 2016. “Creating a Textual Public Space: Slogans and Texts from Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.” Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 3 (August): 673–702.

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Waldron, Jeremy. 2016. “The Rule of Law.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed 15 December 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/ entries/rule-of-law. YouTube. 2016a. “Liang Tianqi kai ji zhao: Nianchu yiwanshi dui zhengquan de yige hen hao de jingshi” [Press conference by Edward Leung: Chinese New Year night is a very good warning to the regime]. 16 February. www.youtube. com/watch?v=_K8W-Gd75qQ. ———. 2016b. “Xin Dong xuanju luntan: Kangzheng bixu liuxue Liang Tianqi: Zhi shengsi yu du wai!” [New Territories East election forum: Bloodshed is inevitable in resistance, Edward Leung: Give no thought to life or death!]. YouTube, 26 February. www.youtube.com/watch?v=36olyar0wHE. Yuen, Rayne Wai-yin. 2016. “Guanghuan tui luo bei pan she fu ling Huang Zhifeng: Kangzheng yu zuo you daijia” [Halo faded, sentenced to community service order, Joshua Wong: There is a price to pay for resistance]. Pingguo ribao [Apple daily], 18 August.

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FOUR

Chinese Tourism as Trigger and Targetof the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements

IAN ROWEN

This chapter addresses the role of Chinese tourism in the Sunflower and Umbrella movements. The Sunflower Movement was sparked by a trade deal that included significant tourism provisions, and the Umbrella Movement’s major demand was for universal suffrage and election reforms, which had nothing directly to do with Chinese tourism. This presents a puzzle: the economic, social, and political effects of Chinese tourism were not a major explicit point of contention for Taiwan’s protestors, but were, I will argue, much more of an issue in Hong Kong before, during, and immediately following the mass demonstrations. I explain this by contextualizing the different effects of Chinese tourism on both polities, as well as the structural differences in the capacities of Taiwanese and Hongkongers to determine their own political fates. My discussion is based on interviews, analysis of media reports, and extensive participant observation in both movements, including a total of two months residing within Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan and Hong Kong’s occupation sites. Between 2008 and 2014, inbound Chinese tourism transformed from a purported breakthrough achievement of the Ma Ying-jeou administration into an unspoken but implicit target of the Sunflower Movement. The movement began as a student-led occupation of parliament, climaxed with a rally of nearly half a million supporters in front of the presidential office that quashed the controversial trade bill, and ended with the protesters’ withdrawal from parliament after twenty-four days. Later in the same year, the Umbrella Movement, a call for democratic reforms, erupted into the biggest movement in Hong Kong history, involving a seventy-nine-day street occupation of three different urban sites, two of which were in areas visited by Chinese tourists. Although the sovereign status of Hong Kong is fundamentally different from that of Taiwan, the Umbrella Movement was in many ways a response

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to similar concerns about Chinese political influence. As put by Sunflower activist Chen Wei-ting, “The driving force behind the two movements was the Chinese Communist Party. . . . ​I realize that we are facing similar problems” (Tsoi 2014). The popular slogan “Today’s Hong Kong is tomorrow’s Taiwan” exemplified such shared popular concerns and responses. Umbrella Movement activists employed tactics that resembled, outscaled, and outlasted Sunflower, even if they did not win any policy concessions. Unique, however, to Hong Kong was a series of anti–Chinese tourist protests that preceded and immediately followed the mass movement, suggesting that reactions to tourism can be read as a kind of barometer of public feeling toward mainland China and that discontent was fueled in part by tourism-driven sociopolitical friction. The Role of Chinese Tourism in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement The rise and fall of cross-strait tourism, both in terms of its political instrumentality and the sheer numbers of arrivals within Taiwan, corresponds with the beginning and end of the Ma administration (2008–16). In his first few years in office, Ma signed several trade deals with China and oversaw the explosion of Chinese tourism, including over three million arrivals annually by 2014, which was initially hailed as a marquee “success” of his policy. By then, however, Ma had become wildly unpopular and his economic and political agenda would soon be in tatters following a popular uprising early that year against a key policy, the Cross-Strait Service and Trade Agreement (CSSTA), a free trade agreement that would have significantly liberalized cross-strait investment and the ownership of politically sensitive sectors, including tourism. This agreement would have produced the biggest structural change to the cross-strait tourism economy since the opening of leisure tourism in 2008. While the intensity of the public backlash against the CSSTA was astonishing, it did not come out of nowhere. Ma had ascended to the presidency in an electoral landslide, after eight years of the embattled Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration of Chen Shui-bian. However, following a series of minor political blunders and his China-centric policy’s inability to quickly improve Taiwan’s economic performance, Ma lost momentum and barely won reelection in 2012 against the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen, a legal scholar who had served as head of the Mainland Affairs Council under Chen Shui-bian and had earlier helped negotiate Taiwan’s accession to the World Trade Organization under President Lee Tenghui. By late 2013, even though his approval rating had fallen to 9 percent, Ma continued pinning his legacy on the consolidation of closer ties with China. During these years, Taiwan’s civil society remobilized and built

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capacity for new NGO- and student-led social movements, which organized in an uneasy mix of conflict and occasional concert with the DPP (Ho 2014). Although Ma had initially promised both economic growth and political stability by signing trade deals with China, by 2014 few immediate financial dividends were evident to the majority of Taiwanese, increased tourist numbers notwithstanding. Taipei housing had become unaffordable for many residents, largely due to the return of overseas Taiwanese capital from China, where factory owners faced rising labor costs; global financial unrest; fiscal policies and low mortgage rates that made real estate speculation a desirable way to avoid taxes; and possibly an influx of Chinese investment capital, although its effect is hard to estimate as purchases were most often conducted through transnational companies with complex ownership structures (Chen 2015) . New college graduates faced limited job prospects and low salaries (Dou and Luk 2014). But given the strong Kuomintang (KMT) majority in the Legislative Yuan, it was hard to anticipate any major policy reorientation. No one could have foreseen that a trade deal that included tourism provisions would be the flash point. The CSSTA had been negotiated and signed behind closed doors in Shanghai on 21 July 2013, by representatives from Taiwan’s semiofficial agency, the Straits Exchange Foundation, and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait. The agreement would have opened eighty sectors of China’s economy to Taiwanese investment, and sixty-four sectors of Taiwan’s economy to Chinese investment, including hotels, tourism, printing, and medical services. The agreement was one in a series that followed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), a broad agreement for increased economic integration between Taiwan and China, which had been signed in 2009 (Hsieh 2011). Both the ECFA and the Services Trade Act were presented by the Ma administration as potential breakthroughs for Taiwan’s economy, although the government’s own Chung Hua Institute for Economic Research (2013) estimated the latter would bring only a 0.025 to 0.034 percent increase in Taiwan’s annual gross domestic product. The CSSTA would have allowed an unlimited number of mainland Chinese companies to incorporate sole proprietorships, joint ventures, partnerships, and branches for “sightseeing” (guanguang 觀光) hotels and restaurants, as well as food provision businesses. As for travel agencies, it would have permitted up to three “commercial presences” of mainland Chinese companies to set up shop in Taiwan’s market. This would have allowed Chinese businesses to directly compete with Taiwanese operators in the domestic tourism market. Going in the other direction, the agreement would have permitted an unlimited number of Taiwanese entities to

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conduct similar activities in mainland China (Straits Exchange Foundation and Association for Relations across the Straits 2013). While permission for an unlimited number of Taiwanese companies to operate in China versus a limit of three Chinese companies to operate in Taiwan may at first glance appear advantageous to Taiwan’s industry, the much larger scale and capitalization of China’s operators could have posed a serious competitive threat. Yet, according to my interview with Yao Ta-kuang, the head of the Travel Agent Association of the Republic of China (ROC), corroborated by conversations with other industry leaders, Taiwan’s tourism industry trade associations generally supported the agreement, as they assumed that more bilateral trade and investment would grow the industry as a whole. From the treaty’s inception, critics and activists decried its secretive negotiation as an example of opaque, underhanded, and undemocratic politics, and worried about the effect that greater Chinese penetration of Taiwan’s economy would have on the island’s small- and medium-sized businesses, media culture, and freedom of expression. Advocates of Taiwanese sovereignty and democracy argued that this trade bill had ominous implications for national security and self-determination. Others suggested that a deeply unpopular president had no mandate to push for such major legislation. Throughout, Ma was the prime personal target of discontent, as not only the president but also the chairman of the KMT, a dual role that empowered him to use party discipline mechanisms to force legislators to cast approval votes for the bill. Yet, despite such criticisms and a hunger strike from several opposed legislators (all of them DPP members with histories of social movement activism), few in the general public were paying attention. Even the DPP leadership had taken an ambiguous stance, beset by internal divisions, lacking a clear cross-strait economic policy agenda, and caught between the clashing interests of capital and its grassroots electoral calculus. While the DPP had demanded a thorough review of the CSSTA, most individual legislators had declined to take a strong position against the treaty. Possible conflicts of interest abounded—rumors of personal or business relationships between not only the KMT but also prominent DPP figures and Chinese business and political interests were not uncommon, especially for politicians who had proved willing to make compromises to boost industrial sectors, including tourism and hospitality (R. Lin 2012). This ambiguity evaporated on 18 March 2014, a day after KMT legislators reneged on a June 2013 agreement with the DPP for an item-by-item review of the CSSTA. Instead of conducting the promised review, the committee convener unilaterally declared that the review period had already ended after a mere thirty seconds and that the bill would be submitted to a

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plenary session a few days later. Had this procedurally dubious maneuver not been physically disrupted by the storming of the chamber the following day, it was all but certain that the KMT-dominated legislature would have passed the bill for a signature from Ma. On the night of 18 March, a motley crew led by activists from the “Black Island Nation Youth,” a loosely organized student political action committee formed the previous year, stormed the assembly hall of the Legislative Yuan. The several hundred occupiers repelled police efforts to eject them, escorted out the few officers on duty, and barricaded the doors with seats tied together with rope. The movement found its moniker after a supportive local florist donated a case of fresh sunflowers to the front lines, meant metaphorically to cast light on the opaque “black box” trade deal negotiations. The courtyard and streets outside the Legislative Yuan, in central Taipei, soon swelled with increasingly sophisticated participation from new student and civic groups, including food distribution networks, blankets and raincoats for nights with cold and wet weather, mobile recharging and Wi-Fi access centers, and free speech zones. Academics from across Taiwan held outdoor classes in the streets surrounding the legislature, and a protester tent city with distinctive neighborhoods mushroomed in the adjacent rainy lanes and alleyways. Small numbers of Chinese tourists— independent travelers and not group tourists—were occasionally visible in the site. Despite the domestic media’s initial focus on minor property damage, public opinion quickly moved in favor of the movement leaders’ call for the CSSTA to be sent back for review (TVBS Poll Center 2014). Emboldened by growing popular support and joined by scholars and civil activists, occupation leaders soon expanded their demands. With legal scholar Huang Kuo-chang and NGO representatives taking increasingly assertive strategic roles and policy stances, the demand for a review of the CSSTA became a demand for the government to create an oversight body for the public review of all future cross-strait agreements. Huang argued that because existing law, based on an anachronistic ROC constitution, still treated the “Mainland Area” and “Taiwan Area” as separate jurisdictions within the same country, there was no proper legal procedure for a review of a treaty-like instrument such as the CSSTA. He maintained that short of drafting a new constitution—no easy task—an oversight body would at least draw more public input into the drafting and passage of cross-strait agreements. After a massive public rally in front of the presidential office on 30 March, with approximately five hundred thousand participants, the Sunflower Movement started to wind down on 6 April, when Wang Jin-pyng,

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the speaker of the Legislative Yuan and a political foe of Ma despite their many shared years of service to the KMT, agreed to meet the protesters’ demands. By 10 April, the occupiers had cleaned up, left the building, and held a tightly choreographed ceremony in the street outside to thank their allies. Although the DPP took a backseat to the protesters throughout the Sunflower Movement and gave it only tacit support, it had much to gain from the hobbling of Ma and the KMT. Still unpopular in the movement’s aftermath, the KMT soon suffered an unprecedented defeat in the “nine in one” midterm local elections on 29 November 2014 (Huang 2014). Despite ample campaign coffers, KMT mayoral candidates lost their traditional northern strongholds of Taipei, Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, turning the conventional wisdom about Taiwan’s electoral geography on its head. Popular DPP incumbents were handily reelected in the south. The DPP earned 47.6 percent of the nationwide vote compared to the KMT’s 40.7 percent, not including Taipei, which elected an independent tacitly allied with the DPP-led “pan-Green” coalition but who maintained a cagey distance, like many of the Sunflower activists whom he drew on to support his campaign. The election results were influenced by both the Sunflower Movement and a widespread perception of poor economic performance under Ma, who had hitched the nation’s wagon to a slowing Chinese economy that was unevenly distributing benefits on Taiwan, even as tourism numbers surged (Huang 2014). Meanwhile, post–Sunflower Movement national identity polling showed an uptick in Taiwan identification, particularly among younger demographics, who voted heavily against the KMT (Taiwan Indicators Survey Research 2015). While part of a long-term trend, this effect appears to have accelerated in the years immediately following the Sunflower Movement. The KMT suffered a further humiliating defeat in 2016, which saw the election of DPP chair Tsai Ing-wen as president and, for the first time ever, a DPP-majority legislature. Tsai, in her inauguration speech, expressed a desire to cooperate with the Chinese leadership, but did not recognize the so-called 1992 Consensus, a vague diplomatic formulation of a “One China” principle, which had underpinned the China policy of her predecessor. Inbound Chinese tourism soon plummeted, which was widely portrayed in the media as an indicator of broader crossstrait tensions (Rowen 2016). By 2018, the KMT’s fortunes had reversed, with them winning most local mayoral races, including in the southern city of Kaohsiung, which had been DPP controlled for twenty years. News reports followed immediately that Chinese tourists may soon be coming en masse to Kaohsiung, where the mayor-elect had advocated the 1992 Consensus (M. Li 2018).

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It should be clear, then, that cross-strait tourism has been politically exploited by both the ROC and People’s Republic of China (PRC) leaderships and interpreted as an indicator of their relationship. This corresponds with the PRC’s geopolitical instrumentalization of tourism in other locales, such as South Korea, Palau, and even the South China Sea (Rowen 2018). However, although tourism provisions constituted a major part of the CSSTA, tourism attracted far less attention from Sunflower activists than provisions for other sectors such as publishing, medical, and telecommunications services. In my dozens of formal and informal interviews with activists within and around the Legislative Yuan, few people mentioned tourism as a major motivating factor for their protest participation. That having been noted, the importance of tourism was acknowledged on the record by some of the highest-profile spokespeople. For example, protest leader Chen Wei-ting asked, during his court trial on 25 March 2015, “What would Taiwan be like now if we hadn’t organized those protests? All these industries—publishing, telecoms, tourism—would have been bought up by large Chinese interests” (Gold 2015). More potent than the specific effects on tourism or even more sensitive sectors was the perception of the legally dubious near-passage of the trade agreement as an instance of unaccountable “black box” KMT–­Chinese Communist Party (CCP) collusion. Sunflowers painted this broadly as an existential threat to Taiwan’s democracy, de facto independence, and potential viability as a future nation-state. These are of course issues in constant question in the government, tourism industry, and civil society’s ambiguous performances of Taiwan as part of China or not (Rowen 2014; 2017). Indeed, tourism sites themselves have been specifically treated as stages for such performances of sovereignty. Although Taiwanese nationalists have not directly targeted Chinese tourists with any kind of aggressive campaign, tourist sites have seen numerous appearances by pro- and antiPRC demonstrators, some of whom carry large flags that assert Taiwan’s independence. The most vigorous and cacophonous demonstrations have taken place at Taipei 101, Taiwan’s tallest building and a mandatory stop on the Chinese tourist circuit, by a wide and confusing variety of actors. Falun Gong, a quasi-Buddhist religious sect that is banned and persecuted within the PRC, has demonstrated regularly there (and at other sites popular with Chinese tourists in Taiwan and around the globe) since at least 2011. They are not protesting the tourists, but rather the CCP, by erecting banners and playing recordings that exhort the tourists to abandon the party. Counter-demonstrations just meters away are often held by the Concentric Patriotism Association of the ROC, a pro-PRC group composed of military veterans and spousal immigrants from China, many

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with ties to organized crime in both Taiwan and the PRC, which often demonstrates aggressively by shouting at Falun Gong practitioners, hoisting PRC flags, singing communist songs and slogans, and taking photos with bemused and enthusiastic Chinese tourists. A third group, the Taiwan Independence Revolutionary Army, often arrives to add yet more color to this confusing and vibrant scene, yet behaves quite gently, and has done little more than wave proindependence flags and post images to Facebook (Rowen 2017). Such relative civility is thrown into starker contrast by the comparative case of Hong Kong, where Chinese tourists have been the recipients of more intense forms of protest, which are analyzed in the following. “Today’s Hong Kong Is Tomorrow’s Taiwan”? Considering Tourism and Protest in Hong Kong “Today’s Hong Kong is tomorrow’s Taiwan” was a slogan that, although coined before the Sunflower Movement, spread ever more vigorously during the occupation as a warning to Taiwanese civil and political society. It implied that the “one country, two systems” scheme—a PRC formulation originally aimed at Taiwan but applied first to Hong Kong and Macau (Cooney 1997)—would not be in Taiwan’s interest (Tsoi 2014). The slogan appeared on stickers throughout the indoor and outdoor spaces of the Sunflower Movement, was exhorted during talks and lectures in free speech zones, and was debated in popular media outlets. The slogan took on further urgency with the emergence of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, a seventy-nine-day, student-led, prodemocracy occupation of three major urban spaces in Hong Kong, two of which were in areas popular with Chinese tourists. The Umbrella Movement was triggered by the Beijing authorities’ August 2014 refusal to permit civil nominations for the election of the chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. This decision denied Hong Kong voters the ability to freely elect their own leaders and instead would force them to choose among three candidates preselected by a committee that was ultimately controlled by the Beijing leadership. The decision darkened an already gloomy political and economic mood, encapsulated by a popular song and spin-off slogan, “The city is dying, you know.” A “declinist culture meme,” this song sprang from the hit local television show When Heaven Burns, first broadcast on TVB in 2011, and proliferated throughout spaces of resistance well before the advent of the Umbrella Movement (Garrett 2013b, 115). The show’s theme song was adopted as the major protest song during the Anti–Moral and National Education Campaign of 2012 (Huang and Rowen 2015), a

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student-led protest against CCP-directed Chinese nationalist indoctrination, and resurfaced during the Umbrella Movement. It is remarkable that a place with as dense and vigorous a human landscape as Hong Kong could be said to be dying, especially given the “China Tourist Wave” (Siu, Lee, and Leung 2013) that hit the city just a few years after the 1997 handover of sovereignty from the United Kingdom to the PRC. In 2003, Hong Kong’s economy appeared imperiled following the outbreak of an infectious disease, SARS. Ostensibly to improve the financial outlook, China raised its caps on outbound tourists by implementing the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS), which encouraged visitation by individual tourists in addition to previously permitted mass tour groups. In 2002, before the launch of IVS, Hong Kong received 16.6 million visitors and 41.2 percent of them came from mainland China (Research Office 2015). In the ten years after the implementation of IVS, the annual number of mainland Chinese tourist arrivals rose from 8.5 million to 40 million, in a territory of just 7 million people (Chiu, Ho, and Osawa 2014). Tourism, recognized by the government as one of Hong Kong’s four “pillar” industries, constituted 5 percent of GDP and 7.2 percent of total employment in 2013, according to Legislative Council statistics (Research Office 2015). Major beneficiaries of this trade have included the hotel and luxury retail industries, including jewelry and watches, as well as businesses that sold commodities perceived to be cheaper and of safer quality than those of their mainland competitors, such as baby formula. In 2009, the IVS scheme expanded to permit residents of Shenzhen, the city just across the border, to apply for one-year multiple-entry visits, leading to a spike in arrivals and the emergence of a “parallel trading” (shui huo 水貨) industry, consisting of mainland Chinese smugglers who regularly entered Hong Kong using tourist permits but with the primary purpose of purchasing commodities for resale in China. The socioeconomic effects of this “tourism wave” have been varied and often polarizing. The concentrated gains of skyrocketing property values and blockbuster sales of milk powder and other commodities were tainted by widespread fears about threats to Hong Kong’s culture and quality of life. Instead of thanking China for this “gift,” many locals instead complained of product shortages, rising prices, and trashed public spaces (Siu, Lee, and Leung 2013). These complaints drove a number of small protests staged against Chinese tourists and traders in popular shopping districts, and the wide circulation of graphic depictions of these tourists as akin to locusts raiding Hong Kong’s limited resources (Garrett and Ho 2014). In 2012, a loosely organized group of activists targeted not only individual leisure tourists, but the parallel traders of Sheung Shui, an area near the mainland border, who were the first to be called “locusts” by the

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local press (Bad Canto 2012). The Liberation of Sheung Shui was a protest action composed of a loosely organized group of netizens, some of whom carried signs such as “Restore Hong Kong” next to a modified British flag (Ip 2015). This garnered significant state opprobrium and was portrayed by Beijing-friendly media outlets as a direct insult to the legitimacy of the resumption of Chinese rule over what was previously a British colony. Actions continued online and off-line well into 2014, with the establishment of the North District Parallel Imports Concern Group and affiliated activists loosely organized under an “anti-mainlandization and anti-­colonization” banner (Yuen and Chung 2018; Ip 2015). These groups staged anti-locust actions in Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, a more central area frequented by wealthier mainland shoppers, which drew yet more official and media condemnation despite their relatively low attendance (Garrett 2014). Some of these groups evolved into what later became described variously as nativist or localist movements, which rippled out in greater force as the China tourism wave broke over Hong Kong. As put by Yuen and Chung, “the protests helped to create a loose network of activists and supporters aligned around the imperative to protect the interests of the local population and autonomy from the growing influence of China, which would be reactivated after the Umbrella Movement” (2018, 22). These groups included diverse ideological elements, such as nascent ethnonationalism and independence advocacy as well as calls for structural economic adjustments and enhanced social welfare programs (Veg 2017). Such calls were amplified by Hong Kong’s growing income inequality and dwindling job prospects for youth, with young activists and international diplomats (Bush 2014) alike speculating that collusion between local oligarchs and the CCP might have been driving political and economic woes. By many measures, including a 2011 Gini coefficient of 0.537—well above the 0.4 marker used by analysts to suggest the potential for social unrest— Hong Kong was among the most unequal economies in the world (Hu and Yun 2013). Such economic polarization likely further galvanized both street-level and electoral campaigns for both more autonomy and more social justice (Garrett 2013a; Garrett and Ho 2014). A manifesto of sorts, read by some protesters and vociferously criticized by Hong Kong’s administration, has been Lingnan University professor Chin Wan-kan’s 2011 book, On Hong Kong as a City-State (Xianggang chengbang lun), which treats Chinese tourists and migrants as among the most significant threats to the territory’s society and institutions. Chin’s analysis is especially remarkable for its argument that democratic reforms within China would actually work against the possibility of increased autonomy or independence for Hong Kong, as such reforms would likely

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take a populist-nationalist turn and accelerate the “mainlandization” of Hong Kong, making Hong Kong not only economically and politically, but also culturally, indistinct from the rest of China. This is a strikingly different interpretation than that of Taiwan’s Ma administration, which argued that cross-strait tourism would promote democracy in China and therefore somehow serve Taiwan’s interests.1 A much less strident analysis by City University of Hong Kong professor Joseph Yu-shek Cheng also suggested that tourism and its backlash were part and parcel of the emergence of “radical politics”: Naturally when more than forty million tourists from mainland China visit Hong Kong every year, the territory becomes very crowded, causing resentment among the locals. While tourism is a major pillar of the economy, most Hong Kong people do not feel they have benefitted directly from it. Instead they believe that this influx has caused considerable inconveniences. Commercial premises in districts most frequented by tourists tend to command higher rents, driving up prices and forcing the relocation of small businesses serving the locals. Mainland tourists’ massive purchases of baby formula caused a shortage of supply for mothers with infants, resulting in an uproar and embarrassment for the HKSAR government. Some Hong Kong people are upset that workers at expensive luxury goods outlets treat Mandarin-speaking customers better. (Cheng 2014, 219)

Tourism thus became one of the most visible signs of mainlandization, fears of which were folded into the sincere calls for universal suffrage and genuine democracy by Umbrella Movement participants. Indeed, the vast majority of young protesters I spoke with during my forty days inside the occupation zones—including over three hundred people in casual conversation and twenty in more structured interviews—opposed what they explicitly described as the “mainlandization” of Hong Kong, in both cultural and political senses, and supported increased political autonomy and even independence in many cases. Many protesters appreciated the linguistic familiarity and cultural kinship felt in the protest zones. For example, “It’s nice to be here with each other with just Hong Kong 1  The Ma administration frequently claimed not only cultural and political benefits for Taiwan, but also the likelihood of political change in China due to cross-strait tourism, as seen for example in a public letter from Thalia Lin, executive officer of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (the de facto ROC consulate), who argued that “37 percent of the eight million tourists to visit Taiwan in 2013 were mainland Chinese. As time passes, Taiwan’s success will definitely enlighten and make a positive impact on the general public of the mainland” (T. Lin 2014).

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people. I don’t think I’ve heard so much pure Cantonese in weeks,” said a twenty-six-year-old journalist. “This is like the Hong Kong of my youth,” said a forty-five-year-old salon worker. She clarified that she was referring not only to the high proportion of “locals” but also to the general everyday qualities of civility, order, and hygiene that she did not associate with China. Despite this, based on my participant-observation data collected over a month of residing within the Admiralty site and making frequent visits to Causeway Bay and Mongkok, occupiers generally treated the occasional mainland Chinese participants, including tourists, in the zones with a mix of excitement, ambivalence, and guarded respect. Thus, the Umbrella Movement itself, as well as the resumption of these anti-tourist protests, demonstrated that tourism in Hong Kong has proved doubly problematic in the CCP’s territorial program—not only did it spark and multiply protest, but for a time it even threatened to incorporate a few brave tourist visitors into even broader forms of protest. Following the Umbrella Movement’s brief window of cultural openness and political possibility, more aggressive anti-tourist actions quickly commenced, including new “liberations” of shopping areas in the New Territories, particularly Yuen Long, Tuen Mun, and Sha Tin. These were bolstered by the emergence of several new nativist or localist groups, including Hong Kong Indigenous, as well as the increased popularity that other allied localist groups such as Civic Passion had gained during their active participation in the Umbrella Movement. Hong Kong Indigenous, in particular, was formed by two Umbrella activists who described the movement and its nonviolent tactics as a “complete and utter failure” (Tsoi and Wong 2016). Some of these groups went so far as to disrupt pharmacies and other businesses that served parallel traders, and reportedly attacked mainland tourists (and some misidentified Hong Kong citizens) on 8 March 2015 in Tuen Mun and Tsim Sha Tsui (Yuen and Chung 2018). In this respect, the aftermath of the Umbrella Movement, coupled with the unyielding response of the CCP and HKSAR Chief Executive C. Y. Leung’s administration, contributed to further polarization and radicalization of Hong Kong society, which seemed set to escalate with further increases in tourism. After the Umbrella Movement, some Hong Kong lawmakers noticed these tensions and took steps to address them. For example, at a March 2015 meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, Michael Tien, a leader (with Regina Ip) of the pro-Beijing New People’s Party, observed, “It started out as a so-called congestion problem, crowd problem, tourism problem. It has now escalated to become a political problem, because

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those who object to the scheme are chanting slogans of wanting independence. That is a very different matter; it has now alerted the highest echelons” (Sim 2015). Several weeks later, China’s Ministry of Public Security announced that residents in Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong, would be restricted to one visit to Hong Kong per week, as a measure to curb parallel trading (Li and Lin 2015). Although the CCP showed some adaptability and compromise by mitigating the effects of tourism, it continued to squeeze Hong Kong civil society and democracy advocates by reinterpreting the Basic Law to retroactively disqualify elected localist legislators. Many activists were imprisoned for various offenses; even student activist Nathan Law, who had been elected as the youngest legislator in Hong Kong’s history, was put in prison for his role in the Umbrella Movement. Political mainlandization thus appeared to be rapidly accelerating in the post-Umbrella moment, with tourism again serving as both barometer and factor.2 Conclusion: Today’s Hong Kong, Today’s Taiwan? The mainlandization of Hong Kong was closely watched in Taiwan before, during, and after the Umbrella Movement. Early on, Sunflower activists demonstrated in solidarity with their Hong Kong counterparts. At the beginning of the Umbrella Movement, after student demonstrators were met with police tear gas on 28 September 2014, Taiwanese activists, including Sunflower icon Chen Wei-ting, stormed the Hong Kong trade office in Taipei. They decried police brutality, demanded a halt to all talks with China, and later staged demonstrations in Liberty Square, site of the Chiang Kaishek Memorial Hall and an important venue for earlier waves of Taiwanese student demonstrations, including the Wild Strawberry and Wild Lily movements. Said Lau Ka-yee, a women’s rights activist from Hong Kong, speaking to the crowd, “Taiwanese often say that today’s Hong Kong will be tomorrow’s Taiwan. However, I think: ‘Today’s Hong Kong is today’s Taiwan’ is closer to the truth. People need to gain a sense of urgency” (Lii 2014). Several Taiwanese activists soon flew to Hong Kong to demonstrate in solidarity, and many Hong Kong activists expressed support for Taiwan’s social movements to me in interviews. “If this doesn’t work, maybe we’ll try to emigrate to Taiwan,” was a half-serious refrain I heard directly from many Umbrella activists after I arrived in Hong Kong on 2  For a fuller discussion, see Tsung-gan Kong, “Mainlandization: How the Communist Party Works to Control and Assimilate Hong Kong,” Hong Kong Free Press, 15 October 2017, www.hongkongfp.com/2017/10/15/mainlandization-communist-party-works-control​ -­assimilate-hong​-kong.

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30 September, a few days after the police fired tear gas and the crowds poured into the eventual occupation sites. Sunflower leader Lin Fei-fan’s reflection on the Umbrella Movement, published in Foreign Policy as “Today’s Hong Kong, Today’s Taiwan,” encapsulates such comparative concerns from a Taiwanese perspective and also notes the role of tourism: The main goal of the “one country, two systems” policy by which China governs Hong Kong is to provide a template for Taiwan, but the developments of recent years clearly show China placing increasingly tight restrictions on Hong Kong’s self-governance. It’s not just that China has reneged on its promise that Hong Kong’s system would remain “unchanged for fifty years.” A more serious problem is that conflicts within Hong Kong society have proliferated. The wealth disparity there cannot be solved via existing structures, and the huge influx of mainland tourists, as well as Mainlanders who become Hong Kong residents, have also created even more social problems. Taiwan faces similar concerns. We have seen that Taiwan and the Chinese government have signed a number of trade agreements exposing Taiwan to industrial outsourcing, falling salaries, increases in the disparity between rich and poor, national security risks, and other crises. (F. Lin 2014)

In this passage, Lin nodded toward Hong Kong’s problems with Chinese tourism, implying that Taiwan could face similar social problems. Yet, apart from a raft of critical reports on social and popular media, and some demonstrations at places like Taipei 101, there has been little to no specifically anti-tourist activism within Taiwan. There are spatial factors at play, such as Taiwan’s much greater land area relative to Hong Kong, meaning that far fewer tourists are spread out over a far greater area, and cause less everyday disruption for residents. A further factor is institutional and geopolitical: It is easy to speculate that, without the social release valve of the Sunflower Movement and the institutional capacity for reform and redirection soon exercised at the ballot box—and, for better or worse, the ensuing drop in inbound Chinese tourism—some radical Taiwanese activists would have followed their Hong Kong counterparts and targeted Chinese tourists as proxies for the PRC and KMT. Therefore, as opposed to what unfolded in Hong Kong, it seems fair to infer that the Sunflower Movement and the ensuing political transition may have spared Chinese tourists from the more direct attention of proTaiwan independence or anti-China demonstrators. Instead of targeting Chinese tourists as (un)witting proxies of the PRC, activists, Sunflower and otherwise, directly targeted the policies and legislative practices of the KMT, whom they portrayed as aligning with the CCP to the detriment

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of the Taiwanese people. This approach successfully mobilized students and other members of civil society who might have otherwise remained apathetic or weakly supported the DPP, whose politicians had taken an ambiguous stance toward cross-strait economic policy, in part due to the concerns of constituent business interests. Paradoxically, by indirectly stoking the fears of activists, tourism’s political instrumentality, as manifest in the CSSTA and the post-Ma drop in inbound Chinese tourism, thereby neutralized its own potential for provoking street conflict with tourists. As the Hong Kong case suggests, if popular support for the Sunflower Movement had not put the brakes on Ma’s cross-strait policy, frustrated activists might have targeted Chinese tourists as an outlet for frustrations about Taiwan’s trajectory vis-à-vis China. In this respect, today’s Taiwan is not like today’s Hong Kong, at least not yet. Works Cited Bad Canto. 2012. “‘Liberate Sheung Shui Station’: Hong Kong Netizens Act against Smugglers.” Bad Canto. https://badcanto.wordpress.com​/2012​/09​/15​ /liberate-sheung-shui-station-hong-kong-netizens​-act​-against​-smugglers. Bush, Richard C., III. 2014. “Hong Kong: Examining the Impact of the ‘Umbrella Movement.’” Brookings. www.brookings.edu/research/testimony​/2014​/12​ /03​-hong-kong-umbrella​-movement​-bush. Chen, Yi-ling. 2015. “The Factors and Implications of Rising Housing Prices in Taiwan.” Brookings Taiwan-U.S. Quarterly Analysis (July). www.brookings.edu/ research​/opinions/2015/07/15-taiwan-rising-housing-prices-chen. Cheng, Joseph Yu-shek. 2014. “The Emergence of Radical Politics in Hong Kong: Causes and Impact.” China Review 14, no. 1: 199–232. doi:10.1353/ chi.2014.0013. Chin Wan-kan. 2011. Xianggang chengbang lun [On Hong Kong as a city-state]. Hong Kong: Enrich Publishing. Chiu, Joanne, Prudence Ho, and Juro Osawa. 2014. “China Travel-Permit Suspension Weighs on Hong Kong Tourism.” Wall Street Journal, 2 October. www.wsj​ .com/articles/china-travel-permit-suspension-weighs-on-hong-kong-tourism​ -1412258672. Chung Hua Institute for Economic Research. 2013. “Liang’an fuwu maoyi xieyi jingji yingxiang pinggu baogao” [Estimated economic effects of the CSSTA]. www.ecfa.org.tw/Download.aspx?No=39&strT=ECFADoc. Cooney, Sean. 1997. “Why Taiwan Is Not Hong Kong: A Review of the PRC’s ‘One Country Two Systems’ Model for Reunification with Taiwan.” Pacific Rim Law & Policy Association 6, no. 3: 497–548.

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Dou, Eva, and Lorraine Luk. 2014. “In Taiwan, Foxconn Sparks Debate over College Grad Salaries.” Wall Street Journal, 15 May. http://blogs.wsj.com/ chinarealtime/2014/05/15/in-taiwan-foxconn-sparks-debate-over-college​ -grad​-salaries. Garrett, Dan. 2013a. “Visualizing Protest Culture in China’s Hong Kong: Recent Tensions over Integration.” Visual Communication 12, no. 1: 55–70. doi:10.1177/1470357212447910. ———. 2013b. “Superheroes in Hong Kong’s Political Resistance: Icons, Images, and Opposition.” PS: Political Science & Politics 47, no. 1: 112–19. doi:10.1017/ S1049096513001637. ———. 2014. “Framing the Radicals: Panic on Canton Road (I).” China Policy Institute Blog. https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/chinapolicyinstitute/2014/02/26/ framing-the-radicals-panic-on-canton-road-i. Garrett, Dan, and Wing-chung Ho. 2014. “Hong Kong at the Brink: Emerging Forms of Political Participation in the New Social Movement.” In New Trends of Political Participation in Hong Kong, edited by Joseph Y. S. Cheng, 347–83. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press. Gold, Michael. 2015. “Taiwan Activists Fan China Fears as Protest Trial Opens.” Reuters, 25 March. www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-protests-idUSKBN​ 0ML0JQ​20150325. Ho, Ming-sho. 2014. “The Resurgence of Social Movement under the Ma YingJeou Government: A Political Opportunity Structure.” In Political Changes in Taiwan under Ma Ying-Jeou, edited by Jacques DeLisle and Jean-Pierre Cabestan, 100–119. Oxford: Routledge. Hsieh, Pasha L. 2011. “The China-Taiwan ECFA, Geopolitical Dimensions and WTO Law.” Journal of International Economic Law 14, no. 1: 121–56. doi:10.1093/jiel/jgr009.THE. Hu, Fox, and Michelle Yun. 2013. “Hong Kong Poverty Line Shows Wealth Gap with One in Five Poor.” BloombergBusiness, 30 September. www.bloomberg. com/news/articles/2013-09-29/hong-kong-poverty-line-shows-wealth-gap​ -with-one-in-five​-poor. Huang, Min-Hua. 2014. “Taiwan’s Changing Political Landscape: The KMT’s Landslide Defeat in the Nine-in-One Elections.” Brookings East Asia Commentary (December). www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/12/08​ -taiwan-political-landscape-elections​-huang. Huang Shu-mei and Ian Rowen. 2015. “Yujian ta zhe de yu xian kongjian” [Raising umbrellas in the exceptional city: Encounters with the other in liminal spaces]. Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology 83: 25–56. doi:10.6152/ jaa.2015.12.0003. Ip, Iam-Chong. 2015. “Politics of Belonging: A Study of the Campaign against Mainland Visitors in Hong Kong.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16, no. 3: 410–21. doi:10.1080/14649373.2015.1069054.

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Li, Fion, and Liza Lin. 2015. “China Limits Shenzhen Visits to Hong Kong to Curb Day Trips.” Bloomberg, 13 April. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles​ /2015-04-13/china-limits-shenzhen-visitors-to-hong-kong-to​-curb​-day​ -trippers. Li Minwei. 2018. “Jiu he yi xuanju lan jun da sheng lüyou yezhe pan ‘lu ke lai tai’” [Blue camp wins big in nine-in-one elections; Tourism industry looks forward to mainland Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan]. Deutsche Welle (Chinese), 10 December. http://news.dwnews.com/taiwan/news/2018-12​ -10/60104183.html. Lii, Wen. 2014. “Protesters Storm HK Office in Taipei in a Display of Solidarity.” Taipei Times, 30 September. www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives​/2014​ /09/30/2003600906. Lin, Fei-fan. 2014. “Today’s Hong Kong, Today’s Taiwan.” Foreign Policy, 1 October. http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/01/todays-hong-kong-todays-taiwan. Lin, Rebecca. 2012. “Spending Big, but to Whose Benefit?” CommonWealth, 1 November. Lin, Thalia. 2014. “Don’t Say Goodbye to Taiwan.” National Interest, 27 February. http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/dont-say-goodbye-taiwan-9966. Research Office. 2015. “Hong Kong’s Tourism Industry.” Hong Kong. www​.leg​ co.gov.hk/research-publications/english/1415rb06-hong-kongs-tourism​ -industry-20150805-e.pdf. Rowen, Ian. 2014. “Tourism as a Territorial Strategy: The Case of China and Taiwan.” Annals of Tourism Research 46 (May): 62–74. doi:10.1016​/j.annals​.2014​ .02.006. ———. 2016. “The End of China-Taiwan Rapprochement Tourism.” China Policy Institute: Analysis, 25 July. https://taiwaninsight.org/2016/07/28/the​-end​-of​ -china-taiwan-rapprochement-tourism/. ———. 2017. “Touring in Heterotopia: Travel, Sovereignty, and Exceptional Spaces in Taiwan and China.” Asian Anthropology 16, no. 1: 20–34. doi:10.1080 /1683478X.2016.1252108. ———. 2018. “Tourism as a Territorial Strategy in the South China Sea.” In Enterprises, Localities, People, and Policy in the South China Sea: Beneath the Surface, edited by Jonathan Spangler, Dean Karalekas, and Moises Lopes de Souza, 61–74. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/ chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-62828-8_3. Sim, Shuan. 2015. “Chinese Tourists in Hong Kong: Lawmakers to Call for Restriction of Visitors Following Protests.” International Business Times, 4 March. www.ibtimes.com/chinese-tourists-hong-kong-lawmakers-call​ -­restriction​-visitors​-following​-protests​-1835548. Siu, Grace, Louisa Y. S. Lee, and Daniel Leung. 2013. “Residents’ Perceptions toward the ‘Chinese Tourists’ Wave’ in Hong Kong: An Exploratory Study.”

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Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 18, no. 5: 446–63. doi:10.1080/10941665​ .2012.665062. Straits Exchange Foundation and Association for Relations across the Straits. 2013. Cross Strait Service Trade Agreement: Appendix 1, Specific Commitment Table of Service Trade. www.ecfa.org.tw/EcfaAttachment/附件一、服務貿易特定承 諾表.pdf. Taiwan Indicators Survey Research. 2015. “Taiwan Mood Barometer Survey.” www.tisr.com.tw/?p=5983. Tsoi, Grace. 2014. “Today’s Hong Kong, Tomorrow’s Taiwan.” Foreign Policy, 19 August. http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/19/todays-hong-kong​ -­tomorrows​-taiwan. Tsoi, Grace, and Tessa Wong. 2016. “What Are Hong Kong’s Localists Angry About?” BBC, 11 February. www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35547186. TVBS Poll Center. 2014. “Liang’an fuwu maoyi xieyi ji xuesheng zhanling li yuan shijian min diao” [Poll about CSSTA and Student Occupation of the Legislative Yuan]. https://cc.tvbs.com.tw/portal/file/poll_center/2017/20170602​ /20140321224523298.pdf. Veg, Sebastian. 2017. “The Rise of ‘Localism’ and Civic Identity in Post-Handover Hong Kong: Questioning the Chinese Nation-State.” China Quarterly 230 (April): 1–25. doi:10.1017/S0305741017000571. Yuen, Samson, and Sanho Chung. 2018. “Explaining Localism in Post-Handover Hong Kong.” China Perspectives, no. 3: 19–29.

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FIVE

Visuality and Aurality in the Sunflower Movement Precedents for Politics as Spectacle in Taiwan

BRIAN HIOE

In looking back on the media reportage on the Sunflower Movement, what most affected the public was the protest’s highly visual nature. Images of the occupation site inside and around the Legislative Yuan, which was filled with artwork, provided a jarring disruption to the normal political order. Similarly shocking were the images of police violence against demonstrators, particularly on the night of 23 March 2014 during the attempted occupation of the Executive Yuan. Such images were disseminated through the Internet, social media, television, and newspapers. The occupation of the Executive Yuan continues to be a contested event, with an April 2020 ruling finding sixteen guilty for their participation in the occupation attempt, overturning a previous ruling that found some participants not guilty. This ruling is also likely to be appealed. Political spectacles are not unusual in Taiwan. In terms of electoral politics, for example, one thinks of the numerous stunts held by politicians within the Legislative Yuan in the hopes of attracting media coverage, or the numerous fistfights and tussles that take place on the floor of the Legislative Yuan. As such, social movements are sometimes seen in line with the tendency of Taiwanese politics toward visual spectacle. So, it is no surprise that this was also the case with the Sunflower Movement. Yet the Sunflower Movement was on another scale of magnitude entirely, offering few comparisons to any other event in Taiwanese history, apart from the Wild Lily Movement (1990). Arguably, it was the Wild Lily Movement, a weeklong sit-in at what is now Liberty Plaza—then known only as the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial—that set the example for student activism that the Sunflower Movement followed (see fig. 5.1).

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Figure 5.1 Large Flower Sculpture from the Wild Lily Movement (photo credit: WikiCommons/CC, https:// zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/野百合學 運#/media/File:E02_wildlily4-4.jpg)

One can draw sharp parallels between the iconic flower-based imagery of the Wild Lily Movement (Yebaihe yundong 野百合運動) and the Sunflower Movement. Images seared in historical memory include the giant wild lily installation at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial and the way students wore white Formosan lilies to symbolize the movement. More broadly, the Wild Lily Movement had a large influence on the repertoire of social movements in Taiwan in the decades that followed. This is readily visible in that subsequent social movements in Taiwan have been named after flowers or fruit, with the iconography providing a central visual thematic for movements like the Wild Strawberry Movement and the Sunflower Movement, which claimed the legacy of resistance against Kuomintang (KMT) authoritarianism.1 Like the Wild Lily Movement, the 2008 Wild Strawberry Movement (Yecaomei yundong 野草莓運動) also tried to occupy the Chiang Kai- shek 1 

Pan-Blue-aligned political movements have notably veered away from this naming scheme, such as the Red Shirt protests against Chen Shui-bian (which took their name from the attire of participants) or the 800 Heroes Movement (2018) protesting the Tsai administration’s pension reforms (the latter took its name from the 1937 defense of the Sihang warehouse in Shanghai by a battalion of eight hundred KMT troops during the Sino-Japanese War).

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Figure 5.2 Wild Strawberry Movement Logo (photo credit: WikiCommons/ CC; https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/ File:Wild_Strawberry_Logo.jpg)

Memorial after a failed attempt to establish an occupation site in front of the Legislative Yuan. The subsequent relocation of the Wild Strawberry Movement drew on precedents from the Wild Lily Movement, but it must be kept in mind that this is also simply due to limited public space in Taipei. While the Wild Strawberry Movement was named in an ironic reappropriation of the label “strawberry tribe” (caomeizu 草莓族)—a reference to the “softness” of the current generation, the aim may have not only been on ironically reappropriating “strawberry tribe,” a term of criticism. The use of the term may have been to try and change the meaning to become something closer in connotation to what was evoked by “wild lily generation” (yebaihe shidai 野百合世代), or “wild lilies,” a name conjuring up the heroism of past student movements (He 2014, 8–9).2 With the Sunflower Movement, one sees a similar positioning of the movement in line with the Wild Lily Movement, as an appeal to history (see fig. 5.2). The Visual Language of the Sunflower Movement The Sunflower Movement developed a rich visual language, which was part of what allowed for the vitality of the movement. This is readily visible in the thousands of artworks that accumulated in the occupation of 2  Chen Wei-Ting, one of the two individuals perceived as leading the Sunflower Movement in the public eye, has expressed admiration for and taken inspiration from individuals of the Wild Lily generation.

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the Legislative Yuan, through which numerous thematics became readily discernible in the course of the movement. The artworks in and around the Legislative Yuan drew on many cultural citations in their visual language. As a movement concerned with Taiwan’s future that positioned itself as the legacy of previous movements, Taiwanese history was unsurprisingly a major referent. But as a movement in which many young people were involved, contemporary Taiwanese pop culture was also a major referent. The movie Kano, for example—a film about young Taiwanese baseball players during the Japanese colonial period—was popular among occupiers and indirectly stoked Taiwanese national pride. As a group of youthful underdogs and because of the concern with Taiwanese identity that undergirded the movement, occupiers saw themselves in Kano’s protagonists.3 Significantly, another shared reference was contemporary, globalized pop culture as consumed by Taiwanese young people. This is observed in references to everything from Japanese anime series, such as Attack on Titan, to Hollywood movies like V for Vendetta—many occupiers wore the V mask, which was popularized in the wake of Occupy Wall Street. Protesters often compared themselves to popular protagonists and their KMT antagonists to villains, a form of self-heroization (see fig. 5.3). A further key reference point is the discourse that Taiwanese activists developed among themselves, oftentimes through the Internet. As with other forms of Internet subculture, a great deal of this was formed through Internet memes complete with slang, inside jokes, commonly seen protest slogans, and the like. These slogans and concepts frequently appeared in the artwork in the Legislative Yuan encampment. Such discursive terms at times touched on activists’ self-­understanding of their position in society, as in frequent references to terms such as “22K” salaries (the average salary for college graduates was 22,000 NT per month in 2014), juxtaposed with the labeling of young people in the media as “losers” or a “bone-sucking tribe” (kenlao zu 啃老族) that drained resources from their parents—with a perceived lack of empathy toward the low starting salaries—as well as referring to the present time as an “age of collapse” (bengkui shidai 崩潰世代). Other terms were insults for political leaders. Examples include depictions of then vice president Wu Den-yih 吳敦義 as a “ white dolphin” (baihaitun 白海豚). This name came about because of Wu’s questionable claim that the Kuokuang Petrochemical Plant’s development did not threaten the Chinese white dolphin’s natural habitat because of its “inherent 3 

Kano was screened in the Legislative Yuan on 1 April 2014, after which Lin Fei-Fan made public comments comparing occupiers to the film’s protagonists.

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Figure 5.3 Artwork Inspired by Japanese Anime Attack on Titan in the Legislative Yuan Encampment (photo credit: Charlie Chang/Flickr/CC 2.0; https://www. flickr.com/photos/charlie_world/13596724893/)

ability” to make U-turns—which gave rise to another term of mockery following Wu’s own political U-turns. Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay 羅瑩雪 came to be known as “law-in-shit”—a pun on the pronunciation of Luo’s name—because of what activists saw as frequently questionable legal judgment. President Ma Ying-jeou was said to have a “handshake of death” because of purported disasters that befell individuals who had shaken his hand. Ma voters were referred to by the insult “689” because Ma won the 2008 presidential election by 6.89 million votes, though activists were sometimes rueful about being former 689 voters themselves. As this was also a term of insult for Hong Kong chief executive C. Y. Leung during the Umbrella Movement (a vulgar term in Cantonese and also the number of votes from the executive selection committee that he won by in 2012), the term may have in fact spread from Hong Kong to Taiwan or vice-versa. Ironically, Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP would also win by 6.89 million votes in 2016 (Wrong 2016). Meanwhile, protest slogans included “Save your own country” (ziji guojia, ziji jiu 自己國家，自己救), “People are the masters of the country”

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Figure 5.4 Artwork of the “Black Box” in the Legislative Yuan Encampment (photo credit: hjw223/Flickr/CC 2.0; https://www.flickr.com/photos/hjw223/14340632830/)

(renmin shi guojia de zhuren 人民是國家的主人), “Never give up,” and “Fuck the government,” with the latter two appearing only in English. Apart from expressing hostility toward the government, as a call to action such slogans exhorted the people to take control of their own destiny. One notes that English protest slogans were generally idiomatic phrases and, as in “Fuck the government,” seem to have been derived from social movement contexts in the Anglophone world (see fig. 5.4).

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Again, this internal discourse among activists was a significant source of the visual language that developed during the Sunflower Movement, but this was also furthered in that the movement developed its own slang, with the formation of a discourse particular to the movement. The most obvious example would be the term “black box” (heixiang 黑箱), which was used to refer to the nebulous way in which the CSSTA trade bill was passed into law. Artwork using the theme of the black box was commonly seen in the occupation encampment. Unlike the aforementioned terms, this was a term that emerged solely in the context of the Sunflower Movement and its criticisms of the process through which the CSSTA was passed. However, it actually became widely used in Taiwanese politics afterward—the pan-Blue camp has criticized the Tsai government as a black box lacking transparency with regards to pension reform, gay marriage, and a host of other issues in the years following the Sunflower Movement. Other new slogans that emerged in the course of the movement and that rapidly became ubiquitous in artwork in the Legislative Yuan encampment include: “If the KMT does not fall today, Taiwan will not become better” (Guomindang bu dao, Taiwan bu hui hao 國民黨不倒，台灣不會好) and, riffing off the previously seen slogan “Fuck the government”—which originated from protests against forced land evictions in Dapu, Miaoli— was the new slogan “I don’t need sex because my government fucks with me everyday,” as well as “Taiwan is not for sale,” an expression of how the KMT was seen as literally selling Taiwan off to China through the CSSTA. Visuality in the Sunflower Movement In general, Sunflower Movement occupiers were highly cognizant that visuality would play a large role in attracting public support for their movement. Taiwanese media is largely focused on the visual, no matter the medium, and Sunflower Movement activists likely realized that they would have to seize on this. Nevertheless, the media can be a double-edged sword, given the predisposition in Taiwan toward salacious reporting on public scandals. Activists were keenly aware that their actions might backfire if they were portrayed as a group of troublemakers, particularly when journalists honed in on incidents such as student occupiers drinking beer within the Legislative Yuan, or alleged drug usage or wild sex during the occupation. Similarly, pro-China interests have moved in recent years to take financial control of media outlets in Taiwan, a subject that became the target of ire during the Anti–Media Monopoly Movement, which was another key social movement preceding the Sunflower Movement.

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As such, livestreaming took place on social media from day one of the movement. There were those who immediately realized that to get the word out they would have to capture the scenes through photography or video, and then post the images on social media. Individuals involved in such efforts described their motivations as providing a visual rejoinder to media reporting, which had already begun to smear the movement several hours after the occupation began.4 It is important to note that this took place during a period in which livestreaming was not as common as it later became in Taiwan. The social media posts did, in fact, successfully attract members of the public to participate in the movement, with tens of thousands watching the livestreamed video of the occupation. Perhaps this can be said to have made the movement into spectacle. However, compared to other political spectacles prevalent in the media, what was different about the Sunflower Movement was that this was a participatory form of spectacle, not merely a passive one. For example, when fighting among elected officials breaks out in the Legislative Yuan, clearly members of the public cannot drive over and participate. In contrast, the Sunflower Movement did not take place within a restricted space. That is, individuals could go to the occupation zone inside the general assembly chamber of the Legislative Yuan, which had been cleared of police, and directly join the movement. In the course of the movement, spaces normally off limits, such as the Legislative Yuan, were opened up to members of the public. As a result, the line between participant and observer in the Sunflower Movement is not easy to draw. There were those who went to the Legislative Yuan simply because they were curious about the events they had seen on television, in newspapers, or on the Internet. Sometimes such individuals would unpredictably become sucked into movement organizing and directly become participants in the movement, rather than simply observers passing through. There are, in fact, individuals who later became well-known social activists who attribute their social activism to having begun in this way. At the same time, the open nature of the occupation also led to a number of plainclothes police entering the area, as well as suspicions that certain actions within the movement were the product of police provocateurs. 4 

Longson Chang 張龍三 of the Chen Wen-Cheng Memorial Foundation, who is usually credited as the first individual to livestream inside the Legislative Yuan, expressed in an interview with me that his motivation in beginning to livestream was in order to deliver images of the Legislative Yuan occupation to the outside world and to counter media reportage that portrayed the Sunflower Movement occupiers as troublemakers and socially disruptive forces.

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Indeed, perhaps this suggests that while there were spectacle-like elements of the Sunflower Movement, if a key element of a spectacle in the Debordian sense is a strong sense of passive disengagement between the observer of a spectacle and the spectacle itself, by which the observer has little influence on the contents of spectacle, this was not present in the Sunflower Movement (Debord 1994, 13). On the contrary, many felt the Sunflower Movement to be highly empowering in terms of restoring a sense of political agency. Perhaps if, as Rancière suggests, the politics of aesthetics involves the “distribution of the sensible,” the Sunflower Movement was a moment in which the public felt empowered to carry out this process of distribution and redistribution themselves (2013, 14 –19). That is, aesthetic transformations reflect the transformations in what participants of the movement felt to be politically possible and permissible. Criticisms that the Sunflower Movement Was Reducible to Spectacle At the same time, the overemphasis on visual imagery in the Sunflower Movement led to the criticism that it was reducible to visual spectacle. This has long been an accusation against social movement activism in Taiwan—that the actions are merely for show in front of the media. Perhaps in the way that electoral politics in Taiwan is seen as a media spectacle, this also reflects on social movement activism, with the view being that activism may in itself have an overemphasis on external appearances at the expense of substantive calls for change. That being said, social movements require media attention in order to attract participants and survive. As with the Iranian Revolution, demonstrators sometimes “act out” when on camera. The emphasis on spectacle within a movement is first and foremost a means of drawing public attention. The prevalence of English-language signs is also generally an indicator that a movement hopes for international attention, something that was visible in the Sunflower Movement, with a translation group that was formed specifically to conduct outreach to international media. More generally, one observes convergent phenomena between international social movements, particularly in the age of social media, as well as how international social movements set examples for one another. During the Sunflower Movement, participants cited the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street as inspirational, for example (Hioe 2017d). Accusations were generally that the motivations of Sunflower Movement activists were reducible to a desire to be looked at. This was visible in a number of forms; for example, in claims that Sunflower Movement activists were in it merely for public attention. Or the sexualization of

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activists during the movement, with claims that students were motivated in some way by a desire to come off as attractive in front of the camera. This was particularly true of Lin Fei-Fan 林飛帆, Chen Wei-Ting 陳為廷, and Huang Kuo-Chang 黃國昌, the three individuals who were perceived as the leaders of the Sunflower Movement, as well as an incident involving Johanne Liou (劉喬安), who was dubbed the “Sunflower Queen” (taiyanghua nüwang 太陽花女王) by the media.5 Similarly, activists within the Legislative Yuan were highly self-­ conscious of the fact that cameras were on them at all times, broadcasting what went on inside the Legislative Yuan to the outside world 24/7 by way of livestream. Although cameras were trained on only part of the space inside the general assembly chamber of the Legislative Yuan, it often felt to occupiers as though they were on public view at all times, as though this were some kind of reality show. To some, it was almost as though occupiers were in some kind of panopticon, albeit one they had decided to enter of their own free will. In particular, some female occupiers have described their fear of being targeted by the Taiwanese media, known for its chauvinism and misogynistic coverage, because they were in public view at all times. Indeed, such targeting did occur, of both men and women. This was not always negative, in that some of these individuals became minor celebrities in the movement, though less well-known than leadership figures such as Lin Fei-Fan and Chen Wei-Ting. A man who jumped onto a table with a guitar and began singing during the initial occupation came to be known as “Trash Brother” (Lese ge 垃圾哥). A member of the Deposers, an indie metal band affiliated with the Pariah Liberation Area (Jianmin jie­ fang qu 賤民解放區) splinter group, came to be known as “Bald Brother” (Guangtou ge 光頭哥) after being filmed drinking beer inside the Legislative Yuan (Li 2016). On that note, activists also feared that the media might report on rumors of wrongdoing within the Legislative Yuan. Rumors among activists were that the use of drugs, specifically ecstasy, had taken place within the Legislative Yuan and that this would eventually be reported on by the media. After rumors of condoms inside the Legislative Yuan bathroom, it was feared among occupiers that it would soon be reported that students were having sex in the Legislative Yuan. Yet the emphasis on visuality in the movement may be no mistake. As previously stated, apart from the fact that Taiwanese media is highly visual, whether this be in the form of newspapers, television, or online, the aims 5 

For a discussion of such dynamics, see Brian Hioe and Wen Liu (2014).

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of the movement themselves seemed to cohere to visuality far more than other forms of sensory experience. Martin Jay (1993) draws the connection between visuality and the Enlightenment Project, for example, in Downcast Eyes and other works focusing on the denigration of vision in postmodern thought. Apart from the obvious primacy of visuality among the five senses, a link between visuality and the Enlightenment Project seems quite pertinent to the Sunflower Movement, insofar as the self-proclaimed aims of the movement were to reveal the inner contents of the “black box CSSTA,” and the movement criticized what it viewed as authoritarian, undemocratic, and despotic actions by the Ma administration. This may be the other side of visual spectacle—with an emphasis on revealing what was hidden, as in the contents of the “black box,” the movement could not help but be highly visual. This perhaps indicates that the aims of the movement’s mainstream were to uphold Enlightenment values in a Taiwanese context. At the same time, critiques of the visual nature of the Sunflower Movement by radical splinter groups such as the Pariah Liberation Area claimed that the mainstream focused too much on superficial politics and did not touch on the socioeconomic “base” of freetrade agreements such as the CSSTA, instead remaining preoccupied with ideological “superstructure” (Lin 2016, 108–11). Visuality as Vehicle for Discourse during the Sunflower Movement It is important to note that the role visual imagery played in the movement was not limited to attracting the public or any other solely instrumental use of visuality. The visual imagery of the Sunflower Movement and related artwork was a crucial vehicle for discourse among social activists. Ideas gained circulation among social movement activists as they spread through artwork in the Legislative Yuan or online. As such, the self-understanding of the movement was probably most visible through the visual self-representations of the movement. Furthermore, one could gauge the popularity of certain lines of thought during the movement from how many artworks about an idea could be seen in the occupation encampment. This is not simply to say that artwork within the Legislative Yuan encampment passively reflected the popularity of certain viewpoints within the movement. Artwork contributed to discourse during the movement and helped to shape how occupiers understood their actions in a larger social context. Forms of art in the Legislative Yuan encampment should be viewed alongside the numerous essays that circulated online during the Sunflower Movement, oftentimes on social media or PTT, debating what the subsequent steps for the movement should be.

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Visuality and Spatiality in the Occupation Encampment For many occupiers, the Legislative Yuan encampment came to be thought of as an autonomous zone, a rupture from the rules of the everyday. The prevalence of artworks in the occupation site contributed to this perception, seeing as they established a clear visual border between the encampment and the outside world that surrounded it. This may not be surprising, because visually marking difference from outside society is a common characteristic of occupation-style movements. In examining the Sunflower Movement against other youth-led occupation movements in urban areas, such as Occupy Wall Street or the Umbrella Movement, many have pointed to young people’s confronting conditions of neoliberalism globally as a contributing factor to the rise of similar movements in disparate contexts. In situating the Sunflower Movement alongside international youth movements in past years, the artwork that populated the Legislative Yuan encampment can perhaps also be understood as an attempt to resist the neoliberal disenchantment with the world, by making otherwise drab urban environments colorful. This could be seen as an attempt to synthesize art and life, as a way of resisting capitalist realism. In this vein, many have noted that the atmosphere within the Legislative Yuan encampment was frequently festive and party-like, almost like a night market, which may have been intentional. The flip side of the neoliberal spectacle may be that it is in itself a means of attempting to counteract what seem to be stultified, reified capitalist social relations, again, as a means of seeking political transformation through a redistribution of the sensible. This is also true of the relation between social movements taking place in neoliberal conditions and their relationship with the spectacular. A common thread running through descriptions of the encampments of both the Umbrella and Sunflower movements is the degree to which they seemed to be utopian spaces in which free food, water, housing, and services were available, paid for by donations from the public (Ng 2016, 159 –269). One could in these spaces receive anything from free lunch boxes and legal aid to psychological counseling and transportation. Particularly for a generation of young people who were not afforded the same opportunities as their parents (living on “22K” salaries, unable to afford housing or find job opportunities), the inhabited space of the occupation (marked off visually from the disenchanted environs of capitalist realism) was a means of resisting a society founded upon conspicuous consumption and an existence defined by rootlessness (Wu 2017, 53–77). Again, occupations in past years have been frequently described in utopian, communal terms. The Umbrella Movement has been described as a “village” in which,

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among the tight-knit community of occupiers, supplies and other necessities were free, quite at odds with the highly consumerist Hong Kong society that surrounded it (Ho 2019, 313). Given the overriding concerns of the movement regarding Taiwanese sovereignty, as well as the fact that it began with the occupation of the Taiwanese legislature, the ethos of reclaiming the legislature and making it truly representative of the Taiwanese people would naturally take on this dimension of seeking groundedness in and inhabitation of this space, perhaps in the sense of the Heideggerian search for rootedness and authenticity (Heidegger 1962, 91–122). Though this is also a common characteristic of occupation-style movements, participants in the movement spoke of feeling as though the occupied Legislative Yuan was a space they truly inhabited, as a form of homeland that they had never experienced before. This was reflected in artwork that was self-referential of the occupation encampment, such as the “memorial” for the occupation for Lane Eight of Linsen South Road that appeared at the end of the movement. After the movement ended, occupiers felt a sense of exile from this newly established homeland, both temporally and spatially. This, too, can be observed in Umbrella Movement occupiers’ descriptions of their sense of loss after the movement, which is fitting because both the Sunflower Movement and Umbrella Movement were occupation-style movements concerned with broader issues of sovereignty. In contrast, the Anti–Extradition Law Amendment Bill demonstrations in Hong Kong reflect this less, since demonstrations took place across the whole of Hong Kong instead of in a demarcated, self-enclosed occupation space (see fig. 5.5). Such were the poetics of space in the Sunflower Movement occupation, one might say. For some, this view of the occupation space would also take on dimensions of prefigurative politics, with the Legislative Yuan encampment seen as providing the blueprint for a future society (Graeber 2004, 24–37). These demands took place primarily in the occupation encampment external to the Legislative Yuan. As a result, due to growing pressure on occupiers within the Legislative Yuan from the surrounding encampment, something described in Ming-sho Ho’s chapter in the current volume, those within the Legislative Yuan were eventually pushed to attempt open forms of governance. This can be seen in the Occupy Wall Street–style general assemblies held near the end of the occupation.6 Even 6  For a translated report from one of these assemblies, see Report on The People’s Assembly (2014). This and other translations of key documents from the Sunflower Movement can be found as part of the Daybreak Project, a 400,000-word oral history archive of participants in the Sunflower Movement, along with entries on key figures, factions, and a timeline of events during the movement. The Daybreak Project was compiled by the author in 2017 and can be found at https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/. Much of this paper draws on material originally compiled as part of the Daybreak Project.

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Figure 5.5 Occupation Encampment Outside of the Legislative Yuan during the Sunflower Movement (photo credit: Brian Hioe/CC 2.0)

though holding such assemblies was a means of responding to critics who felt that the Legislative Yuan’s decision-making processes were opaque and insufficiently open to the public, the assemblies can also be seen as part of the efforts by Sunflower Movement activists to push toward a form of direct democracy. This would for example allow the public at large to propose laws or recall corrupt politicians by public referendum. Taiwanese youth activists pushed for both measures in the years before and after the Sunflower Movement, and the establishment of Internet-based platforms to gather public opinion after the movement, drawing on digital technologies for these efforts at direct democracy. Suspension and Transformations of the Practices of the Everyday through Visuality The encampment around the Legislative Yuan came to be thought of as a place in which the practices of the everyday were suspended or inverted, as in Bakhtin’s carnivalesque (Bakhtin 1968, 96). This was perhaps best exemplified, for part of the movement, by the fact that the Republic of China flag on top of the Legislative Yuan was hung upside down, pointing to a broader sense of an inverted social order pervading the movement. Not only were there transformations and metamorphoses engendered by the Sunflower Movement, but also many reversals of normal order. In

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Figure 5.6 Artwork Mocking Wu Den-yih as a “White Dolphin” (photo credit: 小聖蚊的治國日記​/Face​book; https:​//www​.face​book​.com/Holy​ Mos​quito​/photos​/a.147025​83332​ 51822​/15898704412​90610​/?type=3)

looking at depictions of political figures during the movement, we may note that individuals such as Ma Ying-jeou and Wu Den-yih suddenly went from respectable figures shown in photographs to individuals who were widely mocked and depicted through hand-drawn caricatures (see fig. 5.6). Ma, for example, was suddenly no longer the respectable president of the Republic of China, but the semicomical “Dictator Ma” or “Bumbler Ma” (Huang 2014, 147–76). Ma and other KMT figures became in some measures less than human, shown in various bestial depictions. Ma was often portrayed as a horse, a riff on his surname (a homonym for horse in Mandarin), or as a human with deer antlers growing out of his ears, due to a previous gaffe in which Ma had claimed that deer antlers were hair growing out of a deer’s ears. Wu Den-yih was depicted as an anthropomorphic white dolphin, poking fun at a past incident in which Wu had claimed that the Chinese white dolphin would be able to avoid pollution by making sudden U-turns (Jiang 2017, 127–53). But such transformations were not limited to the enemies of the movement, with activists themselves “metamorphosing.” We can observe this in the course of how activists represented themselves. As already mentioned, the movement itself came out of and drew on a series of previous transformations, with the Wild Lilies leading to the Wild Strawberries, and the Wild Strawberries taking their name from the ironic reappropriation of the label “strawberry tribe” that was used to criticize young people. But these transformations continued in the course of the movement. As a major theme of artwork in the occupation was depictions of protesters by the protesters themselves, this could also be said to have set loose a

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Figure 5.7 Anime-Style Depictions of the Leading Figures of the Sunflower Movement (photo credit: Charlie Chang/Flickr/CC 2.0; https://www.flickr. com/photos/charlie_world/13596384113/in/photostream/)

process of transformations in self-signification. This was the thematic of respectable “citizens” (gongmin 公民) terming themselves “rioters” (baomin 暴民), or passive, dispassionate “hipsters” (wenqing 文青) and self-­ proclaimed “losers” (lushe 魯蛇) becoming “enlightened youth” (jueqing 覺青) and “angry youth” (fenqing 憤青). What these individuals fought against, in the interests of preserving democratic freedoms, were the “black box” (heixiang 黑箱) and the “birdcage referendum act” (niaolong gongtou fa 鳥籠公投法), both metaphors for containment. This can be understood as a means by which the protest disrupted chains of signification in such a manner as to set loose a process of self-transformation among the demonstrators (see fig. 5.7). The overall framing of the movement went through a number of polymorphous transformations, too. The Sunflower Movement itself would become jokingly referred to as the Banana Movement (xiangjiao yundong 香蕉運動) after former KMT legislator Chiu Yi 邱毅 could not remember the name and said “Banana Movement ” by accident. Banana Movement would come to be a vaguely self-mocking term that stood for how out of touch the KMT was with contemporary social realities, and this depiction

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Figure 5.8 Artwork of KMT Legislator Chiu Yi and “Bananas” during the Movement (photo credit: Charlie Chang/Flickr/CC 2.0; https://www.flickr. com/photos/charlie_world/13596288523/)

was seen in memes and artwork in the occupation encampment (see fig. 5.8). To this end, social movement humorist Indie DaDee (音地大帝) would later coin the moniker “Big Bowel Blossom Forum” (Da chang hua yundong 大腸花運動), riffing off the similarity of its characters to those for Sunflower Movement (太陽花運動) for a series of livestreamed events in which participants drank and publicly blew off steam about the movement. The Big Bowel Blossom Forum, which frequently involved vulgarity and cursing, would come to embody the rougher-edged, less visually pleasing aspects of the movement, as well as perhaps embracing media perceptions of the movement as rowdy, raucous, vulgar, and even sexualized.7 Insofar as the participatory nature of the movement and the circulation of ideas within it sometimes involved imitation, mimesis and spontaneous forms of replication can also be said to have occurred in the movement. For example, after Executive Yuan deputy secretary-general Hsiao 7 

For more information on the Big Bowel Blossom Forum, including links to recordings, see Hioe (2017c).

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Figure 5.9 Artwork of Suncakes during the Movement (photo credit: Charlie Chang/Flickr/CC 2.0; https://www.flickr.com/photos/ charlie_world/13596477163/)

Chia-chi 蕭家淇 complained that students who had gotten into his office ate his suncakes during the attempted storming of the Executive Yuan, members of the public began to send suncakes to the Legislative Yuan encampment, which may have also been a pun on the similarities between “suncake” (taiyang bing 太陽餅) and “sunflower” (taiyanghua 太陽花) (Tang and Chung 2015; see also fig. 5.9). After Chen Wei-Ting was filmed hugging a stuffed bear while sleeping, members of the public began sending bears to the Legislative Yuan (Ho 2019, 314). Similarly, members of the public began buying jackets similar to the one worn by Lin Fei-Fan (Hsu 2014). Insofar as this relates to the broader movement as a whole, perhaps this was a form of learning by imitation. Incorporation of Sunflower Movement Visuality in the Transition from Activism to Electoral Politics Though far from unique to Taiwan, the role that visuality plays in Taiwanese social movements is one that extends from the Wild Lily Movement to the Wild Strawberry and Sunflower movements decades later.

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Movements draw on one another’s repertoire, and this includes visual language. While visuality was something that served to widen participation in the movement, the role visuality played was far from purely instrumental. The Sunflower Movement contributed to a visual language for social movement activism in Taiwan, which would surface in its many afterlives, including in the form of electoral politics. After the movement, there was a turn toward electoral politics by Taiwanese activists in the 2014 “nine-in-one elections” (jiuheyi xuanju 九合一選舉) and the 2016 legislative and presidential elections, with some activists running for office themselves or becoming political workers. In these elections, the DPP, as well as a number of newly emergent third parties and independent political actors, would draw on the visual language of the Sunflower Movement for their own purposes, in the hopes of attracting young voters and to engender an image of being on the side of youth-led social transformations (Hioe 2016a ; 2016b). Third parties formed by activists that directly stood for election were termed the “Third Force” (disan shili 第三勢力), and the DPP went out of its way to accommodate them. Indeed, campaign ads by victorious president Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文 visually cited the Sunflower Movement and other social causes that were important to activists in the years before the Sunflower Movement. Aaron Nieh (聶永真), who designed “Democracy at 4 am,” an English-language website about the movement and a crowdfunded ad in the New York Times aimed at increasing its visibility, was invited to serve as the main designer of Tsai’s campaign. He created a minimalist and modernist aesthetic that resembled his earlier ad. Many have since come to think of Nieh as Taiwan’s most famous contemporary designer (see fig. 5.10). The online ad “Walking with Children” (“Genzhe haizi zou” 跟著孩 子走), released by the Tsai campaign, is a striking example of how the Tsai administration sought to appeal to activists on a visual basis through numerous embedded references.8 The ad consists of different slow-motion clips of various locations in Taiwan, with narration suggesting that progress in Taiwan has come to a halt. The camera lingers on images including rainbow flags, animals in cages, the site of the demolished Chang family pharmacy in Dapu, Miaoli (大埔苗栗),9 the Chiang Kai-shek statuary, and “new immigrants” from Southeast Asia. All of these were references to causes that youth activists had concerned themselves with in the years 8  This ad can be found on Tsai Ing-wen’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/tsaiingwen/ videos/10153091050271065. 9  For more on Dapu, see Hioe (2017b).

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Figure 5.10 Still from the “Walking with Children” Campaign Ad (photo credit: 蔡英文/Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/tsaiingwen/videos​/10153091​ 050271065/)

prior. The ad would also seem to visually cite the film Kano through its use of baseball imagery. It may not be surprising that direct links to the visual language of the Sunflower Movement can be observed in the Third Force parties formed by activists. Along with the Social Democratic Party (Shehui minzhu dang 社會民主黨), the Free Taiwan Party (Ziyou Taiwan dang自由台灣黨), the Trees Party (Shu dang 樹黨), the Radical Wings (Jijin ce yi 基進側翼), and other groups, the New Power Party (Shidai liliang 時代力量) was one of numerous parties that emerged after the Sunflower Movement and was the largest Third Force party, with the most resources. Significantly, the New Power Party, which incorporated key figures from the Sunflower Movement, including Huang Kuo-Chang and Freddy Lim (林昶佐), chose yellow as its party colors, drawing on the yellow sunflower iconography. The New Power Party symbolically sought to reenter the legislature on behalf of the movement, this time through elections, rather than storming the building. In a striking moment late in its campaigning, the New Power Party would symbolically restage the Sunflower Movement by holding a large, party-like campaign rally outside the Legislative Yuan featuring carnival dancers, band performances, and skits (Hioe 2016b; see also fig. 5.11).

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Figure 5.11 New Power Party Campaign Rally outside of the Legislative Yuan in January 2016 (photo credit: Brian Hioe/CC 2.0)

Examining the appropriations as well as metamorphoses of this visual language could perhaps shed further light on the relationships between visuality, artwork, social movements, and politics in Taiwan. In general, the iconography of the Sunflower Movement would later be incorporated into electoral campaigning by political parties such as the DPP or the New Power Party. That is, parties sought to indicate that they carried on the spirit of the Sunflower Movement by appropriating its imagery. Activists themselves did not fail to notice this, later leading to accusations that the Sunflower Movement had become something like a brand, a set of images and slogans divorced from actual substantive meaning— empty, commodified signifiers more than anything else. The criticism was that in the same way that brands are used in commercials to sell products, the “brand” of the Sunflower Movement was being used by certain individuals for personal profit. This is nothing new in Taiwan—even during the Wild Lily Movement, student activists sought to steer clear of the DPP and other political parties, for fear of co-optation. In the long run, however, many Wild Lily

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Movement activists went on to join the DPP and other political parties, or form NGOs or independent political parties, as in the case of Social Democratic Party founder Fan Yun 范雲. This tendency is also visible with Sunflower Movement activists. But in observing what is frequently a dynamic relationship between civil society activism and electoral politics in Taiwan, we see a relationship in which civil society groups and electoral parties are not always opposed to each other, and for whom the boundaries between the two are often not very clear. Many politicians in Taiwan have historically developed their political careers through participation in social movement activism. Yet when activists sought to negotiate the possibility of co-optation, this was also reflected visually, through attempts to mimic activist aesthetics by political parties or to criticize this mimicking as a form of appropriation. Visuality and History It may be that social movements are primarily thought of and remembered in visual terms. To this end, apart from the primacy of the visual, one notes that the documentation of social movements most often takes the form of preserving photographs, taking video footage, or collecting artifacts. The urge to preserve history appeared, interestingly enough, during the movement itself, with Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, the Institute of History and Philology, and the Institute of Taiwan History all announcing plans to preserve artifacts for their historical importance, and numerous individuals documenting the movement through photos that they uploaded to the Internet or social media.10 Occupiers also made a Google photo sphere of the occupation inside the Legislative Yuan, and video artist Yuan Goang-Ming 袁廣鳴 produced a short video art piece documenting the inside of the Legislative Yuan, and, as of 2018, at least five documentaries about the movement have been produced (Hioe 2017c). During the movement, the movement was itself politically contested as to whether it should be preserved. The involvement of Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, the Institute of History and Philology, and the Institute of Taiwan History occurred late in the movement, on 9 April, shortly before the withdrawal from the Legislative Yuan took place on 11 April. Whether deliberate or not, this asserted the significance of the Sunflower Movement as an event in Taiwanese history. In contrast, on 2 April, Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai 龍應台 praised the creativity of students but claimed that their thinking was muddled and they were undermining rule of law (Hioe 2017a). For Lung, whose essays Wild Fire (Yehuo ji 10 

I have compiled a list of these documentaries; see Hioe (2017i).

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野火集) were significant during the Wild Lily era, the implication was that the Sunflower Movement did not compare to the events in Taiwanese history in which she had participated. Likewise, while occupiers repaired damage to the legislature that had occurred during the movement before withdrawing, some occupiers argued against this, wishing to preserve the traces of the movement for posterity’s sake.11 But if the Sunflower Movement artwork was preserved as a result of such actions, it seems less likely that sound recordings of the movement space were taken. This perhaps points toward the aural dimension as a neglected aspect of what is remembered of the Sunflower Movement, given the preoccupation with visuality. We will now turn toward a discussion of that aspect, since the aural undergirds much of what otherwise seems to have been expressed in purely visual terms. The Homology of Aural and Political Distinctions in the Sunflower Movement Again, given the general primacy of the visual, it is not surprising that few considerations were given to the aural in terms of how the movement sought to present itself to the media or the public. However, it is as such that the aural unconsciously revealed some of the less easily visible distinctions in the movement. For example, different political and aesthetic sensibilities were expressed in the aural, as observed in the differing musical tastes of different factions in the Legislative Yuan encampment. Though, of course, not an absolute or homogeneous distinction, the occupiers within the Legislative Yuan, for example, preferred indie rock or folk, as observed in the “anthem” of the Sunflower Movement, “Island’s Sunrise” (“Daoyu tianguang” 島嶼天光) by Fire EX (滅火器), which was sung in Taiwanese. Contrastingly, splinter groups at the more politically radical Pariah Liberation Area preferred harsher musical genres, such as underground electronica and heavy metal. More generally speaking, there is a large variation of “activist music” produced before and after the Sunflower Movement, and these variations often inflect differences in politico-aesthetic sensibilities. One can offer various explanations for this, although they may run the risk of reifying divisions within the movement that were sometimes quite fluid.12 To venture one hypothesis, the preference for indie rock among 11 

For more, see Second Floor Slave Workers (2014). For example, members of the Pariah Liberation Area were occasionally also participants inside the Legislative Yuan occupation. Even while offering critiques of the movement leadership, they sometimes still acted as grassroots-level workers carrying out logistical tasks. 12 

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the Legislative Yuan occupiers might have been because of the preference for music outside the realm of mainstream commercial circulation, which has often led musicians to closet political views in order to achieve commercial success in China, a larger market than Taiwan. Some tension broke out during the movement with members of the popular band May Day (Wuyue tian 五月天) initially expressing support but later backing away, claiming that they were apolitical, likely because this could affect their sales in the Chinese market.13 This reflects the history of May Day as an indie band that originally sang in Taiwanese but later steered itself toward more mainstream appeal, with songs sung in Mandarin. It was such that Fire EX, which had a similar musical style to the early May Day, would go on to become the flagship band of the movement’s mainstream. Yet while “Island’s Sunrise” would become the theme song of the Sunflower Movement, it would also see criticism for what were perceived to be male-centered lyrics, in line with the perceived maledominated gender dynamics of the movement, which may reflect broader musical trends in Taiwanese songs, Taiyupop, and Mandopop (Moskowitz 2010, 35–38, 88–95). Other musical groups that perform in Taiwanese, such as indie rock band Sorry Youth (拍謝少年) and hip hop group Community Service (勞動服務), would also be among the noteworthy musicians supportive of the movement. Musicians formed a large part of the Pariah Liberation Area, including members of bands such as Bazöoka, RNA, and the Deposers (罷黜 者), who had run afoul of the media after being photographed drinking beer while in the Legislative Yuan. Members of the Electronic Music Antinuclear Front (電音反核陣線) were also part of the Pariah Liberation Area, this being a group that played electronic music from a speaker truck during antinuclear demonstrations. Some members of the Electronic Music Antinuclear Front had collaborated with the environmental NGO the Green Citizen’s Action Alliance (GCAA/綠色公民行動聯盟) to produce an album of antinuclear-themed electronic music to raise funds for the GCAA. This album was satirically titled I Love Nuclear?! 14 A single-issue social movement whose energy eventually became funneled into the Sunflower Movement, the antinuclear movement was a site in which differing musical aesthetics reflected different political orientations, whether in terms of substantive political differences, forms of political expression, or preferred movement tactics. Apart from the I Love Nuclear?! album, another antinuclear album, titled No Nukes! Long Play!

13  14 

For further details, see Read (forthcoming). I Love Nuclear?! can be found at https://i-love-nuclear.bandcamp.com/releases.

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was much more oriented toward indie rock.15 Notably, musicians involved in the I Love Nuclear?! album gravitated more toward the Pariah Liberation Area, while those involved in No Nukes! Long Play! gravitated toward the occupiers of the Legislative Yuan. If the musical preferences of Legislative Yuan occupiers seemed to be decidedly more mainstream in appeal than those of the Pariah Liberation Area members, perhaps this reflects the latter’s less mainstream politics— indeed, many members either saw themselves as radical leftists or were involved in various subcultures. This differentiation of tastes may have precedents in previous social movements in Taiwan. Lin Chi-wei (2008) made a similar observation regarding the Wild Lily Movement in Taiwan, commenting that the musical tastes of its participants were rather tame and that they avoided music that alienated the public, reflective of the politics of the movement leadership. It is significant that Pariah Liberation Area members were critical of what they saw as Taiwanese nationalism and opposition to China taking precedent over broader, overarching concerns of global capitalism or a failure to be wary of American imperialism. It may not be surprising, then, that the musical tastes of the Pariah Liberation Area focused less on Taiwanese identity, with fewer songs sung in Taiwanese. As with the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong and as addressed in Sebastian Veg’s chapter, which discusses the distinctions between Cantopop and Mandopop in the Umbrella Movement, there were different political resonances between songs sung in Taiwanese and those sung in Mandarin (see chapter 6 in this volume). English versions of anthems like “Island’s Sunrise” were also produced with an eye on the global market. However, as compared with Hong Kong, identity dynamics regarding Taiwanese versus Mandarin songs were less pronounced. The dominant language of the movement was still Mandarin and not Taiwanese. The use of Mandarin versus Cantonese in Hong Kong may be a more politically tense issue at present due to Chinese efforts to promote the use of Mandarin in Hong Kong, whereas KMT policies to stamp out Taiwanese took place decades ago, leading to the current dominance of Mandarin in Taiwan. It is not surprising that the aural dimensions of the occupation could prove divisive. As the Pariah Liberation Area set up its own space in the Legislative Yuan encampment in order to stake out a separate political territory, this led to complaints about noise from parents who were residing in the Legislative Yuan with their children. This was something that 15 

No Nukes! Long Play! can be found at https://i-love-nuclear.bandcamp.com/releases.

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members of the Pariah Liberation Area could view as overly nagging, in line with how musical venues in Taipei in past years, such as the Underground, had been forced to close after noise complaints from surrounding residents—even though this reduced the already few art and music venues available to young people (Hioe 2017e). Consequently, members of the Pariah Liberation Area hoped that the Legislative Yuan encampment could aspire to be something like a temporary autonomous zone, in which the strictures of capitalist society and oppressive governmentality did not apply, leading to instinctive reactions against those who sought to enforce rules and regulations within the movement. However, this, too, would be a common characteristic of occupationstyle movements, in which a splinter group in an occupation encampment comes into conflict with other groups on the basis of noise. One thinks of, for example, the drum circle in Occupy Wall Street, in which members of the drum circle sometimes kept playing through the night, and resisted calls to stop after certain hours on grounds that this would take away their freedom and autonomy, re-creating the regulatory order of the capitalist society that Occupy Wall Street sought to transcend as a form of prefigurative utopia, to borrow David Graeber’s descriptors (McArdle 2011). The musical preferences of the factions in the Sunflower Movement were quite different, and this was to some extent reflective of their political orientations or even lifestyles—perhaps in line with what Thierry de Duve suggests, following Kant, that aesthetic sensibilities reflect different moral criteria (de Duve 1998, 31–41). Or, again, this may return to what Rancière describes as the distribution of sensibility in terms of aesthetic criteria for the political and vice versa (2013, 14 –19). Where the Sunflower Movement is concerned, this was perhaps more clear aurally rather than visually, in that the aural revealed unconscious orientations. Part of this may stem from the fact that musical events were occasions for members of activist subculture to gather and socialize, which led to the emergence of social networks that were, to a large degree, dependent on matters of musical sensibility or aesthetics. Yet it has to be kept in mind that such distinctions were not absolute. For example, interestingly enough, despite being criticized for malecentered lyrics and tame musical content, Fire EX’s “Island’s Sunrise” only came to be with the involvement of one of Taiwan’s premier feminist noise and performance artists, Betty Apple, who sought out Fire EX with the idea of making an anthem for the movement, having previously worked on a project satirizing the desexualized nature of the Republic of China national anthem (Hioe 2017e). Figures such as festival organizer

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and humorist Indie DaDee balanced between the center and the splinter, subcultural elements. Freddy Lim, the lead singer of heavy metal band Chthonic, may also seem to be an individual with great aesthetic resonances with the Pariah Liberation Area, at least in terms of musical stylings and dress. But though he was not a key player during the movement, Lim was probably closer to the occupiers within the Legislative Yuan, in that he later became one of the core figures of the New Power Party, which included prominent leadership figures from the Sunflower Movement. Incorporation of Aural Elements of the Sunflower Movement into Electoral Politics As with the visual, the phenomenon of political actors seeking to incorporate social movement aesthetics into their electoral campaigning also took place with the aural. While campaigning, the Tsai campaign organized a website called “Taiwan Melody” for people to submit songs about Taiwan that would be nominated by voting and then vetted by professional musicians. Despite the lack of any direct use to her campaign, the idea seemed to be that the notion of online voting about national symbols would gesture toward broader democratic aims at recasting what the nation means to its contemporary residents. To this end, Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je 柯文哲, in his 2014 mayoral campaign as an independent, would derive his slogan “Go! Youth!” from the band Sorry Youth, eventually taking office through a great deal of support from young people who viewed him as an independent free of the political corruption that had previously tainted both the pan-Green and pan-Blue camps (Wuming xiao shen 2015, 31). The New Power Party, too, would capitalize on music in the 2016 elections and beyond. Apart from the aforementioned party that New Power threw outside of the Legislative Yuan shortly before elections took place, Freddy Lim notably has performed even after taking office as a legislator. Lim would also organize the yearly Tsing Shan Festival (艋舺青山祭) in his constituency of Wanhua 萬 華, oriented around celebrations of the birth of local deity King Tsing Shan (青山王), with the aims of putting young people back in touch with elements of traditional Taiwanese culture such as temple worship. Tsai Ing-wen, to further her incorporation of the musical elements of the Sunflower Movement into her broader “political aesthetic,” would also invite musicians who had been supportive of the movement, such as Fire EX, Hakka singer-songwriter Lin Sheng-xiang 林生祥, and indigenous singer-songwriter Panay, to perform at her inauguration ceremony. Significantly, Fire EX was invited to play “Island’s Sunrise” at the inauguration. This was a way of signaling commitment to the goals of the Sunflower

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Movement and other stances supported by youth activists, such as opposition to nuclear energy and greater autonomy for indigenous Taiwanese. As a prominent public supporter of the party, Lin Sheng-xiang had been a performer at past DPP presidential election rallies. However, with Tsai later failing to act on promises to return traditional territories to indigenous groups and to phase out nuclear power in Taiwan, musicians with an activist background that had performed at Tsai’s inauguration would later report feeling co-opted and betrayed. At the same time, activists who had stayed out of electoral politics, particularly members of the Pariah Liberation Area, continued to organize after the Sunflower Movement. Members of the Pariah Liberation Area formed the collective “Trapped Citizen” (Choucheng 愁城), based out of Xinzhuang in New Taipei City. New bands also emerged out of the Pariah Liberation Area milieu, most notably No-Nonsense Collective. These bands continue to play at activist events, pointing to how musical aesthetics continues to determine some forms of political organizing. Likewise, activist musical events, including performances by musicians and bands such as Fire EX, Lin Sheng-xiang, or Panay, continue to serve as social events for activists, even if such events no longer take place as often as they did, following the decline in activist subculture after the DPP took office. At least Fire EX continued to perform as part of Tsai’s 2020 presidential campaign. Conclusion: Theater as a Means of Linking the Aural and Visual in the Sunflower Movement? Visuality and aurality were of great politico-aesthetic significance in the Sunflower Movement. The visuality of the movement played a key role in attracting participants, as well as in shaping public perceptions. In this, visuality was not simply an instrumental means of outreach, but also served as a means of communicating ideas among activists themselves. However, the reliance on visuality led to accusations that the movement was reducible to little more than a visual spectacle. In contrast, aurality was in many cases revealing of the underlying political dynamics between contesting groups that were part of the occupation. This was most visible in terms of musical tastes and preferences, which gestured toward differing, sometimes clashing, political aesthetics, orientation, and tactics. Aurality perhaps serves to reveal what is occluded by the purely visual spectacle. The significance of visuality and aurality in the movement can be observed in the fact that political actors sought to incorporate its visual and aural language into their campaigning as a means of signaling

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commitment to the broader aims of the movement. This can be seen with regards to Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP, who was victorious in the 2016 presidential elections, Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, who was victorious in the 2014 mayoral elections, and in the aesthetics of the New Power Party, which was founded by participants in the Sunflower Movement. The successes of these political actors have been attributed to their ability to ride on the momentum after the Sunflower Movement and attract the youth vote. Although it is worth mentioning that the final results of the Sunflower Movement cannot be understood solely by its eventual influence on electoral politics, at the very least, the fact that political actors saw fit to incorporate visual and aural elements of the Sunflower Movement in their campaigns demonstrates the significance of the movement’s aesthetics. Nevertheless, beyond looking at the movement through a separate visual and aural frame, it may also be productive to look at moments of synthesis between the two. For example, evaluating the movement through the lens of political theater may shed further light on events. First, theater-like performances were put on by many of the groups involved in the Legislative Yuan, including commemorative mourning for democracy movement martyr Cheng Nan-jung 鄭南榕 in the Legislative Yuan, as well as demonstrations by the Pariah Liberation Area invoking traditional Chinese spiritual practices that drew a parallel with certain protests in Mongkok during the Umbrella Movement. The Against Again Troupe (Zaiju jutuan 再拒劇團), a theater troupe well known among social movement activists, re-tailored a planned staging of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, whose performance coincided with the movement, in order to incorporate references drawn from movement events; this calls to mind Wagner’s notion of theater as a Gesamtkunstwerk, synthesizing the visual and aural, and how the synthesis might be usefully applied to the Sunflower Movement.16 To this extent, after the movement ended with the withdrawal from the Legislative Yuan, various symbolic reenactments took place, as in the NPP’s campaign rally next to the Legislative Yuan, or the reenactment of the events of the March 24th attempted storming of the Executive Yuan as “environmental theater” by members of the Pariah Liberation Area with the 324 Truth and Reconciliation Working Group (see fig. 5.12).17 Apart from examining acts of theater that did occur in the movement, it may be productive to draw out the parallels between actions in the 16  For more about this staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, see www.facebook.com/wagnera​ revolution. 17  For more about the 324 Truth and Reconciliation Working Group, see www.facebook. com/324trc.

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Figure 5.12 The Pariah Liberation Area during the Movement (photo credit: othree/Flickr/CC 2.0; https://www.flickr.com/photos/othree/13739514244/)

movement or to recast the movement as one large act of political theater in itself. After all, the “strategic dance” between social movement actors and their antagonists, such as the police or members of the government, can be said to resemble theater, and there is a parallel between forms of direct action and performative acts. This line of analysis might shed more light on the movement going forward. Works Cited Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1968. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Helen Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Chang, Longson. 2017. Personal interview. 6 October. Debord, Guy. 1994. The Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Donald NicholsonSmith. New York: Zone Books. Duve, Thierry de. 1998. Kant after Duchamp. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Graeber, David. 2004. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Cambridge, UK: Prickly Paradigm Press.

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He Jung-Hsing. 2014. Xue yun shidai: Cong ye baihe dao taiyang hua [Student movement generation: From Wild Lily to Sunflower]. Taipei: Reading Times. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Hioe, Brian. 2016a. “Aesthetic and Political Experimentalism in 2016 Election Campaigning.” New Bloom Magazine, 12 January. https://newbloommag.net​ /2016​/01/12/aesthetic-political-experiments-2016. ———. 2016b. “Aesthetics and Politics in 2016 Presidential Campaign Ads.” New Bloom Magazine, 5 January. https://newbloommag.net/2016/01/05/ aesthetic-politics-campaign-ads-2016. ———. 2017a. “331 to 411: Falling Action.” Daybreak Project, 26 July. https:// daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/07/26/timeline-331-to-411. ———. 2017b. “Forced Land Evictions in Dapu, Miaoli.” Daybreak Project, 25 July. https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/07/25/dapu-miaoli. ———. 2017c. “Indie DaDee.” Daybreak Project, 24 July. https://daybreak.new​ bloom​mag​.net​/2017​/07​/24​/indie​-dadee. ———. 2017d. “Influences from Occupy Wall Street.” Daybreak Project, 9 June. https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/06/09/occupy-wall-street​ -influence. ———. 2017e. “Interview: Betty Apple.” Daybreak Project, 12 October. https:// daybreak.newbloommag.net/2018/02/21/interview-betty-apple. ———. 2017f. “Interview: Lee Ying-Shin.” Daybreak Project, 31 October. https:// daybreak.newbloommag.net/2016/12/07/interview-lee-ying-shin. ———. 2017g. “Interview: Peng Sheau-Tyng.” Daybreak Project, 15 October. https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2016/12/07/interview-sheau-tyng​ -peng. ———. 2017h. “The Shida Underground Incident.” Daybreak Project, 25 July. https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/07/25/the-shida-underground​ -incident. ———. 2017i. “Sourcebook.” Daybreak Project, 4 August. https://daybreak.new​ bloom​mag.net​/2017​/08​/04​/sourcebook. Hioe, Brian, and Wen Liu. 2014. “A Desexualized Movement without Sexual Rights.” New Bloom Magazine, 30 December. https://newbloommag.net​/2014​ /12/30/a-sexualized-movement-without-sexual-rights. Ho, Ming-sho. 2019. Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hsu, Jenny W. 2014. “Young Protesters Shaking Up Taiwan’s China Policy.” Wall Street Journal, 1 April. www.wsj.com​/articles/young-protesters-shaking-up​ -taiwans-china-policy​-1396351842. Huang Konglong. 2014. Yesheng de taiyang hua [Wild sunflowers]. Taipei: Yushan she.

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Jay, Martin. 1993. Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jiang Bing-lun. 2017. “Bai hai tun” [White dolphin]. In Daoguo guan jian zi: Shuyu women zhege shidai, zhege shidai de Taiwan shehui li fenxi [Island keywords: Taiwan social analysis for our times], edited by Ding Yungong, 127–53. Taipei: Rive Gauche Publishing House. Li Jia-xin. 2016. “Guangtou ge zhuanfang” [Bald Brother interview]. In Jianmin jiefangqu, 2014–2015: 318 Zhanling yundong yiji qi hou [Pariah Liberation Area, 2014–2015: The 318 Occupation Movement], edited by Jianmin kanwu bianji xiaozu, 112–18. Taipei: Jianmin jiefangqu. Lin, Chi-wei. 2008. “Taiwanese Noise Movement in 90s.” Accessed 30 August 2018. www.linchiwei.com/archives/145. Lin Sheng-wen. 2016. “‘Taiyang bu yuan’: ‘Jianmin dadao’ pinglun ” [“The sun is not far”: A “Pariah Street” critique]. In Jianmin jiefangqu, 2014–2015: 318 Zhanling yundong yiji qi hou [Pariah Liberation Area, 2014–2015: The 318 Occupation Movement], edited by Jianmin kanwu bianji xiaozu, 109–12. Taipei: Jianmin jiefangqu. McArdle, Megan. 2011. “Occupy Wall Street vs. the Drum Circle.” The Atlantic, 10 December. www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/occupy-wall​ -street-vs-the-drum-circle​/247366. Moskowitz, Marc L. 2010. Cries of Joy, Songs of Sorrow: Chinese Pop Music and Its Cultural Connotations. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Ng, Jason Y. 2016. Umbrellas in Bloom: Hong Kong’s Occupy Movement Uncovered. Hong Kong: Blacksmith Books. Rancière, Jacques. 2013. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Translated and edited by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Read, Graeme. Forthcoming. “Reclaiming This Land of Taiwan: Music and Politics of Youth Independence.” Paper given at Culture and Political Change in Contemporary Taiwan Conference, Australian Centre on China in the World, May 2018. Cited with permission. “Report on The People’s Assembly.” 2014. Translated by Brian Hioe. Daybreak Project. Accessed 30 August 2018. https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017​ /07/21/report-on-the-peoples-assembly. Second Floor Slave Workers. 2014. “Statement by the Second Floor Slave Workers.” Translated by Brian Hioe. Daybreak Project. Accessed 30 August 2018. https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/07/21/second-floor-statement. Tang, Chia-ling, and Jake Chung. 2015. “Web Site Features What Sunflowers Left Behind.” Taipei Times, 21 October. http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/focus/ breakingnews/1482075/print. Wrong, Hong. 2016. “Why 689 Is the Magic Number.” Hong Kong Free Press, 17 January. www.hongkongfp.com/2016/01/17/why-689-is-the-magic-number.

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Wu Jun-sheng. 2017. “22 K.” In Daoguo guan jian zi: Shuyu women zhege shidai, zhege shidai de Taiwan shehui li fenxi [Island keywords: Taiwan social analysis for our times], edited by Ding Yungong, 53–79. Taipei: Rive Gauche Publishing House. Wuming xiao shen. 2015. Gongmin hen mang: Wuming xiao shen S bansui ke P de 484 tian [Citizens are very busy: Nobody Xiao S’ 484 days helping Ko P]. Taipei: Green Futures Publishing.

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SIX

Music in the Umbrella Movement From Expressive Form to New Political Culture

SEBASTIAN VEG

Music typically plays an important role in social movements, in particular in shaping a movement culture and subsequently a collective memory. In the aftermath of the “new social movements” of the 1960s and 1970s, a strand of sociology argued that social movements should not only be seen in terms of political opportunities; rather, forms of cultural expression also play a specific role. For some of these scholars, the symbolic or expressive dimension of social movements is the most significant, because it durably challenges established ways of understanding the world (Eyerman and Jamison 1991, 48). For example, the new social movements of the 1960s failed to abolish capitalism, but they initiated profound sociocultural changes (Kutschke 2013, 3). In this perspective, music is not only a functional device for recruiting participants or mobilizing resources, but also produces a common culture: the “construction of meaning through music and song is . . . ​a central aspect of collective identity formation” (Eyerman and Jamison 1998, 161). For these scholars, the strategic dimension of social movements coexists with the articulation of meaning and identity, two basic aspects of human life (162). While strategic calculation and political opportunities are predicated on the existence of rational-critical publics, music and other expressive forms contribute to constituting emotional publics.1 That is not to say that unrealistic expectations should be placed on music. While some (Brecht, Havel) have seen it as a force to change the world, others (Adorno) have viewed it as a form of trivializing entertainment that prevents people from taking social life seriously and breaks up 1  I would like to thank Andrew Jones and Pierre Martin for their generous help in contacting the musicians discussed in this chapter.

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social movements (Rosenthal and Flacks, 2011, 4; see also Adorno 1941). In the 1960s, popular music was seen either as inherently oppositional (the Birmingham school of cultural studies views popular culture as a place to articulate the resistance of the subaltern) or as perpetuating the values of the dominant order. Music can be used in both top-down and bottom-up ways.2 Music can challenge the boundaries of what can be said in public and serve as a collective ritual of commitment, but it can also be a substitute that precludes real protest (Rosenthal and Flacks 2011, 250–51). This dilemma was famously restaged during the Paris protests of May 1968, when radical artists accused trade unions and the volunteer musicians who performed for striking workers (at the unions’ behest) of promoting escapist commercialism (Drott 2013, 267–68). The Umbrella Movement had a strong expressive dimension, and music played a central part in the outpour of creativity that surpassed the movement’s strictly political demands.3 The movement adopted several theme songs, indie performers joined the occupation, mainstream pop songs were creatively rewritten and modified, and lyrics spilled over onto posters and into slogans. Music further provided a repertoire from Hong Kong and international protest culture, referencing local commemorations like the June Fourth vigil and the July First march, as well as social protests elsewhere, like the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan or protest movements from the 1970s (“Imagine”). However, the musical dimension of the movement was also politically ambiguous. While music provided a sense of shared identity among participants, musical performances, in particular those that featured the popular songs of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, were also singled out for criticism as meaningless “karaoke”: commodified rituals that allowed participants to consume protest without engaging in authentic political discussions. In this way, music encapsulated some of the tensions and contradictions of the Umbrella Movement—between cosmopolitan and local culture, consumerist and anticapitalist practices, traditional protest and practices of the new generation that came of age with the movement. The present chapter will argue that the expressive dimension was central to the Umbrella Movement because it articulated a new local identity and durably changed the political culture of movement participants. First, the different forms of musical expression in the Umbrella Movement 2 

Noriko Manabe (2015, 13) argues that music’s role in movements follows a spectrum from “presentational” (top-down) to “participatory” (bottom-up). 3  Victoria Hui (2014) has compiled a useful set of links on the musical dimension of the movement; HRIC (2015) has also compiled a YouTube playlist of five songs. Another good roundup of artwork and music is available on the local wiki site Fandom: http://evchk. wikia.com/wiki/雨傘革命有關創作.

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will be situated within a longer history of expressions of Hong Kong’s and China’s cultural and political identities. The notion of Hong Kong identity appeared in the 1970s almost simultaneously with Cantopop and the revival of Cantonese language film.4 Articulated initially as Heunggongyahn or “Hong Kong person” (Mathews 1997), Hong Kong identity is even considered by some to be coterminous with three core values of Cantopop: local language, pan-Chinese cultural nationalism, and a highly developed capitalist consumer culture, sustained by global connections. The protest culture that emerged in the late 1980s in the lead-up to the handover and became more articulate with the local support for student protests on Tiananmen Square in spring 1989 inherited key aspects of the earlier Cantopop identity, in particular its cultural nationalism. Second, this chapter will consider the role of music in mobilizing emotional publics as a complement to the more rationalistic view of claims and opportunities. The huge diversity of cultural and political repertoires in the movement mobilized different types of collective memories and publics, bound together by shared experiences and emotions. In doing so, it both consolidated and challenged some of the core tenets of the previous articulations of Hong Kong’s cultural identity. In particular, the cultural nationalism that is central to the June Fourth “ritual” came under heavy criticism from localists. The movement’s music further evinces a turn away from the commercial Cantopop style even as participants struggled to articulate anticapitalist claims in connection with anti-PRC (People’s Republic of China) feelings. Pan-Chinese themes were generally avoided and instead local aspects were highlighted. In these ways, the musical expressions of the movement represented an implicit rearticulation of Hong Kong’s cultural identity and political culture. A History of Protest Music in Hong Kong The use of music in the Umbrella Movement immediately brings to mind some earlier iterations in the Chinese context of the connections that the present chapter will highlight. In Like a Knife, Andrew Jones argued that the student movement of 1989 was connected to the rise of a form of cultural protest that found its most potent expression in rock (yaogun 搖滾) music and the entire subculture surrounding it, but was also able to achieve a wider reception because it shared some themes of mainstream popular (tongsu 通俗) music, or at least was able to phrase its own critiques using the language of mainstream culture (e.g., as expressed in the television 4 

Stephen Chu Yiu-wai (2017) describes Cantopop as a “vehicle to articulate identity in a bottom-up manner.”

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documentary River Elegy), in particular the critique of “feudalism” and resistance to “oppression.” While rock music created an “alternative public sphere” (Jones 1992, 116), it was also able to some extent to enter the mainstream mass media, in a typical example of how the dialectics of alternative and mainstream publics have sustained spaces of critique and reflection throughout the twentieth century, despite constant restrictions on public expression. This dialectic is best expressed in the duality of the poster song of River Elegy, Hou Dejian’s “Descendants of the Dragon,” and the “unofficial anthem of the democracy movement,” Cui Jian’s “Nothing to My Name” (Jones 1992, 5). Both of these songs were performed on Tiananmen Square during the student movement, revealing a shared critique of authoritarian values as well as a divergence between the earnest nationalism of Hou’s solemn anthem and the hidden transcripts behind Cui Jian’s ironic allusions to a line of the “Internationale” (which was also sung on Tiananmen Square).5 We may recall at this point that “Descendants of the Dragon” was written by Hou Dejian in Taiwan in December 1978 (before his defection to China in 1983), as part of the student movement against the derecognition of the Republic of China by the United States, and first recorded by Lee Chien-fu, still a student at the time. Hong Kong Baptist University professor and Cantopop songwriter Chow Yiu-fai recalls that singing this song with hundreds of other Hong Kong University freshmen in an orientation camp in summer 1980 was his first experience of being “summoned to perform my national and cultural identity,” setting the stage for a decade of discussions about Hong Kong’s future: “Chineseness, I began to understand, was not merely a biological category, but a social performance” (Chow and de Kloet 2013, 13). After Hou’s defection to the PRC, the song was performed to great acclaim at the 1988 CCTV New Year’s Gala, which ensured it was widely known to students in the democracy movement.6 Andrew Jones later noted that, after 1989, yaogun’s critical edge faded in the face of a rising “commodity nativism”: while rock in 1989 replied to a need for personal emancipation rather than national salvation, Ai Jing’s postrepression tongsu pop song “My 1997” expressed the fusion of individual desires and national concerns.7 It was followed by many other examples of musical nationalism throughout the 1990s, especially in connection with the handover of Hong Kong: Andy Lau Tak-wah’s “The 5 

The best discussion of music at Tiananmen Square is Barmé (1991). Another example is Kris Phillips (Fei Xiang), the Chinese American singer who grew up in Taiwan and performed “Guilaiba” (“Come back”) at the gala in 1987. 7  See Jones’s interview with Shen Tong (Jones 1992, 124). 6 

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Chinese” (1997) and Nicholas Tse’s “The Yellow People” (2003) are wellknown examples. The first in this egregious series, which dates back to the early days of the Sino-British negotiations, was of course Zhang Ming­ min’s “My Chinese Heart” (1982), expressing an ordinary Hongkonger’s delight at the coming return to the motherland. Since no Hong Kong professional singer would sing in Mandarin, the producer found Zhang, an amateur singer with a left-wing trade union, and brought him to Beijing to be showcased in the 1984 New Year’s Gala on CCTV, preparing the public for the signature of the joint declaration and the beginning of the countdown to 1997. Billed as Deng Xiaoping’s favorite song (Hu Yaobang reportedly learned to sing it overnight), it was an early coproduction of Hong Kong capitalism and the Beijing propaganda apparatus, however incongruous the mix of syrupy 1980s pop and Chinese nationalist musical touches may sound today. Cheng Yinghong describes this form as the “periphery speaking [or singing] in the center’s voice” (2015). As Thomas Gold noted in 1993, Gang-Tai (i.e., Hong Kong and Taiwan) pop music provided Chinese listeners in the 1980s with a new way of expressing individuality that was unavailable in state productions, while it offered the regime an opportunity to successfully co-opt Hong Kong and Taiwan singers and harness their appeal in the service of patriotism (Gold 1993, 922). Despite Hou Dejian’s role at Tiananmen Square (somewhat comparable to Denise Ho’s in the Umbrella Movement), “Descendants of the Dragon” was later sung during the Olympic Torch rally and eventually included in an official list of one hundred patriotic songs compiled in 2009. In Hong Kong too, the experience of the 1989 democracy movement left a strong mark on the territory’s musical identity. Stephen Chu argues that 1989 forced Hong Kong into a national community: Cantopop artists who had previously sung mainstream love songs now sang about China (2017, 97; 2006, 40–44). The annual vigils commemorating the massacre gave rise to an abundant musical repertoire, an unlikely hodgepodge of songs from different epochs and in different styles (Tong 2016). “Homage to the Martyrs” (“Jai yingliht” 祭英烈)8—sung to the tune of “A True Man Must Be Strong” (“Nan’er dang ziqiang” 男兒當自強), the theme song of Tsui Hark’s film Once upon a Time in China (Wong Fei-hung), written by the famous Cantopop lyricist and comic James Wong (黃霑; 1941–2004)— infuses the hieratic nationalist style of the original music (which inevitably calls to mind the soldiers executing martial arts movements in the film trailer) with the theme of the dead martyrs of June Fourth. The style of the 8 

The titles of Cantonese songs are generally romanized in Cantonese using the Yale system.

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language, pronounced in Cantonese, is positively archaic, although some allusions to June Fourth are in a more vernacular style. It epitomizes the cultural nationalism that was deeply ingrained in the Hong Kong identity of the 1970s and 1980s (referencing the imagery of the Opium War and the “loss” of Hong Kong), and connects it to the democracy movement, whose victims are recast as martyrs for the nation. Similarly, “Blood-Stained Glory” (“Xueran de fengcai” 血染的風采), generally the only song sung in Mandarin at the vigil, originated as a People’s Liberation Army song from the Sino-Vietnamese War; it was sung by students in the square and remains strongly associated with 1989. Both of these songs display a form of cultural nationalism that is underpinned by the use of Chinese instruments and the pentatonic scale. “For Freedom” (“Waih jih yauh” 為自由) was specially composed by Lowell Lo for Hong Kong’s Concert for Democracy in China on 27 May 1989 and sung by all artists present. It was reportedly the first song to be performed in Cantonese on Tiananmen Square and became the anthem of the Hong Kong Alliance (Ho 2000, 345). “Flower of Freedom” (“Jih yauh fa” 自由花) uses the melody of Taiwanese composer Zheng Zhihua’s song “The Seaman” (“Shuishou” 水手; 1992). When the dissident Wang Xizhe was released from prison in 1993, he reportedly hummed the tune during his first press conference; the Hong Kong Alliance subsequently decided to adopt it, asked Chow Lai-mau to write new lyrics for it, and included it in June Fourth vigils (Apple Daily 2009). The line “No matter how hard the rain beats down, freedom will still blossom” (無論雨怎麼打，自由仍是 會開花) was often seen on Umbrella Movement posters. While attendance numbers at the Victoria Park vigil dwindled after the handover, the years around the twentieth anniversary in 2009 saw a huge increase, as a new generation, who were to become the mainstay of the Umbrella Movement, adopted the memory of the movement (Veg 2017). The band Beyond’s song “Boundless Seas, Vast Skies” (“Hoi fut tin hung” 海闊天空; 1993), which became even more famous because of the singer Wong Ka-kui’s tragic death just weeks after its release, was sung during the 2010 anti–High Speed Rail protest as well as during the 2012 Anti– National Education Movement.9 Their song “Glorious Years” (“Gwong fai seui yuht” 光輝歲月; 1990), originally devoted to Nelson Mandela, contributed a famous line to the posters of the Umbrella Movement: “Holding on to freedom despite wind and rain” (風雨中抱緊自由). “Democracy Will Prevail” (“Mahnjyu wui jin sing gwai loih” 民主會戰 勝歸來), written by the band VIIV, appeared online in 2012, quickly caught 9 

See Lai (2014). It may have been sung at June Fourth vigils, but I have found no trace of it in recent years.

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on, and was incorporated into the vigil. Written by a young indie band, it epitomized the reappropriation of June Fourth by the anti–National Education generation; its original title “Democracy Will Prevail” often appeared on the Umbrella posters. But at the same time, members of the new generation developed critical views about the way in which the vigil was held, some of which focused on using pop music as a form of what they termed karaoke in political events.10 From 2012, the emerging localist (bentu 本土) movement began to criticize June Fourth vigils as too Chinacentered, nationalistic, and not relevant to Hong Kong. The catchword “karaoke” stood for an inauthentic form of political engagement centered on the consumption of protest rather than critical engagement with Hong Kong’s history. Around this time, the song “Democracy Will Prevail” was spoofed by a localist version of the lyrics titled “The City-State Will Prevail” (“Sihng bong wui jin sing gwai loih” 城邦會戰勝歸來), inspired by Chin Wan’s iconoclastic theories about the “altar of demons” (i.e., the June Fourth vigil) and presenting him as the savior of the Hong Kong city-state and Chinese civilization (Hua Xia 華夏) from “communist reds,” invading “locusts,” American imperialists, the out-of-touch middle class, and naive leftists (known as “left plastics”). Therefore, when the music of the June Fourth vigils reappeared in the Umbrella Movement, as songs and quotations and references, it had a somewhat spectral quality. Images and catchwords from the songs were ubiquitous but not always acknowledged. The explicit nationalist accents of “Homage to the Martyrs” and “Blood-Stained Glory” were entirely absent. The case of “Boundless Seas, Vast Skies” is significant. Although Beyond is connected to June Fourth through its performance at the Happy Valley support concert on 27 May 1989, the song was not yet composed at the time, and became famous mainly because it is seen as a kind of testament of Wong Ka-kui (E. Lai 2014). Particularly noteworthy is that a member of the band describes it as the expression of Wong’s disappointment with Hong Kong’s music industry in the 1990s, which he viewed as being only an “entertainment industry” (J. Wang 2014). The lyrics describe a personal meditation with strong moral accents rather than political struggle, emphasizing the personal resolve not to change (ostensibly in a romantic context, arguing the need to remain true to one’s ideals): “Please forgive me for not being able to renounce my love of freedom / Although I fear that one day I may fall / Oh no / Abandoning one’s ideals is something anyone can do / I’m not afraid if some day there’s only you and me” 10  See, for example, the critiques of “Boundless Ocean” as a “beguiling act of narcissism,” of the “moral policing” of the protest areas and of the protest as “carnival,” quoted in W. Lai (2018, 69–74).

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(原諒我這一生不羈放縱愛自由 / 也會怕有一天會跌倒（Oh no）/ 理想被拋 棄 / 那會怕有一天只你共我). “Boundless” is also unique in that it is a commercial pop song rather than a social movement anthem, and became a hit across the Chinese-speaking world. In this sense, it is the epitome of the dilemma of mainstream culture and political activism: written as a critique of Cantopop, it became a hit after the singer’s tragic death, but was reappropriated by Hong Kong protesters as a critique of consumer society and the mainstream politics of “being reasonable” in the movements up to and including Umbrella. It connects to June Fourth, but also displaces the accent, moving away from national identity, martyrs, and high politics, and toward a personal idealism. It is a typical example of how music can mobilize an emotional public through normative identification rather than rational discussion. In this sense, although June Fourth had already become an element of Hong Kong identity, its renarration and reconceptualization within the Umbrella Movement arguably led to a redefinition of the collective memory of 1989. Music in the Occupied Areas: Forming an Emotional Public Based on an analysis of the slogans and posters in the occupied areas understood as speech acts, I have previously argued that the most original aspect of the Umbrella Movement was its acting out of a deliberative public sphere. The following section complements this approach by highlighting the emotional dimension of the publics that participated in and were constitutive of the Umbrella Movement. As critics of Habermas’s public sphere framework have pointed out, publics are rarely constituted through communicative rationality alone.11 The performance of cultural repertoires was a central feature of the Umbrella Movement, which could be both strategic and expressive. Umbrella participants acted out local, Chinese, and cosmopolitan identities, and in doing so continuously redefined these identities. Participating in musical performances, as Chow Yiu-fai noted in relation to his own experience, can also be a powerful medium of identity expression and construction, a “structure of feeling” (Williams 1977) or a type of “political mimesis” (Gaines 1999).12 The following section will further discuss the role of music in constituting emotional publics. 11  There is an extensive literature about the rational-communicative and emotional-­ normative aspects of the public sphere. See, for example, Warner (2002). 12  “Musics are invariably communal activities that bring people together in specific alignments. . . . ​[T]hese alignments can provide a powerful affective experience in which social identity is literally ‘embodied’” (Stokes 1997, 12).

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The performance and appropriation of music in the Umbrella Movement mirrors some of the central tensions of the movement between the wide appeal of a mainstream, globalized, and commodified pop culture and the participative production of a budding, critical, grassroots culture. In practice, these two aspects were only rarely in direct confrontation; it did happen, however, when nativists in Mongkok whistled and shouted to drown out the performance of the mainstream songs of the movement like “Boundless Seas, Vast Skies.” More often, participants negotiated between the two polar opposites, finding ways to combine popular appeal with expressions of a cultural authenticity that they saw as a persuasive symbol for political sincerity. In the first published essay on Umbrella music, Tim Rühlig studied the music videos of four songs his interviewees listened to during the movement: “Do You Hear the People Sing?,” “Under the Vast Sky,” “Raise the Umbrella,” and “Gau Wu (Shopping) Every Day.” Analyzing both the performances themselves and the descriptions of his interviewees’ reception of the performances, he infers four main traits of the movement expressed through its music: local character (which can be expressed either as a positive articulation of identity or a xenophobic rejection of outsiders), youth, a culture of humor and sarcasm, and a message of peaceful protest (Rühlig 2016). However, it is also possible to pay closer attention to the historical trajectory and distinctive cultural references embedded in each of these songs. “Do You Hear the People Sing?,” which will be referred to later by the translation of its Cantonese title, “Who Has Not Yet Spoken Out?” (“Si mahn seuih waahn meih faat seng?” 試問誰還未發聲?),13 is a song borrowed from a globalized pop repertoire, adapted to local circumstances. “Raise the Umbrella” (“Chaang hei yuh saan” 撐起雨傘) is a local production, widely performed by two somewhat independent, commercial singers, Denise Ho and Anthony Wong Yiu-ming. “Boundless Seas, Vast Skies” is a song borrowed from the repertoire of Hong Kong’s protest movements but originally also a commercial hit. Finally, “Gau Wu” is a nativist satire that emerged from spontaneous “performances” in Mongkok. Other songs and performances, though they may not have enjoyed the same degree of circulation, are equally significant and are also included in the discussion that follows. International Pop “Do You Hear the People Sing?”—originally composed as “La volonté du peuple” for the 1980 French musical Les Misérables—seems to have become 13 

This song is also sometimes titled “Who Has Not Yet Awoken?” (“Si mahn seuih waahn meih gok sing?” 試問誰還未覺醒?).

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an international protest song after the release of the film (2012) derived from the musical.14 It appeared in Gezi Park in Istanbul in May 2013, on Maidan Square in Ukraine in February 2014, in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement in March 2014, in Hong Kong’s Occupy Central with Love and Peace Movement in late spring and early summer of 2014 (and then again in the Umbrella Movement), and in South Korea in 2016.15 A Mandarin version also exists, and the English version was sung in an incident in Shanghai reported in 2018.16 Its adoption in Hong Kong reveals a strategy to frame the Umbrella protests as part of a worldwide democracy movement.17 There were also other references to international pop and protest culture, in particular John Lennon’s “Imagine,” which was widely performed (including in Cantonese18) and quoted in slogans (“You may say I’m a dreamer”) during the movement. Lennon’s name was used for a sticky note wall at Admiralty, inspired by the Lennon Wall in Prague that played a role in the Velvet Revolution. Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” was used to accompany a clip produced by Passion Times (see HRIC 2015). Pink Floyd (“We don’t need no thought control” written on posters) represented another link with the protest culture of the 1960s and 1970s. These references to the cultural icons of the generation of the protesters’ parents or grandparents, who avidly consumed them (the Beatles enjoyed a “wild welcome” at Kai Tak airport in 1964) but in the eyes of the Umbrella generation failed to fight for democracy in Hong Kong, may well have been tinged with irony. However, what sets “Who Has Not Yet Spoken Out?” apart are its Cantonese lyrics, which were written by an anonymous member of Occupy Central with Love and Peace and which differ quite starkly from both the French and English originals.19 On a linguistic level, although it is not exactly colloquial, there is some use of distinctive Cantonese vocabulary and syntax. Semantically, rather than the martial lyrics of the French and English versions, as well as of the Mandarin version that also circulated as 14  Les Misérables was adapted in English first as a West End musical in 1985 and then as a Broadway production running from 1987 to 2003. 15  Moore (2014). For a clip of the song in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement, see www.you​ tube.com/watch?v=X9A8eWeGy7U. 16  See News Lens (2018). A video is available from the YouTube channel Shanghai Independence: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEIJxQi1VZ8&app=desktop. 17  Rühlig (2016, 64) also quotes an interviewee as saying that “Do You Hear the People Sing?” is sometimes taught in Hong Kong schools, ensuring wide familiarity with the tune. 18  See www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WcYINf7b0s. 19  A similar example of a popular song given new lyrics can be found in May 1968 when “Le chant des barricades” was widely sung to the tune of an old folk song “La Petite Emilie” (Drott 2013, 258–61).

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a clip, the Cantonese wording describes a kind of internalized struggle saturated with moral meaning (“black and white,” “right and wrong,” “truth and lies,” “cannot turn our backs on our conscience”), in which political issues are presented in highly abstract terms (“natural right and intention to take responsibility”; 天生有權還有心可作主), so that the main theme of the song becomes one of “speaking out” and “awakening” rather than “remaining silent” (as suggested by the singers’ covering their mouths at the relevant place in the song). The only concrete references are to “defend our city” (衛我城) and to “give a future to this generation,” ending with an expression that Mao Zedong particularly liked to use (“if this generation is to have a future, we must remove the scales from our eyes,” 為這世代有 未來 / 要及時擦亮眼睛), again underscoring the fluidity and hybridity of cultural references. This reinterpretation of the original song is echoed in the music itself: although the melody is taken from the musical, the tempo is much slower and the orchestration softer, sometimes even absent, as the song was often sung a cappella or with a simple guitar accompaniment (e.g., the version sung by Hong Kong students at Oxford University). The performances themselves are also noteworthy: in addition to the widely circulated clip where the song is earnestly sung by a very young girl clutching her teddy bear, the high school student group Big Boyz Club (later known as Boyz Reborn) recorded a mock-crooner version, and a group of artists and local luminaries gathered in the Hong Kong Arts Centre at the initiative of the actor Anthony Wong Chau-sang after a performance of the musical Equus (based on Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play, which Wong had brought to Hong Kong) on 2 June 2014, standing up in protest against the mainstream singers who refused to associate with Occupy Central with Love and Peace (See Apple Daily Taiwan 2014). In one case, the mise-en-scène highlights childlike innocence, while in the other it represents a kind of solemn protest against the lack of principles of the music industry, in both cases further strengthening the moral moment of the performance. Therefore, while “Who Has Not Yet Spoken Out?” refers to international pop culture and the appeal of a widely known song, as well as connecting to a series of antiauthoritarian protest movements around the world as a frame, it also takes the form of a strongly localized reinterpretation that rephrases the conflict as a moral struggle, underpinned by images of children and “innocent” young performers. This framing of the movement as a moral and individual rather than a political and collective enterprise is consistent with the other strategies used by movement participants to build support among a broad group within Hong Kong society, but also with the dispersed and individualistic nature of the movement.

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Cantopop and Mandopop The musical performances of the Umbrella Movement represented a kind of symbolic reckoning with Cantopop, the commercial genre that came of age in the 1970s together with the notion of Hong Kong identity, flourished and developed disco tones in the 1980s, and has come increasingly under pressure from Mandopop since the 1990s. Several singers representative of the genre became involved in the movement, most prominently Denise Ho and Anthony Wong Yiu-ming (Lau 2018). A line from Denise Ho’s song “Glamorous” (“Yihm gwong sei seh” 艷光四射), originally part of an album released in 2005, which she performed at the gay parade during the Umbrella Movement, became widely quoted during the movement, appearing on posters and T-shirts: “Being born in troubled times entails certain responsibilities” (生於亂世有種責任).20 While referencing a traditional Chinese term for troubled times (luanshi 亂世), it encapsulated the feeling of a generational cohesion among the participants, as well as expressing an analogy between “speaking out” about both gay rights and political rights. The same term was picked up in lyrics from the song “Sunny Rain” by another Cantopop star, Fiona Fung: “Wind and rain will end, turmoil will give way to peace” (風雨總會停，亂世變太平), which appeared on posters. More broadly, a small but not negligible number of mainstream musicians joined or supported the movement, most prominently Kay Tse, who had previously composed several songs in relation with the heritage protection movement. Among cultural sociologists of social movements, musicians are viewed as “movement intellectuals,” who give meaning to the movement, telling the movement’s own story at the same time as communicating a vision “of what the world could be like” (Eyerman and Jamison 1998, 172). Denise Ho and Anthony Wong Yiu-ming’s main musical contribution to the movement was the song “Raise the Umbrella.” The music and lyrics were reportedly first written by local songwriter Pan (Lo Hiu-pan), after the tear gas events of 28 September: he sent them to Denise Ho, who asked Lin Xi (Albert Leung, who had worked with Leslie Cheung, Faye Wong, and Andy Lau, as well as written the lyrics to the Beijing Olympics theme song “Beijing Welcomes You”) to revise the wording (HKEJ 2014). Lin Xi himself appeared on stage at Admiralty, telling protesters he was willing to sacrifice his career for the future of Hong Kong, which is of course 20  Stephen Chu notes that Denise Ho had “successfully . . . ​turned her queer and indie edge into mainstream success” (2017, 155); this was a role that she was able to play very effectively in the Umbrella Movement. On Denise Ho and the role of female and LGBTQ activists in the Umbrella Movement, see Marchetti (2018).

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a central issue for all Cantopop singers who derive a large part of their income from mainland China. The song was made available to anyone who wanted to sing it, without copyright restrictions, displaying the authors’ wish to break with the commercial practices of Cantopop.21 The tune and lyrics are somewhat bland, describing the shared experience of movement participants, sitting peacefully and fighting both tears and fear when confronted with pepper spray and tear gas. As has been historically the case for much of mainstream Cantopop (Sam Hui being the rare early exception), the lyrics of the song are mainly in standard written Chinese (seen as more elegant, and in recent years more marketable), with hardly a colloquial Cantonese word included. The choice of vocabulary also occasionally alludes to some of the classic June Fourth songs (“Whatever violent rain will fall / Our determination will not fade / Umbrellas are like flowers”; 任暴雨 下 / 志向未倒下 / 雨傘是一朵朵的花). While it became something of a theme song of the movement, it came in for criticism as sentimental and uninspired. Again eschewing direct engagement with politics, it presents the movement mainly as a personal life experience and a test of individual participants’ resolve. Similarly, Anthony Wong highlights that his participation “as an ordinary citizen” was motivated by a “need to be sincere.” He also believes that this need for sincerity provoked an awakening in him to the broader political situation and made him “care more.”22 Another song borrowed from the mainstream repertoire was “Stubborn” (“Juejiang” 倔強; 2004) by Taiwanese rock band Mayday (Wuyuetian 五月天). A group of five singers born in the 1970s, Mayday formed in the late 1990s and was an initially edgy, later increasingly mainstream, rock group in Taiwan, singing almost exclusively in Mandarin. They rose to become one of the most well-known rock groups in China and are often called the “Chinese Beatles.” Initially they were supportive of the Sunflower Movement, and lead singer Ashin 阿信 posted their song “Rise Up” (“Qilai” 起來) to his Facebook page. However, in response to the backlash from China (Ashin has eighteen million Weibo followers), the clip was taken down, the band denied supporting the movement, and then successfully performed in Beijing on 18 April, shortly after the end of the Legislative Yuan occupation.23 The group’s place in the movement was taken by FireEX’s (滅火器) “Island’s Sunrise” (“Daoyu tianguang” 島嶼天光),

21 

Author’s interview with Anthony Wong Yiu-ming, 15 October 2018, Hong Kong. Author’s interview with Anthony Wong Yiu-ming, 15 October 2018, Hong Kong. 23  See Fuchs (2014); on Mandopop in general, see Moskowitz (2010). 22 

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which is sung in Taiwanese.24 Mayday’s song appeared in the Umbrella Movement mainly in widespread quotes from the lyrics on posters: The most beautiful hope / can only be madness / Is the next stop paradise? / Despite disappointments / Cannot despair 最美的願望 / 一定是瘋狂 / 下一站是不是天堂 / 就算失望不能絕望

It is probably significant that the more mainstream, Mandarin-singing rock band Mayday, which has performed often in Hong Kong as well as in mainland China, should be quoted in the Umbrella Movement, rather than the theme song of the Sunflower Movement. It reflects the Umbrella Movement’s engagement with mainstream culture and its shifting identity frames that could include pan-Chinese as well as local culture. The predicament resulting from Mayday’s attempt to join the Sunflower Movement was shared by the Cantopop performers in the Umbrella Movement. Denise Ho and others suffered a string of cancellations and rumored bans in China. A concert sponsored by the French luxury brand Lancôme was canceled at short notice in June 2016, after the brand was attacked by the Global Times for supporting Ho.25 Anthony Wong Yiu-ming saw his engagements on the mainland cancelled and the online distribution of his songs curtailed. The American saxophonist Kenny G was warned by the Foreign Ministry in Beijing (where he is very popular) after posting selfies taken in the Umbrella occupation area, and issued several late-night tweets denying support for the movement.26 These acts of retaliation and their inevitable consequences in terms of self-censorship are emblematic of the dilemma facing the Umbrella Movement as a whole. If it took a strong, principled position for universal suffrage against authoritarian governments in Hong Kong and in China, and against the capitalist system that sustains China’s authoritarian government, it would risk alienating a majority of the public. At the same time, by building too many bridges with Hong Kong’s mainstream culture, it ran the risk of losing its internal coherence and appeal to movement participants. This dilemma is to some extent epitomized in the choice of language, with the tension between the standard written Chinese sung in Cantonese that most

24  See Mack (2014). Marie-Alice McLean-Dreyfus (2014) argues that “Island’s Sunrise” links the Taiwanese language with an inclusive sense of the nation based on identification with the island. On “Island’s Sunrise,” see also C. Wang (2017). 25  Lancôme and its parent company L’Oréal gave “security concerns” as the reason for the cancellation and offered to compensate Ho, who ultimately held the concert as a free event for the public. See Witherington (2016). 26  See Griffiths (2014); for a roundup of mainland retaliation, see Qin and Wong (2014).

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listeners are used to and a more colloquial style that potentially cuts off the performer from the mainland audience. Hong Kong Indies and Participative Performance Seeking an alternative path, a subgroup formed among the movement participants who, despite the galvanizing power of mainstream music, were more drawn to a different style of musical performance.27 Hong Kong’s identification with laissez-faire capitalism has in some ways held it hostage to mainland Chinese business interests who, especially since 2003, carried increasing clout in the region; the Umbrella Movement was a protest against Beijing’s political encroachment on the promises contained in the Basic Law, but it also grew out of the increasing frustration with mainland-led crony capitalism. For at least a decade, the themes of “real-estate hegemony” (dichan baquan 地產霸權) and “tycoon-politics cronyism” (zhengshang goudang 政商勾當) had been widespread in critical discourse and among the prodemocracy camp. This evolution can also be observed in music, with the rise of a new type of Hong Kong indie band.28 The most well-known of these is My Little Airport (MLA) and its lead singers Ah P (Lam Pang) and Nicole Au, but there are several other groups (e.g., The Pancakes) connected to Harbor Records, an independent label established on a cooperative basis.29 There are a few precedents of indie groups with a political stance: Anthony Wong Yiu-ming and Tats Lau’s Tat Ming Pair, set up in 1984, is one, although it broke up in 1990 and was to some extent absorbed into the mainstream; another one is AMK (Adam [Smith] meets Karl [Marx]) in the 1990s. MLA, founded by Ah P and Nicole Au when they were still college students in journalism, released its first album in 2004 and became involved in the cultural activism that developed around the heritage protection movement around the same date (which marks the redevelopment of Wedding Card Street in Wanchai, followed by the Star Ferry and Queen’s Piers).30 When then Chief Executive Donald Tsang commented 27 

Stephen Chu (2017, 189–90) notes the important role of indie Cantopop in the movement, quoting Michael Lai (“I Promise You an Umbrella,” 2014) and New Youth Barbershop (“Blue Ribbon,” 2014). 28  The indie singers of the Umbrella Movement tend to resemble the political singer-­ songwriters in Cold War Eastern Europe (Wolf Bierman, Valdimir Vissotzky). See Ritter (2013). 29  On indie labels, see Chu (2017, 181–82). 30  The indie group Fan Hung A (粉紅A) devoted a song to the demolition of the Star Ferry Pier in 2006, titled “Goodbye” (“Joi gin” 再見). See www.youtube.com/watch?v=QasX8ntQmk. In a possibly self-mocking song, Ah P makes fun of an “otaku girl” who did not take part in any of the social movements to preserve the Star Ferry Pier or to oppose the High Speed Rail (“Otaku Girl, Hit the Street” [“Jaahk neuih, seuhng gaai ba”  宅女，上街吧]; see www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_jT0QbTnw).

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in the Legislative Council in 2009 that Hong Kong people had already forgotten about June Fourth, a few days before the largest-ever number of participants joined the yearly vigil for the twentieth anniversary, Ah P wrote the song “Donald Tsang, please die,” which marked an increased politicization in MLA’s work. They sang in both English and Cantonese, like many other Hong Kong singers; however, their style was more local, regardless of which language they used. The English is inflected with “Kongish” (as people like to call it), while the Cantonese lyrics are truly colloquial and more rarely use standard written Chinese forms like mainstream Cantopop. The songs often emphasize local places that expats or outsiders do not patronize: To Kwa Wan, Ngau Tau Kok, Lai Chi Kok, and the local restaurants known as cha chaan tengs. For the sixtieth anniversary of the PRC that same year, they released “Love the Country, but Not the Party” (sung in English), which runs: Rich guys get richer / Poor guys get poorer / In a party there’re many wankers and losers // I’d celebrate Christmas Day / I’d celebrate Easter Sunday / But not this party of your sixtieth birthday / No, not this party of your sixtieth birthday.31

Here, the themes of crony capitalism, rising inequalities, and Beijing’s increasing wish to make national identification completely coterminous with loyalty to the CCP are highlighted with a heavy dose of humor, which becomes apparent in the wordplay in the Chinese title (in which “party” is translated as “celebration” and “country” as “countryside”). MLA also embraces the critiques of commodification that include the music industry itself, as suggested by the 2011 album Hong Kong Is One Big Shopping Mall (Heunggong sih go daaih seung cheuhng 香港是個大商場). Their musical style emphasizes simplicity and low-budget production (it has been described, perhaps unfairly, as “twee-pop”) using mainly guitar and keyboard, in keeping with the need to control costs and maintain independence.32 But compared to Taiwan or mainland equivalents of xiaoqingxin 小清新 music, it retains an edgy, satirical style in both melody and lyrics, and does not hesitate to use strong language. Yet, surprisingly, despite (or because of) their politically edgy lyrics, they also achieved significant success in mainland China’s budding indie scene (until recently it was sometimes easier to find their records in Beijing than in Hong Kong) and performed on several live tours in the mainland, which, however, did not deter them from joining the Umbrella Movement.

31  32 

See, for example, http://lyrics.jetmute.com/viewlyrics.php?id=898913. See the Elefant Records site: http://elefant.com/bands/my-little-airport/biography.

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Taking part in the occupation in a relatively low-profile manner, they nonetheless released a song dealing directly with the movement. In “Tonight Let’s Go Sleep Together in Connaught Road Central” (“Gam yeh dou Gonnohk douh jung yat hei fan” 今夜到干諾道中一起瞓),33 they strike a playful pose, planning to sleep together in different streets every night (“extra-low rent”) and wondering where the nearest toilet might be, although they also allude to mafia interference and tensions between Mongkok (Dundas Street) and Admiralty (Connaught Road). One commentator notes a sarcastic jab at the “big stage politics” (movement organizers were criticized for monopolizing the microphone on the “big stage” and not letting ordinary participants speak): “Can you turn the mike on the big stage a little lower? I can’t hear my boyfriend’s voice” (大會的 咪可否細聲一陣？ 我聽不到愛人的聲音). Another line alludes to a young woman resisting police force on Lung Wo Road, and to the grass trampled by the police in front of government offices (還有龍和道站最前的女生 / 草 地跑過的腳印).34 But, they mainly target the voice of the “silent majority” who criticized the movement for bringing inconvenience: “Excuse me, dear citizen, I know I am inconveniencing you, making you angry, but I’m also here for the next generation. I am unafraid, if tomorrow morning the place is cleared I may leave, but I’ll come back in the evening to sleep” (對不起這位市民，我知我阻礙你，很不忿，但我也是為這下一代人，我也 無愧於心，明朝要清場我或會走人，然後晚上又來瞓). This line references many of the important arguments of the Umbrella Movement: the need to endure temporary inconvenience for the sake of political reform, the legitimacy of the next generation to decide its own future regardless of the criticisms of the older generations, the need to respect every member of Hong Kong society, even those with different opinions, as a “citizen,” and finally the allusion to “fluid occupation,” in which clearing the street will provide no perennial solution. But implicit in MLA’s whole style is also a critique of Cantopop showbiz, with its standard written Chinese lyrics that are easily marketable in the mainland, its consumerist mindset, and ultimately its reliance on the mainland market, which at crucial times reduces it to silence. Another example is New Youth Barbershop (Xinqingnian lifa ting 新 青年理髮廳), a group that appeared at the time of the protests against redevelopment of the North East New Territories and continued during Occupy Central with Love and Peace, with one band member being 33 

See https://blow.streetvoice.com/4030-「給革命中的戀人」my-little-airport-新歌%E​ 3%​80​%88​今夜到干諾道中一. 34  This raises the question of the “sonic dominance” of the movement, to use the term proposed by Murray Shafer.

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arrested on 1 July 2014. During the Umbrella Movement, they released the song “What the World Fears Most Is Not Absurdity” (“Saigaai jeui pa mh haih fong mauh” 世界最怕唔係荒謬), which satirizes the discourse of the government and proestablishment groups, as well as the ironic song “Blue Ribbon,” referring to the antidemocracy activists, which ends with an allusion to triad involvement.35 The name of the band connects both with the wave of cultural heritage activism (it is the name of a real oldstyle barber shop in Hung Hom; Chow 2013) and with the longer history of student movements in twentieth-century China. Other examples are Michael Lai’s song “I Promise You an Umbrella,” for which Chow Yiu-fai wrote the lyrics (Chu 2017, 189); “Tear Gas” (“Cheui leuih daan” 催淚彈) by Big Boyz Club; and songs by the Dylan-inspired indie folk singer Jabin Law. Finally, it should be mentioned that, apart from professional performers’ implication in the movement, there was an outpouring of participative creation in the musical domain, just like in other artistic fields. Many ordinary participants spent their time in the occupied areas playing music or writing and performing their own music. Bananaooyoo (Heung­ jiunaaih 香蕉奶) was one of the performers who drew attention (but also criticism for excessive commodification of protest and “karaoke”). The song “Umbrella” (“Yuh je” 雨遮) is another example, originating in a poem posted in Admiralty, to which a student wrote a tune, and which was performed by a group of students who later formed a band.36 The high school group Boyz Reborn composed a mock-rap song titled “Tear Gas,” to “commemorate 928” (the day on which tear gas was fired).37 There were also the more politically inspired “improvisations” that appeared in Mongkok, like David Cheang’s profanity-loaded “If I call you a stupid dick, I’m afraid you’d be mad” (Meigs and Fan 2014) or the “Gau Wu Every Day” song discussed by Tim Rühlig, used by Mongkok occupiers to satirize mainland tourists, Chief Executive C. Y. Leung, and the “blue ribbon” groups who opposed the occupation.38 This song, together with the disruptive singing of “Happy Birthday,” became part of the performance-art style of resistance to mainland shoppers and proestablishment forces in Mongkok. Winnie Lai argues that the performance of “Happy Birthday” was a way of avoiding the commodified karaoke singing, while 35 

See Lam (2014); the song can be found at  https://www.facebook.com/supporthktv/ posts/622675904516301/. 36  See Fong (2014); another example is “No Turning Back” by Wallis Cho www.youtube. com/watch?v=iQiEnUIWroU&app=desktop. 37  See www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qbNOdBz6c8. 38  See Apple Daily (2015); on “Gau Wu,” see also K. Lai (2016).

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at the same time reaffirming local culture through the association with the authentic culture of mouleitau, a term for local slapstick humor (2018). These many participative practices through music epitomize the more decentralized, grassroots, and bottom-up aspect of the movement, which was of course also the least likely to mobilize strong support among the public at large.39 Mainstream publics who sang the movement anthems together entered into conflict with indie or radical counterpublics. In the end, however creative and critical indie and amateur performers in the movement may have been, it was difficult for them to provide music that could ensure a strong collective identification among the mainstream public. For this the movement still had to turn to time-honored classics. Redefining a Musical Community The place of the movement within the longer history of musical protest in Hong Kong, as well as the formation of new publics through participative music-making, raise the question of the extent to which the Umbrella Movement was underpinned by or brought about a larger cultural transformation, similar to the one that generated the antiauthoritarian values shared by commodified tongsu and “authentic” yaogun in China in the 1980s, or to the role of protest songs in the global counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. When Robert Chi presented his essay on the PRC National Anthem “The March of the Volunteers” and its historical vicissitudes in Hong Kong, he appended some remarks that were left out of the published version (Chi 2007), asking, “What would be Hong Kong’s national anthem if it was allowed to have one?” This question recently became relevant again, with the controversy surrounding the PRC National Anthem Law, enacted by the National People’s Congress in September 2017 and added to Annex 3 of the Basic Law in November, meaning the Hong Kong government must now translate it into a local law, for which a draft was tabled in March 2018 (Lau et al. 2017). This move came in response to several fraught incidents in which Hong Kong football fans booed or whistled when “The March of the Volunteers” was played as the Hong Kong team’s anthem (Hong Kong is not allowed under the Basic Law to have its own anthem; similarly, its flag is constitutionally required to always be flown together with the PRC flag and be of a smaller size and hoisted lower). There have been several incidents surrounding football matches 39  There are some rare examples of indie songs becoming mainstream protest anthems, for example in the case of Japanese antinuclear songs, which received a boost after Fukushima (Grunebaum 2011).

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ever since Hong Kong’s victory over China in Beijing’s Workers Stadium in 1985. This decision manifested the need felt in Beijing to impose order on the musical manifestations of Hongkongers’ identity. Of course, similar issues have arisen in the past, and “The March of the Volunteers” began to take a growing place in Hongkongers’ daily lives when the government required public broadcasters to play it before the evening news in the first “patriotic education” campaign that followed the anti–Article 23 protests in 2003. Enthusiasm remains tepid in Hong Kong for the quintessentially northern warlike song composed by Nie Er, with Mandarin lyrics by Tian Han, which was famously spoofed in Hacken Lee’s 1998 hit “The Football Chronicles” (Cheng 2018).40 Robert Chi, in his essay, argues that “March of the Volunteers,” from its unusual origin as a film song to its enshrinement as the PRC anthem, materialized the “emergence of a political subject” in China. If my memory serves, he suggested that if Hong Kong had such a choice, it might adopt the theme song from Once upon a Time in China, “Nan’er dang zi­qiang,” which is associated with the origins of Hong Kong through the story of the film and expresses the strong pan-Chinese nationalism of the 1970s and 1980s while incarnating it in the supremely Cantonese figure of Wong Fei-hung. Finally, it is sung during June Fourth vigils, thus connecting it with Hong Kong’s unique tradition of democratic protest. This was a persuasive argument at the time, but in the ten years since Chi’s essay, many things have changed in Hong Kong. For participants of the Umbrella Movement, it would probably seem incongruous to even consider this song, which has been removed from the most recent June Fourth vigils: cultural nationalism and pride in an abstract form of Chineseness has been replaced with a growing identification with the local community. If neither Tian Han nor Tsui Hark could provide inspiration, how then did the singing crowds in the Umbrella Movement envisage the larger community? Another important song was revived in the Umbrella Movement, although it did not acquire the “theme song” status of the ones previously discussed: the old favorite “Under the Lion Rock” (“Siji saan hah” 獅子山下), which was sung by actress Deanie Ip, Anthony Wong Yiu-ming, and Denise Ho in Admiralty on the first month after the tear gas day.41 It originated as the theme song of the television series Below the Lion Rock that was first broadcast on RTHK from 1972 to 1979, and 40  It is expected that “those who play or sing the song in ‘a distorted or disrespectful way in public’ could face criminal charges on par with levels set under the city’s existing National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance—three years’ imprisonment and a fine of HK$50,000 (US$6,400)” (Chung 2018). 41  See www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdlO7qPxbis.

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is often considered the “unofficial anthem” of Hong Kong.42 Composed by Joseph Koo, with lyrics by James Wong, it was sung by Roman Tam (羅文; 1944–2002). It has had an interesting history, meandering between the establishment and the opposition. Premier Zhu Rongji quoted it when visiting Hong Kong, and its lyrics were used by the government in its 2013 propaganda clip “Hong Kong Our Home” (“Jia shi Xianggang” 家是香港). It encapsulates the optimism of the economic miracle of the 1970s, the rising standard of living, and growing attachment to Hong Kong (Lui 2008): “All of us have come together below the Lion Rock / and at the end of the day share more joy than sorrows” (我哋大家 在獅子山下相遇上 / 總算是 歡笑多於唏噓). The “Lion Rock spirit,” referring to hard work carried out together in adverse conditions but which is fairly rewarded, was a symbol of the era, although some today no doubt consider it neoliberal. It is therefore quite interesting that this song and Lion Rock itself as a symbol of Hong Kong were inducted into the Umbrella repertoire (a group of rock climbers hung a huge banner on Lion Rock demanding universal suffrage, after which it appeared in every shape and form in the protest areas, from posters to scale models). However, in this process, the “Lion Rock spirit” has been redefined. One of the climbers in Spiderman suits who hung the universal suffrage banner on Lion Rock formulated first a critique, and then a critical endorsement of the Lion Rock ethos: They told me young people like myself didn’t work hard enough, only knew how to demand benefits from society. . . . ​They emphasize hard work, perseverance, sacrifice, and mutual help, but they don’t acknowledge the systematic and structural problems. . . . ​[But w]e don’t need to throw it all away. . . . ​The values like hard work and mutual help are good but we need to build on them to add a system that protects the disadvantaged and a level playing-ground that ensures fair rewards for that hard work. What we need is a new kind of justice.43

For this group of activists at least, the co-optation of the Lion Rock frame was predicated on a conscious plan to redefine it in a more inclusive and democratic way.

42  Stephen Yiu-wai Chu (2006, 36) considers the song instrumental in stimulating the first articulation of a self-reflexive local consciousness in the late 1970s and describes it as the “regional anthem” (2017, 60). 43  Yuen Chan (2014). In the same article, Eric Kit-wai Ma points out that the original television series was intended to promote the projects of the colonial government, and the meaning of “Lion Rock” had already undergone a first redefinition and appropriation by the local community at the time.

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This contrasts with another song performed by Roman Tam and which was often sung at June Fourth vigils up to the Umbrella Movement (including at the twenty-fifth anniversary in 2014): “China Dream” (“Zhongguo meng” 中國夢, 1984; lyrics also by James Wong). The themes of the two songs are very different, though the musical and linguistic styles (Cantopop tune, standard written Chinese sung in Cantonese) are similar. One lists a series of tropes related to China’s majestic geography, long history, and potent symbolism, not unlike “Descendents of the Dragon,” although it concludes that all Chinese dreams have the same content: freedom and happiness for the Chinese people. The other defines a more open community of people “living under the Lion Rock,” “crossing the river in the same boat,” working together to overcome hardships, to write a “glorious page in the history of the Fragrant River.” The contrast between them fits into the pattern Eric Ma has described as “desinicization” in Hong Kong pop culture in the 1970s, followed by “resinicization” in the 1990s (Ma 1999). More importantly, it points to the fact that Hong Kong and Chinese identity were not seen as contradictory at the time, especially if the Chinese identity could be performed as a “dream,” the mind roaming freely in space and time without ever encountering the reality of China’s current polity. Today, they are increasingly seen to be in tension. Similarly, at the June Fourth concert in Happy Valley in 1989, Teresa Teng sang “My Home Is on the Other Side of the Mountain” (“Jia zai shan nabian” 家在山那邊).44 Today, home is decidedly on this side of Lion Rock. The reconnection with the “Lion Rock spirit,” now understood as a trope for a civic rather than an ethnic community, is significant of the evolution of Hongkongers’ self-understanding. Musically, it harks back to a time when Cantopop was more diverse and incorporated themes connected to different social environments, in particular ordinary people’s life at the grassroots.45 Despite the unprecedented prominence of the “China dream” today, it is only logical that Roman Tam’s 1984 song was ultimately omitted from June Fourth vigils, while “Lion Rock” was inducted into the Umbrella repertoire. This reappropriation shows how a selective revisiting of the Cantopop repertoire of the 1970s, provided it is infused with a newfound sense of shared political resolve, can provide the cultural references to articulate Hong Kong’s new identity, evolving from a liberal but ethnicized Chinese territory to a hybrid but more politicized community. 44 

See www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJnU-kJEDG0. Thanks to Andrew Jones for providing this very suggestive connection. 45  Chu (2017, 59) notes that Cantopop experienced three waves of “band culture” in which a degree of social criticism and bottom-up articulations of ideas played an important role: in the 1970s with Sam Hui; in the early to mid-1980s with Beyond, Tat Ming Pair, and the folk song movement; and in the early 1990s with Music Factory.

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Whereas musical developments during the Anti–Extradition Movement of 2019 would merit a separate study, it is relevant to note that the evolution away from Cantopop and toward an expression of the musical identity of the community that is both more participative and more civic has continued. Indie performers have engaged with the movement in new compositions: My Little Airport released three new songs and gave a special series of immediately sold-out shows titled “The Taste of Tears” in November 2019. The songs describe ordinary people confronted with police violence and feeling compelled to join the protests. Other bands like LMF have also released specific songs dealing with the 2019 protests (see James 2019). The Taiwanese band FireEx worked with the Hong Kong lyrics writer Lin Xi on a song to support the Hong Kong protests titled “Chronicle of a Changing City” (“Bian cheng ji” 變城記).46 However, the musical emblem of the 2019 movement is “May Glory Return to Hong Kong” (“Yuhn wihnggwong gwai Heunggong” 願榮光 歸香港), a solemn anthem composed by an anonymous musician in his twenties known only by the name “Thomas dgx yhl.” Echoes of religious or even patriotic music in the song spurred unprecedented feelings of identity (Chow 2019). The lyrics were refined through crowdsourcing on the LIHKG Forum, which played an important role in the 2019 protests, and performances were organized online and an “official” clip released on 31 August 2019. However, the composer underscores his own role as an “ordinary protester” as well as the “democratic” process by which the song established its status as the movement anthem: That’s just people on LIHKG getting carried away and indulging in exaggeration. They like the sound of it so they talk it up as a “national anthem.” Of course, it’s an exaggeration that helps get the message out there, but let’s be realistic: Hong Kong is just a special administrative region, not a nation. How can it have a “national anthem”? . . . ​I’m just happy for it to be a protest ballad. But if people think it should be the song of a particular district or a “national anthem” then something like that has to be widely discussed and subject to democratic deliberation. No individual or small group of people can just go ahead and make a claim like that.47

“Glory to Hong Kong,” both by its democratically crowdsourced nature and solemn music and lyrics, marks a shift away from “karaoke” and toward a more directly political form of musical engagement. 46 

See www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F8r53lky2Q. Quoted in Barmé (2019), which provides a full presentation of the song, complete with translation of the lyrics and a detailed interview with the composer as well as the music score and links to performances. 47 

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Conclusion The Umbrella Movement displayed a new configuration of the classic tension in protest culture between music as a form of mainstream expression that is able to effectively express the identification between movement participants and a broader community and music as a more radical form of creative protest. The first tendency drew on a long tradition of music associated with political protest and identity since the Tiananmen Movement of 1989 and encapsulated a broad range of registers. International pop music (in the form of a song from Les Misérables) was rewritten to express a localized message, while at the same time framing the moral authority of the movement for the benefit of the international audience. The Cantopop repertoire and style (“Raise the Umbrella”) played a galvanizing role as the expression of Hong Kong’s distinctiveness, but the movement also highlighted its ambiguities, both intrinsic (because it is imbued with Chinese high culture and nonconflictual in tone) and extrinsic (because it is supremely vulnerable to the Chinese market). The June Fourth repertoire was referenced but at the same time deeply transformed by the Umbrella Movement, with certain songs discarded and others reinterpreted. Ultimately, identity was perhaps most effectively performed through references to Hong Kong in the 1970s as an—albeit idealized and reinvented—open civic community. More satirical and independent productions like My Little Airport’s songs could seem more authentic but were not designed to play a galvanizing role within the movement. However, it should be noted that despite post-Umbrella restrictions MLA continues to be popular on both sides of the Hong Kong–China boundary.48 In their most recent album, they reference the banner “We’ll be back” (in the introduction), the disqualification of four lawmakers (“Night Flight to Amsterdam,” which ends with the line “Hong Kong is no longer my business”), the imprisonment of activists (“You say you will look for me later,” which gives its name to the album), and the arrest of Edward Leung (“Our failure,” sung in Japanese as an homage to the Japanese singer Morita Dōji whose death was announced at the same time as Leung’s sentence). It attests to the durable effects of the Umbrella Movement culture. While none of the Umbrella Movement musicians has gone into politics—like Freddy Lim in Taiwan or Svyatoslav Vakarchuk in Ukraine—the expressive and participative dimension of the movement seems indeed to have begun to transform the collective representations of several generations of participants. 48  MLA’s full week of concerts for the release of a new album in September 2018 was sold out months ahead and many mainland fans were among the audience (author’s participant observation, KITEC, 1 October 2018).

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James, Lauren. 2019. “Songs of Freedom: Eight New Protest Songs from Hong Kong Bands.” South China Morning Post, 25 October. www.scmp.com/life​ style/entertainment/article/3034501/songs-freedom-seven-new-protest​ -songs​-hong​-kong​-bands. Jones, Andrew. 1992. Like A Knife. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program. Kutschke, Beate. 2013. “In Lieu of an Introduction.” In Music and Protest in 1968, edited by B. Kutschke and Barley Norton, 1–11. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lai, Elfrida. 2014. “Zhanzhong zhutiqu ‘Haikuo tiankong’ de Xianggang chuanqi” [The Hong Kong story of the Occupy Central theme song “Vast ocean, boundless skies”]. Punchline, 3 October. https://punchline.asia/ archives​/4478. Lai, Kwok Wai. 2016. “On ‘Gau Wu’ in Umbrement [sic] Movement: The ‘Remaking of Hong Kong’ through Internet Collective Creation by Hong Kong Netizen.” Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies, no. 23 (Autumn): 245–80. http://routerjcs.nctu.edu.tw/router/word/29611142017.pdf. Lai, Winnie W. C. 2018. “Happy Birthday to You: Music as Nonviolent Weapon in the Umbrella Movement.” HK Studies 1, no. 1 (March): 66–81. Lam, Jeffie. 2014. “New Youth Barbershop: Indie Band with a Razor-Sharp Political Message.” South China Morning Post, 26 July. www.scmp.com/news/ hong-kong/article/1559290/new-youth-barbershop-indie-band-razor-sharp​ -political​-message. Lau, Dorothy. 2018. “Reframing Celebrities in Post-Handover Hong Kong: Political Advocacy, Social Media, and the Performance of Denise Ho.” Hong Kong Studies 1, no. 1 (March): 51–65. Lau, Stuart, et al. 2017. “China Imposes National Anthem Law on Hong Kong, Raising Spectre of Prison Terms for Abuse of Song.” South China Morning Post, 4 November. www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2118430/ china-imposes-national-anthem-law-hong-kong-raising-spectre. Lui, Tai-lok. 2008. “Fleeing the Nation, Creating a Local Home.” In Hong Kong, China: Learning to Belong to a Nation, edited by Tai-lok Lui, Eric Kit-wai Ma, and Gordon Mathews, 22–39. London: Routledge. Ma, Eric Kit-wai. 1999. Culture, Politics, and Television in Hong Kong. London: Routledge. Mack, Adrian. 2014. “Taiwan’s Fire EX Is Proudly Rebellious after Igniting Sunflower Movement with ‘Island’s Sunrise.’” Georgia Straight, 27 August. www.straight.com/music/716261/taiwans-fire-ex-proudly-rebellious-after​ -igniting​-sunflower-movement-islands-sunrise. Manabe, Noriko. 2015. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music after Fukushima. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Marchetti, Gina. 2018. “Sexual Citizenship and Social Justice in the HKSAR.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 58 (Winter 2017–2018). http:// ejumpcut.org/currentissue/MarchettiUmbrellas/text.html. Mathews, Gordon. 1997. “Heunggongyahn: On the Past, Present, and Future of Hong Kong Identity.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 29, no. 3: 3–13. McLean-Dreyfus, Marie-Alice. 2014. “Protest Songs and Taiwanese Identity in the Sunflower Movement.” Asia Dialogue, 9 April. http://theasia​dialogue​ .com​/2014/04/09/protest-songs-and-taiwanese-identity-in-the-sunflower​ -movement. Meigs, Doug, and M. Fan. 2014. “The UM Playlist.” Foreign Policy, 9 October. Moore, Malcolm. 2014. “How a Song from Les Misérables Became Hong Kong’s Protest Anthem.” Telegraph, 30 September. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/asia/hongkong/11130092/How-a-song-from-Les-Miserables​ -became-Hong-Kongs-protest-anthem.html. Moskowitz, Mark. 2010. Cries of Joy, Songs of Sorrow: Chinese Pop Music and Its Cultural Connotations. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. News Lens. 2018. “Shanghai xiyuan guanzhong gaochang fan jiquan mingqu.” [Audience in Shanghai theater loudly sings popular antitotalitarian song]. News Lens, 26 September. https://hk.thenewslens.com/article/104894. Qin, Amy, and Alan Wong. 2014. “Stars Backing Hong Kong Protests Pay Price on Mainland.” New York Times, 24 October. www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/ world/asia/hong-kong-stars-face-mainland-backlash-over-support-for​ -protests.html. Ritter, Rüdiger. 2013. “The Emergence of a Protest Culture in the Popular Music of the Eastern Block?” In Music and Protest in 1968, edited by B. Kutschke and Barley Norton, 205–21. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rosenthal, Rob, and Richard Flacks. 2011. Playing for Change: Music and Musicians in the Service of Social Movements. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Rühlig, Tim. 2016. “‘Do You Hear the People Sing’ ‘Lift your Umbrella’? Understanding Hong Kong’s Pro-Democratic Umbrella Movement through YouTube Music Videos.” China Perspectives 4: 59–68. Shafer, Murray. 1993. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books. Stokes, Martin. 1997. Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. London: Berg. Tong, Elson. 2016. “The Last Gunshot: The Musical Legacy of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre.” Hong Kong Free Press, 4 June. Veg, Sebastian. 2017. “The Rise of ‘Localism’ and Civic Identity in Post-Handover Hong Kong: Questioning the Chinese Nation-State.” China Quarterly 230 (June): 323–47.

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Wang, Chih-Ming. 2017. “‘The Future That Belongs to Us’: Affective Politics, Neoliberalism, and the Sunflower Movement.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 20, no. 2: 177–92. Wang, Joyu. 2014. “The Story behind the Hong Kong Protests’ Unofficial Anthem.” Wall Street Journal, 1 October. Warner, Michael. 2002. “Publics and Counter-Publics (abbreviated version).” Quarterly Journal of Speech 88, no. 4: 413–25. Williams, Raymond. 1977. “Structures of Feeling.” In Marxism and Literature, 128–35. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Witherington, Lawrence. 2016. “Denise Ho Draws Hong Kong Crowd after Lancôme Cowed.” Wall Street Journal, 19 June. https://blogs.wsj.com/china​ realtime/2016/06/19/denise-ho-draws-hong-kong-crowd-after-lancome​ -cowed.

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SEVEN

Protest Documentaries in Taiwan and Hong Kong From the Late 1980s to the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements

JUDITH PERNIN

Chris Marker’s classic documentary Grin without a Cat (1977) opens with a dizzying montage featuring footage of demonstrations in Europe and South America edited with excerpts from Sergei Eisenstein’s fiction film Battleship Potemkin (1925). Revolutionary scenes staged by the Soviet filmmaker alternate with anonymous reports on riots from the 1960s and 1970s. Bombarded with images of marching crowds, police violence, clenched fists, and leaders giving speeches, the viewer soon loses track of the events’ context and specificity, and even of the distinction between scenes recorded live and reenacted. Blurring the boundaries between these iconic images of public dissent, Grin without a Cat invites us to reflect on the commonality of protest modes and their representation over time, space, film forms, and the political spectrum.1 While the sequence simultaneously alludes to the universality of revolt and perhaps to the elusiveness of progress, it also reveals the importance of documentary mise-en-scène, for specific ways of representing protests can help identify and understand them, and in turn raise popular 1  This chapter is partly based on research conducted during a six-month stay at Taiwan National Central Library (Guojia tushuguan) facilitated by a grant from their Center of Chinese Studies. The École française d’Extrême Orient provided an additional four-month research subsidy spent between Hong Kong and Taiwan (April through July 2018). I am indebted to the Taiwan International Documentary Festival and especially program director Wood Lin for access to film resources in Taiwan. In Hong Kong, I wish to extend thanks to individuals interviewed for this chapter and to institutions such as Videotage, Visible Record, and the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

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participation. Simultaneously, many social movements borrow from a vast historical repertoire of protest modes in order to gain legitimacy and recognition. This can create uncanny parallels between places and periods, like in Grin without a Cat, or more recently, in 2014, when large-scale occupations organized in Taiwan and Hong Kong referred to the civil rights movement or to Gandhi’s concept of peaceful protest. While voicing demands and paying homage to other movements, young participants were also discussing their predecessors’ accomplishments and the legacy of several generations of local political activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many scholars have noted commonalities between recent protests in the two territories (see the present volume; M. Ho 2019; Cheng and Yuen 2017). They manifest in slogans, artworks, and film and video productions, borrowing and renewing protest modes (songs, marches, sitins) elaborated in the late 1980s as well as their visualization (Veg 2016; Rowen 2015; Rühlig 2016; Garrett 2015). Because documentaries record and reframe protest movements, they play a central role in shaping our understanding of these events, perhaps even more now that high-quality video production and dissemination occur in real time. While often distinguished in academic literature, a wide range of audiovisual productions focusing on protests (video art; television reports; fulllength, theatrically released documentaries; social media video posts; etc.) rely on similar live recording practices and offer an ever-growing archive of protest representations. In visual studies, these productions raise questions: given their informative and/or activist purpose, what is their role in fostering social movements? Is the representation of protests influenced by the political context in which they emerge? Documentaries on the Sunflower and Umbrella movements constitute a good comparative case study to examine these questions. Relying on occupation strategies around or within main sites of political power, both movements opposed measures perceived as friendly to People’s Republic of China (PRC) interests and threatening local identity, sovereignty, or economy. They were engineered by a younger generation of activists, largely renewing local political discourses and modes of action. Both movements claimed to be independent from existing political parties, but new leaders and formations emerged from them. The Taiwanese occupation, organized just a few months before the Umbrella Movement, drew large support from the Hong Kong public (Garrett 2015). Activists across the Strait met and exchanged ideas and practices after the Sunflower Movement; and shortly before the onset of the Umbrella Movement, a collection of short Taiwanese documentaries called Sunflower Occupation even circulated in Hong Kong where it was seen by a group of young documentary filmmakers. However, the two occupations had very different

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outcomes, as the Sunflower Movement is widely perceived as successful and instrumental in securing political change with the subsequent election of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen. Despite being praised as a landmark for the territory’s political awakening, the Umbrella Movement has been described by some as a failure, and it resulted in increased control over Hong Kong political and cultural life. Given these similarities and discrepancies, is there a common aesthetics of protests in Taiwan and Hong Kong productions, or do their specific political environments create different ways of showing them? Contexts of Production These recent documentaries also originate from specific contexts in terms of visual history. Before examining them, we need to understand how images of protests are produced and circulate in Hong Kong and Taiwan. A major political and cultural shift occurred in Taiwan around the late 1980s. Despite stringent limitations on freedom of speech, Taiwanese film practitioners began to voice their views on local politics before the lifting of martial law, and since then filmmakers and activists routinely record protests. Documentary films on political, environmental, and social issues are not the only type of media flourishing in democratic Taiwan; other “documentary productions” have also found a niche: photographs, short videos circulating on social media, and sound pieces and installations in museums or galleries. These audiovisual works, like the more familiar documentary films, shape collective memories and constitute important aesthetic contributions to the representation of protests in the region. In the 1980s, the approaching handover combined with local coverage of the 1989 Tiananmen Movement resulted in a sense of anxiety in segments of the Hong Kong population and boosted their awareness of a local identity distinct from the PRC’s. While few activist documentaries were made then, independent filmmakers, since the “digital turn” of the 2000s, have resolutely pointed their cameras toward local issues and grassroots movements demanding greater democratic rights. This process accelerated in the 2010s. In the context of growing integration with mainland China, filmmakers and artists became gradually involved in social movements advocating for democratic reforms, environmental protection, and the preservation of local heritage and culture. This outpouring of protest images is relatively new to the territory and runs parallel with mounting political concerns among the population, especially younger generations of Hongkongers dissatisfied with the implementation of the “one country, two systems” policy.

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Hong Kong and Taiwan Documentaries in Academic Literature Hong Kong documentary cinema was long overlooked by scholars. Due to an increase in film production and a shift in academic interest, more studies have recently appeared nonetheless (Aitken and Ingham 2014). A number of papers focus on eco-critical approaches (Yee 2013), discuss authors such as experimental filmmaker Anson Mak (Ingham 2015, 151–68), or analyze documentaries in essays disentangling gender issues in the rapidly changing political landscape of Hong Kong (Marchetti 2017). While Hong Kong nonfiction films remain understudied, primary sources and academic research on Taiwanese documentaries abound. Analyses focus on their relationship with mainstream media (Chiu 2007; 2012; Chiu and Zhang 2015; Chi 2003; Lee 2003), on identity discourse within the remits of particular groups—often among indigenous filmmakers—or in relation with cultural rather than political issues (Hu 2006; Bauki 2001; Siku 2016; Lee 1992; Lin 2012; Tsai 2009). These works raise lively debates about activist documentary filmmaking, but very few tackle the representation of protests, a theme that appears in few other studies on video and performance arts (Kuo 2016; Sing 2017; Chang 2016). On the other side of the research spectrum, political scientists and sociologists have done extensive studies on the role of social movements in Taiwan, and more recently in Hong Kong where the blooming of a young generation of protesters prompted new research (see present volume; M. Ho 2019; Veg 2016; Cheng 2016). Methodology Informed by these works, this chapter combines approaches focused on texts and social observation with history and visual studies. It relies on fieldwork during protests. Hong Kong’s regular calendar of demonstrations made their observation relatively predictable, while the duration of the Umbrella Movement provided me with opportunities to follow a few filmmakers on site. In Taiwan, an active civil society allowed me to observe marches as well as other small-scale occupations, such as the 2017 “Indigenous Ketagalan Boulevard Protest,” which criticized the method to designate traditional lands in the process of transitional justice launched by Tsai Ing-wen. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, social movements are constantly filmed by the press, the police, and by filmmakers and participants themselves. My observations also included film circulation. While being distributed through usual channels—film festivals, open air community screenings, cinema theaters, and DVD—documentaries on protests are

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also often exhibited in museums and art galleries. This trend is not specific to Taiwan and Hong Kong: documentary images are increasingly seen in art spaces worldwide, changing our ways of relating to them and perhaps modifying their social effects (see for instance Lind and Steyerl 2008; Daniels, McLaughlin, and Pearce 2013; Takahashi 2015). Combining film analysis, observations, and interviews with filmmakers and artists, this chapter aims to understand the evolution of the representation of social movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It starts with a short history of protest images in both territories from the late 1980s onward, looking at their conditions of production, their aesthetics, and modes of circulation. A brief foray into two other disciplines that have shaped protest representations—performance and video art—will show cross-pollination between filmmakers, artists, and activists in the two territories. The chapter then discusses recent formal choices in protest documentaries from Taiwan and Hong Kong by examining the body of films about the 2014 occupations during the Sunflower and Umbrella movements. Protests in Taiwanese Documentaries from the Late 1980s Onward Before the lifting of martial law in 1987, documentary films were considered in Taiwan to be educational and informative tools serving to disseminate knowledge and state propaganda. Produced by private- or state-owned television channels and film studios, they were subjected to censorship, observing society from afar with a top-down perspective. Taiwan’s first independent protest documentary was nonetheless produced slightly before the democratization of institutions and media was about to take place. Film scholars date its emergence to the massive demonstration around Taoyuan International Airport on 30 November 1986, which was organized to welcome opposition leader Hsu Hsin-liang 許信良 back to Taiwan after years of exile (Chen 2014; Lee 2003). A group of independent filmmakers called the Green Team (Lüse xiaozu 綠色小組) recorded the event to produce counter-information on behalf of the newly founded DPP. The Green Team’s influence on Taiwanese documentary filmmaking can still be felt today in the productions discussed later in the chapter. Filmed by a group of anonymous camera workers embracing the protesters’ perspective, this documentary called The Taoyuan Airport Incident is a milestone in Taiwanese film history.2 The organization of the protest is meticulously recorded, with sequences showing leaders motivating 2 

Documentaries directly relevant to this chapter are listed in the filmography. All other quoted works (fictional films and videos) appear in the text or in footnotes.

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participants over loudspeakers, protesters marching while chanting slogans, and riot police trying to contain them. The cameraman’s body is subjected to the same harsh treatment as any participant, with the image obstructed by water jets and other projectiles. Embedded in the ranks, the filmmakers clearly side with the protesters. They paint them in a positive light, giving them the opportunity to express themselves in a peaceful and rational manner, which contrasts forcefully with the depiction of a faceless, repressive police force. Participating as well as reporting on the event, the Green Team’s first attempt at documenting protests stimulated others. In the 1990s, the gradual democratization of political institutions and the media fostered a wave of independent productions on social movements. Unsurprisingly, their authors usually considered themselves both activists and filmmakers. From then on, documentary films received growing institutional attention and funding, while broadcast and screening opportunities increased too. Television reportage became more attuned to social and political injustices, and therefore more appealing to the audience. Documentary screenings drew large crowds in theaters, boosted by the appeal of events such as the Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival (TIDF; Taiwan guoji jilupian yingzhan 台灣國際紀錄片影展), created in 1998.3 Meanwhile, participatory methods where the filmmaker is embedded in a community to share and observe its everyday life over a long period of time also became more prevalent, after early and influential works by ethnographer and documentarian Hu Tai-li 胡台麗.4 Grassroots documentary filmmaking and community screenings for minority groups also received support (Chen 2014, 34–56), and concurrently, as home video became a popular hobby in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a new wave of directors started to voice more personal discourses in films where the “observational” or “performative” modes replaced the “expository” (Nichols 2001). Topics in Taiwanese protest documentaries fall into a few and at times overlapping categories: discontent with political institutions; concern for environmental issues; health, welfare, and labor disputes; societal and identity issues (e.g., land rights, national sovereignty, LGBTQ+ rights, or cultural specificities); and finally, the Taiwanese history of colonial and state violence. These films denounce police brutality and limitation of freedom of speech (Civil Disobedience), chronicle the daily experiences of ordinary protesters during social movements (The Right Thing), and report on collusions between business and politicians over health, social, and 3  See, for instance, the commercial success of acclaimed environmental documentary Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above. 4  See Hu’s groundbreaking film The Return of Gods and Ancestors.

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environmental issues (Formosa and Formosa; Oil Disease: Surviving Evil). Taiwan’s sovereignty and international status are also playfully examined in Terra Nullius or: How to Be a Nationalist, while land rights and indigenous people’s identity (My River) feature in a sizable number of productions. Some of these films, produced with public funding and broadcast on Public Television Service (PTS; Gonggong dianshi 公共電視), fulfill an informative purpose by revealing lesser known historical events or forgotten activists who contributed to Taiwan’s democratization (The Last Insurrection; Su Beng, the Revolutionist). Operating in a democratic environment, these filmmakers use the documentary form to reveal and criticize the conundrums of Taiwan society and political system, or to draw attention to threats on its autonomy. While some filmmakers such as Kevin Lee (李惠仁) use a journalistic approach, they often do so with an individual touch, using first-person narration or portraying social activists in a personal way, showing their feelings, private lives, and family background. Protests are usually recorded live by a filmmaker-participant, with the addition of television or, more recently, social media footage. In the tradition of activist cinema, these documentaries include advocacy sequences attempting to convince the audience of the movement’s rightfulness, while at the same time conveying the director’s personal experience with a reflexive voice-over commentary (Civil Disobedience). A striking feature of these documentaries produced mainly for the local market is the references they make to Taiwan’s recent history of social movements and especially to the post–martial law democratization process. Typically, opening sequences offer a chronology of the series of protests that paved the way to the “normalization” of political life, underlining the contribution of social movements in democratizing Taiwan (for instance in Dear Taiwan, The Last Insurrection, Oil Disease, etc.). This emphasis on the role of protests in reconfiguring Taiwan’s political system reframes the island’s identity around democratic values, which, in turn, distinguishes it neatly from mainland China. This distinctive feature of Taiwanese documentaries remains in fashion today in several films on the Sunflower Movement, as we will soon see. From Scarcity to Expanded Spectatorship While early protest documentaries circulated in Taiwan in small circles thanks to VHS tapes and even a short-lived pirate television station (C. Ho 2003), today documentaries are widely broadcast on television and screened in well-attended shows. Political documentary films are also increasingly exhibited in art spaces. The Green Team was recently celebrated in exhibitions and publications (Chang and Chiu 2005), while

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their archives are preserved at the Tainan National University of the Arts (Guoli Tainan yishu daxue 國立臺南藝術大學).5 These images of protests, because of their historicity, their symbolic value, and their aesthetic qualities, have become objects of research and appreciation, contrasting with their original activist purpose. Unsurprisingly, the visual qualities and social significance of protests also inspired major Taiwanese artists who lived through the last decades of the martial era. It is important to consider these works in dialogue with documentary films, for they share a number of common features. Made in 1983 during a time of strict control over public expression, Chen Chiehjen’s 陳界仁 Loss of Function #3 (Jineng sangshi disanhao 機能喪失第三號) is a filmed performance in which a group of men wearing gray uniforms and bags over their heads are walking in ranks like convicts in a crowded commercial neighborhood. This performed “march” was a bold denunciation of the era’s control over political gatherings in public space (Sing 2016). Chen Chieh-jen’s engagement with political issues was followed in later works in video and documentary forms, where protest movements are filmed in slow motion in black and white (Sing 2016).6 Another major Taiwanese artist bridged protest documentary and video art to reflect on the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Cheang Shu-Lea’s Making News, Making History (1989, 30 min) is a five-channel installation combining her own footage of the protests in Beijing with coverage from official Chinese televisions and the American channel CBS.7 Each source is allocated a monitor, allowing the viewer to compare their contrasted mise-en-scène. The Chinese television footage adopts the aesthetics of surveillance tapes, with long shots of crowds shown from above, while Cheang Shu-Lea’s video is filmed at street level, close to the protesters. Authoritative and disembodied voices from official television programs comment off-screen on the dramatic event. Transcribed in Chinese characters and translated into English in the subtitles, they clash with the spontaneous chats and lively debates recorded by the artist. The proximity of video art to protest documentary lives on in recent exhibitions. My Body Is an Air Monitoring Station, for instance, gathers a collection of videos produced by documentary filmmaker Lin Tay-jou 林 泰州.8 Drawing on a participatory project, they report on pollution cases 5 

See the TIDF retrospective program for the thirty-year anniversary of the group: www. tidf.org.tw/en/category/shows/4961. 6  See, for instance, The Route (2006), staging an imagined dockers’ strike in Kaohsiung harbor, or a recent collaborative project on the destruction of a leprosarium community in Realm of Reverberation. 7  See https://vimeo.com/88775216. 8  See the dedicated page www.tfam.museum/Exhibition/Exhibition_page.aspx?ddl​Lang​ =​en​-us​&id=​612.

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affecting the west coast of Taiwan in particular.9 Many of these videos include protest sequences, for instance rallies and public speeches, transforming activist materials made to inform and motivate the public into eye-pleasing artifacts. Hong Kong Film and Video Art as a Documenting and Experimental Tool for Protests Unlike Taiwan’s, Hong Kong’s documentary film history did not revolve around the depiction of protests until recently. Nonetheless, major events indirectly affecting Hong Kong did stimulate the production of images on social movements. Before the handover, few documentary filmmakers were operating outside the remits of the market and television channels (Aitken and Ingham 2014, 52–78). Nonetheless, this environment allowed the production of high-quality coverage of the 1989 Tiananmen Movement by the official channel Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) in The Hong Kong Case. An unusual direct cinema report called Spring of Discontent was even broadcast by commercial channel TVB, giving the viewer a vivid, humane, and poignant record of the protest. In Sunless Days, produced in 1990 by Japanese broadcaster NHK and cowritten with Taiwanese filmmaker Wu Nien-jen 吳念真, filmmaker Shu Kei 舒琪 chronicles Hongkongers’ hopes and fears, as well as their relation to the PRC, linking the repression in Beijing to the uncertain future of Hong Kong. The 1989 protest movement appears through the mediation of television footage watched in Hong Kong homes and was commented on during various interviews with ordinary people, actors, protest participants in exile, and Shu Kei’s relatives. Video Art and Protest Representation Made for the silver screen, Sunless Days was unique in the 1990s cinematic landscape, but its depiction of prehandover Hong Kong resonates with a body of video artwork from around the same time. By the mid-1980s, as video cameras became popular in Hong Kong, some early adopters created artwork to report on protests and reflect on the role of television. Two groups of video makers were set up with different yet overlapping purposes. Videotage (Luying taiqi 錄映太奇) was founded in 1986 by a collective of artists using the new medium to deconstruct journalist coverage 9  See the PM2.5 Video Activist group’s (PM2.5 yingxiang xingdong xiaozu PM2.5 影像行 動小組) YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9Yh52YTTp1LzRYbMGpCyQ) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/stoppm2.5).

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on current events or to reflect on local changes. Established in 1989 by a group of social and television workers, Video Power (Luying liliang 錄影力量) was dedicated to documenting the “evolution of Hong Kong before the handover” and to reporting on local micro social movements, such as protests against the redevelopment of old neighborhoods like Lee Tung Street (Cui 2004).10 Despite differences in practice and perspectives, both groups used video to document social and political issues. Unsurprisingly, a crossover between the two collectives did occur: artist Cheng Chi-Hung 鄭智雄 was involved in Video Power projects while collaborating with Videotage.11 Collaborations between video artists, social activists, and documentary makers also existed in Taiwan; for instance, when Cheang Shu-Lea worked with the Green Team’s Wang Jun-Jieh on How Was History Wounded (1989), a short documentary criticizing discourses on Taiwan television about the Tiananmen Movement.12 These collaborations allowed cross-pollination between practitioners and resulted in hybrid works combining reportage and reflexivity. They also explain why the early Hong Kong and Taiwan video art scenes possess a distinctive documentary approach compared to other international productions, more exclusively dedicated to experimenting with the video medium itself (Meigh-Andrews 2013). In Videotage archives, several artworks focus on protests, particularly on the 1989 Tiananmen Movement. In TV Game of the Year (1990, 5 min), Ellen Pau (鮑藹倫) deconstructs Li Peng’s speech, and in Blue (1989, 8 min), she denounces repression and state violence by using the image of the “Tank Man,” a montage of international war footage juxtaposed with a dance performance evoking this lonely figure. May Fung Mei-Wah (馮美 華), another pioneer video artist, also alludes to the fears surrounding the handover by filming a woman walking from the countryside to the city in She Said Why Me (1989, 9 min). In Stolen Footage (1992, 11 min), experimental sound and video artist Makin Fung Bing-Fai (馮炳輝) even edits together documentary footage of the 1959 protests in Lhasa with images of Hong Kong.13

10  See Video Power’s founding call for participation, written by Jimmy Choi (蔡甘銓) in 1989, reproduced in Lingnan Folk (Lingnan ren 嶺南人) 61 (1995): http://commons.ln.edu. hk/lu_folk/51. 11  See East is Red (Dongfang hong 東方紅), dir. Cheng Chi-Hung and Mak Chi-Hang, 1993, 2 min. 12  See https://vimeo.com/218032580. 13  Comparing Hong Kong to Chinese provinces such as Tibet and Xinjiang has become widespread in the public discourse and documentary works, especially during the 2019 Anti–Extradition Movement.

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As independent documentaries were still scarce in the 1990s, video as a technology and art form offered opportunities to represent and reflect on protests affecting primarily the PRC, bridging the visual gap between television reportages and the odd documentary film. Some video artists such as Birdy Chu (朱迅) started with short pieces on current events and social issues (97 Tons of Memories; 1997, 13 min), then went on to film the Umbrella Movement (Umbrellas Move) as a documentary filmmaker. By the late 2000s, the attention of Hong Kong artists shifted toward protests taking place locally. Choi Sai-Ho’s 蔡世豪 2012 (2008, 8 min) mixes footage of protests on 1 July 2004 and 2007 with 13 January 2008. Experimenting with footage of the march, he documents the crowd’s protest modes and performative strategies. Apart from recording them, many Hong Kong artists routinely take part in political rallies, producing works combining documentary recording, performance, and video art (Vigneron 2018, 2–80 and 301–63). As is common in Taiwan and the PRC (Berghuis 2006, 44; Pernin 2018), socially committed artists in Hong Kong use their background as a protest tool to mock political power or nationalism and its symbols, or to remind participants of the historical past. Wen Yau’s 魂游 art interventions and performances are typically scheduled for the 4 June candlelight vigil commemorating the victims of 1989.14 Several theater and performance artists including Augustine Mok Chiu-Yu 莫昭如, Sanmu Chan 陳式森, and To Yeuk 杜躍 participate as a group in the city’s annual marches, creating original banners, slogans, and interventions.15 Kacey Wong (黃國才) is often seen marching as a protester with absurdist or symbolic demonstration props. The short videos documenting his performances circulate widely on his social media accounts.16 The Emergence of an Independent Documentary Film Scene While Hong Kong artists were recording, creating, and disseminating protest images, the local independent documentary scene was slowly growing thanks to individual and collective initiatives, and despite an unsupportive environment. In the 2000s, Tammy Cheung (張虹), a Canada-trained filmmaker, established a Chinese-language documentary film festival 14 

See Wen Yau’s website: www.wenyau.net/wp/category/show/performance. Interview with To Yeuk, July 2018, Hong Kong. 16  See, for instance, Wong’s Black Flag video, shot during the 1 July 2016 demonstration (www.kaceywong.com/black-flag- and www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fZUFwciSQA); his video My Advocation (www.kaceywong.com/my-advocation/2019/1/14/-my-advocation), or his more recent Choi Gor 財哥 persona ridiculing triad figures who were bullying protesters and the public at large (www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8y-Nk76kcM). 15 

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showcasing Hong Kong, Taiwan, and PRC productions, organizing workshops and screenings, and encouraging the appreciation and production of local documentaries by grassroots filmmakers and students.17 These initiatives stemmed from her own filmmaking practice. Concerned by social inequalities and the evolution of local politics, she filmed a series of documentaries on Hong Kong society, including July and Election (Aitken and Ingham 2014, 124–53; Marchetti 2017; interview, August 2018, Hong Kong). July reports on the 1 July 2003 mass demonstration against Article 23, a modification of the Basic Law that many Hongkongers considered a threat to freedom of speech. Focusing on female politicians and participants in the rally, Tammy Cheung shows their strategies, provides them with a space to develop arguments against the amendment, and gives a vivid portrayal of several leaders and ordinary activists. A follower of Frederick Wiseman’s filming method, her observational style conveys a sharp criticism of Hong Kong’s mock democratic system. A handful of lively film festivals, as well as universities and artist-run spaces, have provided screening opportunities and nurtured an audience made of students, cinephiles, and activists.18 These efforts generated a small new wave of independent documentary filmmakers in the 2010s. Some of the newcomers film rural Hong Kong. Benny Chan’s (陳彥楷) Raging Land series, for instance, is a compelling report on the Choi Yuen villagers’ resistance to the construction of the Guangzhou–Shenzhen– Hong Kong Express Rail.19 Documenting both the protest and daily rural life, the filmmaker strives to rectify biased coverage from the mainstream media in the tradition of Ogawa Shinsuke and the Green Team. Contrasts and Similarities between Protest Documentaries Covering the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements As shown earlier, the history and current state of Taiwan and Hong Kong protest documentaries are comparable in a number of features (film and 17 

See the dedicated website: www.visiblerecord.com. In 2019, the event became the Hong Kong International Documentary Film Festival. 18  Other festivals include the Hong Kong Independent Film Festival and the Social Movement Film Festival. Commercial galleries such as Osage are also exhibiting political video art focusing on the handover and heritage preservation activism. See www.scmp.com/ lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1576102/review-both-sides-now-osage-hong-kong. Outdoor public screenings for Ten Years (2015, 104 min), a dystopian political omnibus, were organized to great success after commercial theaters stopped showing the film. It won Best Picture at the 2016 Hong Kong Film Award Ceremony. See www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/ article/2077764/controversial-hong-kong-film-ten-years-be-shown-cinemas-japan-and. 19  See trailers and film specifications here: https://smff2015.wordpress.com/2015/09/11 /%E9%90%B5%E6%80%92%E6%B2%BF%E7%B7%9A%E7%B3%BB%E5%88%97.

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video practices, topics, collaborations between artists), but differ in others, with Taiwan benefiting from stronger institutional support. This explains why since the late 1980s, only thirty-three protest documentaries were produced in Hong Kong (including Umbrella documentaries), while at least two hundred were made during the same period in Taiwan. It is therefore somewhat puzzling that only a handful of Taiwanese documentaries focus on the Sunflower Movement, whereas in the much smaller Hong Kong documentary film circle, at least eighteen documentaries short and long were produced on the Umbrella occupation, making it the most represented social movement in the Hong Kong history of documentary films. Based on these figures, it seems that the Umbrella Movement was at once a catalyst for the expression of Hongkongers’ political demands and also a tremendous source of inspiration and growth for the local documentary film scene. Incidentally, and paradoxically, it was after a screening of the Taiwanese documentary Sunflower Occupation, organized by Visible Records, that several young Hong Kong filmmakers decided to film the local occupations in September 2014, as a few recalled in interviews and discussions.20 The collection of shorts called Sunflower Occupation, produced by the Taiwan Documentary Film Union (Jilupian gonghui 紀錄片工會), was the first and main work fully dedicated to the Taiwanese movement.21 Each of the nine documentaries focuses on an aspect of the occupation, usually by following a specific group or a single protagonist, giving the viewer a multifaceted perspective on the unfolding, as well as the general atmosphere at the occupation site. Apart from this title, most Sunflower documentaries place the event in a longer history of political activism, in line with the approach adopted by many Taiwanese filmmakers on other social movements. Most of the films on the Umbrella Movement consist of documentaries focusing only on the 2014 occupations. Released soon after the end of the movement, they are the work of filmmakers who either consider themselves to be activists and want their work to be seen as soon as possible (Almost a Revolution) or beginners who have no footage of previous movements. In contrast, apart from Sunflower Occupation, the documentaries about the Taiwanese movement were released a few years after the occupation. More established than most of their Hong Kong counterparts, the Taiwanese filmmakers had the time and opportunity to secure external 20 

Interviews with Chan Tze-Woon and Tammy Cheung, conducted in April and August 2018 respectively, Hong Kong. 21  Artist Yuan Goang-ming 袁廣鳴 also promptly released a video titled The 561st Hour of Occupation (佔領第561小時), 2014, 6 min.

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funding and professional postproduction arrangements. This is the case of Fu Yue 傅榆, who directed a short included in the Sunflower Occupation collection, as well as the long feature Our Youth in Taiwan, which won Best Documentary at the 2018 Golden Horse Awards and follows two young political activists through various protest movements from the early 2010s onward. In both places, if the filmmakers implicitly or explicitly support the occupations, their approaches often differ according to their age group. This is particularly obvious in Hong Kong where the filmmaker’s generation greatly influences his or her choices of perspective, main protagonists, and narrative style. Middle-aged Hong Kong filmmakers belonging to the Occupy Trio’s generation,22 who were trained in journalism and filmed similar topics in the past, share basic concerns with the youth, but tend to depict the 2014 occupation by focusing on experienced leaders and major events (Almost a Revolution, Raise the Umbrellas, We Got Boots), rather than on the daily life of the young foot soldiers who are the preferred subjects of post-1980 filmmakers. The observational and performative modes are usually found in younger filmmakers’ works, while older ones tend to use a mix of observational and expository, as well as more conventional talking-heads interviews. Collective Films, Diverse Participants Many Hong Kong and Taiwan titles are the fruit of collective or even participative work at the filming and editing stages. Sunflower Occupation falls in this category, as does Almost a Revolution, the earliest-released documentary on the Umbrella Movement. Made by two veteran TV documentary filmmakers, it aims to educate and was revised after Q&A sessions to incorporate the audience’s feedback. Screenings organized either in academic venues or in community or artist-run spaces generated fierce debates on the representation of protesters, as the filmmakers interviewed prominent and older figures from the Occupy Central movement in Admiralty instead of younger participants in “rougher” areas such as Mong Kok. In contrast, 75 Days: Life, Liberty and Happiness, made by an anonymous collective, features a diverse range of protagonists, from blue-collar workers with leftist worldviews and LGBTQ+ activists to ordinary Mong Kok residents who express their political standpoints with wit and crude language. As the film focuses on conflict eruption and resolution among protesters in occupied spaces—unveiling mundane disputes around 22 

Reverend Chu Yiu-ming 朱耀明 and professors Benny Tai (戴耀廷) and Chan Kin-man 陳健民 are all over fifty years old.

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logistics and food—it has also been criticized by some spectators as giving a negative image of protesters.23 Documentaries made by a single filmmaker often describe a particular group of participants, such as Christians (More than Conquerors), logistic volunteers (Van Drivers 2), lesser-known student leaders (Road Not Taken, The Right Thing), or human rights lawyers working hand-in-hand with occupiers (Fight for Justice). These films tend to depict protagonists in a very detailed and personal way, unveiling biographical details through spontaneous conversations that help the viewer to grasp their motivations to join the movement. In Chan Tze-woon’s Yellowing, the focus is on the filmmaker and his generation’s emotional relation to the event. Thanks to home-video footage and voice-over commentary, Chan first narrates his childhood against the backdrop of the 1980s, interlinking his personal memories to historical events. This narrative translates the filmmaker’s strong emotional bond to his hometown, and that of many other “ordinary” young Hongkongers who feature in the film and identify with his view of Hong Kong as a place of relative freedom that needs protection. His protagonists, met by chance while scouring the streets in Mong Kok, Admiralty, or Causeway Bay, are all young and students or freelance and blue-collar workers. Chan examines their feelings closely as the occupation lingers and the situation rots at the protest sites. In the voice-over commentary and throughout the film, he and his film subjects talk of their fear of police violence without any false pretense of bravery. Nonetheless, their determination and discourse on necessary resistance transpires in the film. The collective film 75 Days offers an even more diverse sample of protagonists; by showing ordinary people of all ages, genders, social backgrounds, and political lines, it deconstructs common assumptions about the protesters, usually portrayed in the media as young, highly educated, middle-class, law-abiding Christians, as were their most charismatic leaders. Similarly, the Taiwanese documentary Civil Awakening plays with our expectations. While its Chinese title ironically translates as “Rioters,” Civil Awakening offers portraits of young protesters from different social backgrounds who took part in a series of political movements before and during 2014. The film starts with a very fast montage of television footage showing violent demonstrations in Japan and Taiwan, a form reminiscent of Chris Marker’s style in Grin without a Cat. Drowned in fast-paced metal music, brutal clashes between protesters and police are juxtaposed with very quiet sequences showing activists in their daily life, for instance peacefully clothes shopping with a parent. This contrast ridicules common 23 

Interview with Tammy Cheung in Hong Kong, August 2018.

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stereotypes depicting protesters as violent rioters. In interviews taking place in the protagonists’ homes, they rationally discuss their awakening to politics usually by invoking personal stories, in which their gender, social, or ethnic background plays a central role. Both Taiwanese and Hong Kong films evoke the consequences of political involvement on the professional, personal, and family lives of young people. We witness the difficulty in being accepted as an activist by one’s family, and the heavy toll it takes on studying and professional activities in Yellowing, Road not Taken, and Our Youth in Taiwan. Conversely, participating in social movements is visibly liberating for young people. It gives them hope and a sense of purpose and agency, while emancipating them from a dull, superfluous, or limiting family life. Utopian Spaces and Model Citizens? A somewhat idealized image of occupation sites pervades films from both Taiwan and Hong Kong.24 Ordinary life in occupied spaces is shot in great detail, revealing the protesters’ high level of organization, solidarity, and mutual respect. People are seen sweeping the floor, distributing free meals, helping each other build tents and makeshift beds, sharing toiletries, and contributing to environmental cleanliness by separating garbage and organizing recycling stations. This positive depiction of peaceful occupation sites put forth a model society in which each protester endorses a freely chosen role, symbiotically relying on other participants. This is perhaps where Taiwan and Hong Kong documentaries are most alike, even though field observations and some films like 75 Days dare to add nuance to this rosy image. Participants are also depicted in many films as examples to emulate, turning them into virtuous models, political stars, or heroes—especially their leaders (Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower). However, in great contrast with the representation of protesters in earlier films who remained slightly elusive figures and lacked psychological depth, in Umbrella and Sunflower films, political leaders appear at once as idealized peaceful protesters and as confused young individuals. Despite underlining their talent and eloquence, many films describe them as “children,” even when they are well over eighteen and already graduated from university. This is the case in Civil Awakening where the protagonists’ parents—mostly mothers—depict them in interviews as “worrying children,” whose “only fault is to not be as selfish as [them], opting for politics instead of building 24 

This idealized image is even stronger in Christopher Doyle’s fiction Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled, Preoccupied, Preposterous, 2015, 85 min.

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a career.” The protesters’ vulnerability, their youthfulness, and at times immaturity is often emphasized by the filmmakers’ choice of sequences. In Sunflower Occupation, many shorts use a melodramatic mode, with ample use of extra-diegetic music, fades, and slow motion, showing emotional crowds pleading with the police or tearfully singing protest songs inside the Legislative Yuan. To a varying extent, and through different cinematic means, most films from Hong Kong and Taiwan try to raise the viewer’s empathy toward likeable young people. These various film techniques create a mise-en-scène that delineates moral borders between decent protesters deserving to be listened to and an aggressive police force standing for an illegitimate government. Some films are challenging these overall positive representations. In Sunflower Occupation, for instance, female filmmaker Fu Yue asks young leader Chen Wei-ting 陳為廷 how he feels about becoming a “star,” the slightly ironic question highlighting the filmmaker’s unease with reducing the young man to an attractive political celebrity. Most post–Umbrella Movement films such as Lost in the Fumes, on young localist advocate Edward Leung Tin Kei (梁天琦), and Chronicle of a Summer, on disqualified legislative council member Yau Wai-ching 游蕙禎, oscillate between flattering sequences and others showing the protagonist’s vulnerabilities and failures. Edward Leung’s post-Umbrella depression is discussed in detail, and perhaps slightly poeticized, in Lost in the Fumes, as is Yau Wai-ching’s goofiness in Chronicle of a Summer. Mental health is further explored in Like an Abortion, for the Very First Time, which shows ordinary protesters faced with feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and alienation. To Liao follows a disenfranchised teenager who has found at the Mongkok occupation site a surrogate father figure married to a visibly traumatized middle-aged woman from mainland China. The ups and downs of this re-created family in charge of building the makeshift canopy installed over the occupied road highlight the psychological struggles faced by participants of social movements. This depiction, which complexifies the representation of protesters, is also developed in Fu Yue’s Our Youth in Taiwan, a film focusing on Sunflower star-leader Chen Wei-ting and PRC exchange student Cai Boyi 蔡博藝. Following them for a few years before and after 2014, Fu Yue unveils their separate paths toward political life, Chen as a local Taiwanese and Cai as an eager foreign participant in Taiwan’s vibrant civil society. Under the gentle but uncompromising gaze of the filmmaker, they both grow into local celebrities: Chen, during the Sunflower Movement, and Cai, after the publication of a book in which she enthusiastically shares her experiences of political participation in Taiwan. Thanks to Fu Yue, they even meet during Cai’s book launch tour in the PRC, and later they both

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become candidates in an election: Chen in his hometown of Miaoli; Cai as a student representative at Tamkang University. Both struggle during the campaign. Cases of sexual assaults perpetrated by Chen as a teenager are suddenly revealed to the public, while Cai’s effort is smeared in a controversy about her identity as a PRC student candidate that reveals her explosive personality as well as discriminations on campus. Both fail to get elected, leaving the political stage feeling hurt and bitter. In a final sequence, Fu Yue invites them to a film restitution after which she confronts them with her own feelings of disappointment and loss when Cai and Chen decided to retreat from public life. While this final episode is an attempt to get closure for three people who had become friendly over the years, it also provides a deep insight into the dilemmas, personal traumas, and failed ambitions that activists face, as well as opening a window into the minds of ordinary citizens who have put their trust in idealized figures who never fail to disappoint. Conclusion In the late 1980s, activist documentaries in Taiwan not only recorded protests and the subsequent democratization of society, they also contributed to renewing the documentary film form by using observational and live recording techniques. If the situation was then unparalleled in Hong Kong, twenty years later a small group of independent filmmakers have emerged to record the upsurge of protests in the former British colony. Historical circumstances aside, documentary images of protests in Hong Kong and Taiwan are the product of a close connection among art, activism, and documentary filmmaking. In Hong Kong, where Beijing’s political interferences are strongly resented by a segment of the population, protest documentaries are a more recent phenomenon. These films have nonetheless rapidly created small communities of grassroots activists and artists around common progressive values (democracy, ecology, human rights, and social justice). Due to Taiwan’s long history of political activism and democratic struggle, images of progressive protests have become a symbol of Taiwanese identity that filmmakers frequently refer to in order to distinguish Taiwan from the PRC. As a result of this long history of social movements, the Sunflower occupation seems to be considered as the legacy, or a continuation, more than a culmination of previous movements. This would explain why there are comparatively few films solely dedicated to this occupation. By contrast, in Hong Kong, the Umbrella Movement constitutes an unprecedented event and has generated a surprisingly rich body of films, showing its effect on independent filmmakers and society at large.

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Documentaries on the 2014 occupations in Taiwan and Hong Kong strive to document their multiple facets, giving the viewer insights into a wide range of participants—from student leaders to blue-collar workers and disenfranchised youth. In many titles, the use of melodramatic sequences with extra-diegetic music and slow motion contribute to forge a positive and at times idealized image of participants or the occupation site, strongly contrasted by the depiction of the police as a violent repressive force. At the same time, several films deconstruct the image of the activists by showing their flaws, and traumas, and even addressing the feelings of disappointment and betrayal when they fail to live up to our standards. This perhaps translates the leadership fatigue experienced in other social movements around the globe, in which established political parties and their vocal representatives are not necessarily celebrated or even welcome. Similar ways of depicting recent movements such as the Umbrella and the Sunflower Movements show a common understanding between Taiwan and Hong Kong activist and documentary filmmakers and how they represent themselves. Several films even document exchanges between activists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the PRC (Our Youth in Taiwan, SelfCensorship) and highlight the ongoing, parallel struggles for democracy in the three territories. However, it seems that due to the current political situation, Taiwan and Hong Kong’s documentary scenes are rapidly shifting in different directions. In the Taiwanese context, the development of socially committed independent documentary films coincided with a democratization process, the strengthening of civil society, and the surge of social movements. These images were progressively integrated in official, democratic, and pluralistic platforms allowing the works to maintain a critical standpoint while adopting more mainstream styles. In Taiwan’s democratic society, protest images have since the late 1980s transitioned from underground productions to independent film and investigative journalism. In Hong Kong, independent documentary filmmakers with a critical standpoint voice their views in the increasingly constrained environment in which they are working. Through the description of ordinary participants that are at times depicted as model protesters, or as representatives of specific local cultures or subcultures, these works contribute to building the identity of a new generation of Hong Kong protesters. Amid increasing threats on freedom of speech in Hong Kong, this new wave of filmmakers remains at the fringes of the institutional film scene. It remains to be seen how the 2019 Anti–­Extradition Bill Movement will be depicted in forthcoming productions, but the increased police violence, continued governmental blindness, and the

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adoption of radical tactics alongside peaceful protest and civil disobedience have definitely changed the image of protest sites and protesters toward something more dystopian and desperate in nature. As the anonymity of protesters appears ever more crucial, and the distrust of vertical, charismatic leadership has become widespread after the Umbrella Movement, the representation of protests will likely continue to evolve considerably in Hong Kong documentaries focusing on the massive 2019 social movement. Works Cited Aitken, Ian, and Michael Ingham. 2014. Hong Kong Documentary Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Bauki, Angaw. 2001. “Cong zhimin yayi dao zhuti dikang de yuanzhumin jilupian gongzuozhe” [Indigenous documentary film workers: From colonial repression to subject resistance]. PhD diss., Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei. Chang Fu-chung and Chiu Wan-hsing, eds. 2005. Lüse niandai [The green era]. Taipei: Yinke. Chang Hsiao-hung. 2016. “Taiyanghua yundong yingxiang zuowei ‘meixue shijian’” [Sunflower Movement images as an “aesthetic event”]. Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies 23: 49–78. Chen, Pin-chuan. 2014. “A Critical History of Taiwanese Independent Documentary.” PhD diss., Goldsmiths, University of London. Cheng, Edmund. 2016. “Street Politics in a Hybrid Regime: The Diffusion of Political Activism in Post-Colonial Hong Kong.” China Quarterly 226: 383–406. Cheng, Edmund, and Wai-yin Chan. 2017. “Explaining Spontaneous Occupation: Antecedents, Contingencies and Spaces in the Umbrella Movement.” Social Movement Studies 16, no. 2: 222–39. Cheng, Edmund, and Samson Yuen, eds. 2017. Sheyun niandai, Xianggang kangzheng zhengzhi de guiji [An epoch of social movements: The trajectory of contentious politics in Hong Kong]. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Chi, Robert. 2003. “The New Taiwanese Documentary.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 15, no. 1: 146–96. Chiu, Kuei-Fen. 2007. “The Vision of Taiwan New Documentary.” In Cinema Taiwan: Politics, Popularity and State of the Arts, edited by Darrell William Davis and Ru-Shou Robert Chen, 17–33. New York: Routledge. ———. 2012. “Documentary Power: Women Documentary Filmmakers and New Subjectivities in Contemporary Taiwan.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 26, no. 1: 168–81. Chiu, Kuei-fen, and Yingjin Zhang. 2015. New Chinese-Language Documentaries: Ethics, Subject and Place. London: Routledge.

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Daniels, Jill, Cahal McLaughlin, and Gail Pearce. 2013. Truth, Dare or Promise: Art and Documentary Revisited. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Esherick, Joseph W., and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. 1990. “Acting Out Democracy: Political Theater in Modern China.” Journal of Asian Studies 49, no. 4: 835–65. Garrett, Daniel Paul. 2015. Counter-Hegemonic Resistance in China’s Hong Kong: Visualizing Protest in the City. Singapore: Springer. Ho, Chao-Ti. 2003. “Forms of Resistance of the Green Team.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4, no. 1: 159–63. Ho, Ming-sho. 2019. Contesting China’s Mandate of Heaven. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hu Tai-li. 2006. “Taiwan yuanzhumin minzuzhi yingpian de xinmao [The new look of Taiwan aboriginal ethnographic films]. Bowuguanxue jikan 20, no. 4: 59–73. Ingham, Michael. 2015. “A Personal Vision of the Hong Kong Cityscape in Anson Mak’s Essayistic Documentary Films One Way Street on a Turntable and On the Edge of a Floating City, We Sing.” In Post-1990 Documentary: Reconfiguring Independence, edited by Camille Deprez and Judith Pernin, 151–68. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Ku, Agnes Shuk-mei. 2012. “Remaking Places and Fashioning an Opposition Discourse: Struggle over the Star Ferry Pier and the Queen’s Pier in Hong Kong.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30, no. 1: 5–22. Kuo Li-Hsin. 2016. “Zuowei ‘juchang’ de xinwen / jishi sheying yu sheyun: Yi ‘Taiyanghua yundong’ de zhaopianwei li” [Photojournalism and social movement as “theater”: A critical reading of “The Sunflower Movement” photographs]. Journal of Communication Research and Practice 6, no. 1: 79–115. Lind, Maria, and Hito Steyerl. 2008. Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art: #1, The Green Room. Berlin: Sternberg Press. Lee, Chin-Chuan. 2003. “Liberalisation without Full Democracy: Guerrilla Media and Political Movements in Taiwan.” In Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World, edited by Nick Couldry and James Curran, 163–77. London: Rowman and Littlefield. Lee Daw-Ming. 1994. “Jinyibai nian lai Taiwan dianying jidianshi dui Taiwan yuanzhumin de chengxian.” [The representation of Taiwanese aboriginals in Taiwanese films and television of the past hundred years]. Film Journal 69: 55–64. ———. 2000. “Zai yangtai shang yanjiang de dianying gongzuo zhe: Jian tan wo pai shehui yundong jilupian de jingyan” [The filmmaker who speaks from the balcony: My experiences of making social movement documentaries]. In Taiwan jilupian yanjiu shumu yu wenxian xuanji [Research on Taiwan documentaries: Bibliography and selected documents], vol. 2, edited by Daw-Ming Lee, 346–58. Taipei: Wenjianhui.

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Lim, Tai Wei. 2015. “The Aesthetics of Hong Kong’s ‘Umbrella Revolution’ in the First Ten Days: A Historical Anatomy of the First Phase (27 October 2014 to 6 October 2014) of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution.” East Asia 32: 83–98. Lin Mucai. 2012. Jingkuang zhi wai: Taiwan jilupian qunxiang [Beyond the frame: A Taiwanese documentary group portrait]. Taipei: Yuanliu chuban gongsi. Marchetti, Gina. 2017. “Hong Kong as Feminist Method: Gender, Sexuality and Democracy in Two Documentaries by Tammy Cheung.” In Hong Kong Culture and Society in the New Millennium: Hong Kong as Method, edited by Yiu-Wai Chu, 59–79. Singapore: Springer. Meigh-Andrews, Chris. 2013. History of Video Art. Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing. Nichols, Bill. 2001. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rowen, Ian. 2015. “Inside Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: Twenty-Four Days in a Student-Occupied Parliament, and the Future of the Region.” Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 1: 5–21. Rühlig, Tim. 2016. “‘Do You Hear the People Sing’ ‘Lift Your Umbrella’?: Understanding Hong Kong’s Pro-Democratic Umbrella Movement through YouTube Music Videos.” China Perspectives 4: 59–68. Siku, Skaya. 2016. “Vers une éthique de tournage endogène. Enquête sur trois documentaristes autochtones taïwanais.” PhD diss., EHESS, Paris. Sing Song-yong. 2016. “Shijian zhihou di dang dai kua yu yingxiang: Lun Chen Jieren zaoqi zuopin ji ‘Can xiang shijie’ de gainian shengcheng yu zhuanhua” [Postevent contemporary transdisciplinary moving images: An analysis of Chieh-Jen Chen’s earlier works and the re/conceptualization of Realm of reverberation]. Research in Art Studies 19: 105–148. ———. 2017. “Yanchi ying xing li: 1980 niandai Huayu yuxi dan pindao luxiang yishu de zhengzhi pipan chuyi” [Delayed plasticity: A preliminary investigation of the political criticism of sinophone single-channel video art in the 1980s]. Journal of Taipei Fine Arts Museum 34: 65–90. Takahashi, Tess. 2015. “Material Traces of Lebanon: A Documentary Aesthetics of Feeling in the Art Gallery.” In Post-1990 Documentary: Reconfiguring Independence, edited by Camille Deprez and Judith Pernin, 188–202. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Tsai Tsung-lung, ed. 2009. Ai hen qing chou jilupian: Taiwan zhongshengdai jilupian daoyan fangtanlu [Documentaries of love and hate: Interviews with Taiwanese documentary filmmakers]. Taipei: Tongxi wenhua chuban gongzuoshi. Veg, Sebastian. 2016. “Creating a Textual Public Space: Slogans and Texts from Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.” Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 3: 673–702. ———. 2017. “The Rise of ‘Localism’ and Civic Identity in Post-Handover Hong Kong: Questioning the Chinese Nation-State.” China Quarterly 230: 323–47.

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Yee, Winnie. 2013. “Hong Kong’s Liminal Spaces: Unveiling Nature and Identity in Tsang Tsui-shan’s Big Blue Lake.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 55. www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc55.2013/YeeBigBlueLake/index.html.

Filmography (listed by alphabetical order of title, director, date, and duration) Hong Kong Documentaries 75 Days: Life, Liberty and Happiness (San ju). Collective “Film 75,” 2016. 130 min. Almost a Revolution (Jihu shi, geming). Kwok Tat Chun and Kong King Chu, 2015. 174 min. Breaking New Ground through Thorns and Thistles (Bi lu lan lü). V-artivist, supporting group of Choi Yuen Village, 2010. 120 min. Chronicle of a Summer (Xiari jishi). Kaiser Wong Kai-chun and Daniel Chin Hocheung, 2018. 90 min. Election (Xuanju). Tammy Cheung, 2008. 130 min. First Umbrella (Sanshang: Biandi kaihua). James Leong and Lynn Lee, 2018. 119 min. First Umbrella. James Leong and Lynn Lee, Al Jazeera, 2015. 75 min. Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower. Joe Piscatella, Netflix, 2017. 118 min. July (Qiyue). Tammy Cheung, 2004. 70 min. Karl. Sunny Huang, 2015. 25 min. Kong Rice (Gang mi). Chan Yiu Hei, 2015. 15 min. Last Exit to Kai Tak (Fen yu dadao). Matthew Torne, 2018. 130 min. Like an Abortion, for the Very First Time (Che qi, wo yao zhen puxuan he…). Liao To, 2018. 93 min. Lost in the Fumes (Di hou tian gao). Nora Tze-wing Lam, 2017. 97 min. More than Conquerors (Shidai tongxing). Tim Cheung King Si, 2015. 84 min. On the Edge of the Floating City, We Sing (Zai fucheng de jiaoluo chang shou ge). Anson Mak, 2012. 120 min. One Way Street on a Turntable (Changpan shang de danxing dao). Anson Mak, 2007. 74 min. Open Road after Harvest (Shouge, kailu!). Freddie Chan Ho Lun, 2015. 100 min. Raise the Umbrellas (Cheng san). Evans Chan, 2016. 120 min. A Record of Choi Yuen Village (Caiyuan jishi). V-artivist, supporting group of Choi Yuen Village, 2009. 80 min. Road Not Taken (Weijing zhi lu). Nora Lam Tze Wing and Samuel Wong Chun Long, 2016. 65 min. Sunless Days (Meiyou taiyang de rizi). Shu Kei, 1990. 90 min. Three Valleys (San gu). V-artivist, supporting group of Choi Yuen Village, 2012. 310 min.

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Umbrella Revolution: History as Mirror Reflection (Yusan geming shilu: Yi shi wei jing). Kempton Lam, 2015. 110 min. Umbrellas Move (San bu). Birdy Chu, 2016. 87 min. Van Drivers (Yi zai). Kanas Liu, 2015. 23 min. Van Drivers 2 (Yi zai 2). Kanas Liu, 2016. 97 min. Vanished Archives (Xiaoshi de dang’an). Connie Yan-wai Lo, 2017. 120 min. The Way of Paddy (Daomi shi ruhe liancheng de). Freddie Chan Ho Lun, 2012. 128 min. Yellowing (Luanshi beiwang). Chan Tze Woon, 2016. 128 min. Yp 1967. Can To, 2017. 117 min.

Taiwanese Documentaries Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (Kanjian Taiwan). Chi Bo-lin, 2013. 92 min. Civil Disobedience (Gongmin bu fucong). Chen Yu-ching, 2013. 51 min. Dear Taiwan (Haoguo haomin). Chen Lih-Kuei, 2012. 66 min. Farewell, My Beloved Career (Na yitian, wo diule fanwan). Liao Te-ming, 2004. 56 min. Fight for Justice. James Su, 2016. 95 min. Formosa and Formosa (Fu’ermosha dui Fu’ermosha). Ke Chin-yuan, 2010. 60 min. The Last Insurrection (Modai panlun fan). Liao Jian-hua, 2015. 62 min. My River (Wo jia menqian you dahe). Mayaw Biho, 2009. 60 min. Our Youth in Taiwan (Women de qingchun, zai Taiwan). Fu Yue, 2018. 118 min. Radio Mihu (Bulou zhi yin). Lee Jong-wang, 2004. 136 min. Realm of Reverberation (Can xiang shijie). Chen Chieh-jen, 2015. 104 min. The Return of Gods and Ancestors (Rang linghun hui jia). Hu Tai-li, 1985. 35 min. The Right Thing (Guangchang). Chiang Wei-hua, 2010. 110 min. Self-censorship (Bing: Kongzhi). Kevin Lee, 2017. 120 min. Su Beng, the Revolutionist (Geming jin hang shi). Chen Lih-Kuei, 2015. 127 min. Sunflower Occupation (Taiyang bu yuan). Taiwan Documentary Film Union, 2014. 120 min. The Taoyuan Airport Incident (1130 Taoyuan jichang shijian). Green Team, 1986. 61 min. Terra Nullius or: How to Be a Nationalist (Wuzhu zhi di: Yi bu Taiwan dianying). James T. Hong, 2015. 79 min.

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EIGHT

From Sunflowers to Suits How Spatial Openings Affect Movement Party Formation

LEV NACHMAN

Why do some social movements result in the formation of new political parties while others do not? Despite Taiwan’s long tradition of social activism, no new parties formed under Ma Ying-jeou’s tenure as president. That is, until the 2014 Sunflower Movement, which erupted in a wave of what is now colloquially called Third Force parties. These new movement parties include the New Power Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Statebuilding Party (formerly known as the Radical Wings Party or Radical Party), the Free Taiwan Party, and the Trees Party.1 Of these new parties, only the New Power Party gained initial success and currently operates as the third most represented political party in Taiwan. The other new movement parties now fight for their continued survival. While the full story of movement parties will be the subject of future research, this paper will specifically trace the historical background of the most successful Third Force parties, the New Power Party (NPP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). What are the necessary conditions for new political parties to form out of social movements? In political science, this is a contested question that has been the center of heated debates. One of the most prominent explanations within party formation literature postulates that parties form when new issues arise, or when certain issues become inadequately represented by established parties (see Downs 1957; Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Harmel 1  Kitschelt (2006, 281) formally defines movement parties as “coalitions of political activists who emanate from social movements and try to apply the organizational and strategic practices of social movements in the arena of party competition. . . . ​[O]ne day, legislators of movement parties may debate bills in parliamentary committees, but the next day, they participate in disruptive demonstrations or the nonviolent occupation of government sites.”

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and Robertson 1985; Kitschelt 1989; 2006; Hug 2001; Muller-Rommel 1990; 2002). Theories of political parties that form out of social movements, specifically movement parties, also emphasize the importance of new and unrepresented political issues (della Porta et al. 2017), or, as Kitschelt (2006) describes them, “spatial” openings. Although this explanation has been empirically valuable, it undervalues several other variables that may play a more critical role in party formation. In this chapter, I argue that the Sunflower Movement itself was a necessary catalyst behind movement party formation, not an opening in Taiwan’s political space. In order to better understand the necessary conditions for movement parties to form, this chapter takes seriously the perceptions and relationships between social movement actors and political entrepreneurs. I argue that when social movement actors have negative perceptions or relations with existing parties, regardless of ideological alignment, they are more likely to form their own party. Structural explanations, such as openings in a political cleavage structure, may not be able to fully explain why movements sometimes form parties and sometimes do not. When the agency of individual social movement actors is taken seriously, their own actions better reflect the likelihood of party formation. Although other critical variables also played a role in the formation of new movement parties, the mass mobilization centered around China’s seemingly dire threat to Taiwan was a necessary factor that allowed for the NPP and SDP to fully form and function. Taiwan’s political spectrum itself did not change before or after the Sunflower Movement, nor was there a lack of formal political representation for any major issue. Taiwan’s Political Spectrum Extensive research has been done to map Taiwan’s left-right political spectrum (Hsieh 2002; Fell 2005; McAllister 2016). In Taiwan, the left-right spectrum is defined by identity, rather than by economics or other salient political issues. If one identifies as Taiwanese, one is placed on the left. Meanwhile, if one identifies as Chinese, one is placed on the right side of the political spectrum. Central to this main cleavage is the issue of independence (Achen and Wang 2017). As with identity, proindependence places someone on the left, prounification on the right, and those who wish to maintain the status quo in the middle. Currently, Taiwan exists in a state of limbo. It is de facto independent, meaning it has its own laws and constitution and is separate from any other country’s jurisdiction. But at the same time, only fifteen countries in the world recognize Taiwan as the sovereign state of the Republic of China (ROC). The People’s Republic

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of China (PRC) claims historical rights to Taiwan and refuses to have formal relations with any country that recognizes the ROC. In Taiwan, to be prounification means to want Taiwan to “return” to China without recognizing any sort of political or cultural uniqueness, while proindependence means to advocate for Taiwan to be recognized as a sovereign country, culturally unique and politically separate from China. Pro–status quo means to support Taiwan as it exists currently as neither a recognized country nor a part of the PRC. Extensive public opinion and electoral survey data show that the most salient issue in Taiwanese politics is the independence-unification issue (Hsieh and Niou 1996; Hsieh 2002; Sheng and Liao 2017). In other words, independence-unification has defined Taiwanese politics. Although wealth distribution, the environment, and the economy play a major role in most advanced democracies, “Taiwan is not such a case. . . . ​[A]s parties and politicians raised these issues, they sometimes caught the public’s attention, but these issues did not form political cleavages” (Sheng and Liao 2017). When other issues do become salient, they are often politicized along the independence-unification divide. For example, proenvironment is often coded as a proindependence issue (Fell 2005; Sheng and Liao 2017). Two parties have defined Taiwanese politics since its democratization: the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Traditionally, the KMT is seen as the prounification party on the right end of Taiwan’s political spectrum and the DPP the proindependence party on the left. However, the DPP has become significantly more moderate since the early 2000s. The DPP now identifies as pro–status quo and does not formally endorse any sort of independence agenda (Sheng and Liao 2017; Nachman 2018). The DPP and KMT, however, are not the only political parties in Taiwan. In part due to Taiwan’s hybrid electoral system, its political institutions allow for smaller parties to hold some amount of political power.2 Over the last three decades, this has manifested in the formation of four smaller, more outspoken proindependence and prounification parties: the Green Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union on Taiwan’s left, and the People First Party and New Party on Taiwan’s right.3 2  Taiwan uses a hybrid electoral system that incorporates both single-member district first past the post (FPTP) voting and proportional representation voting. District representatives in Taiwan are elected by FPTP, but citizens also vote for a party in addition to their specific candidate. Additional seats in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan are proportionally divided based on the percentage of votes each party gets. 3  The prounification New Party should not be confused with the proindependence New Power Party, one of the new movement parties in question here.

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Methodology and Arguments In this chapter I argue that a lack of political representation, or a “spatial opening,” within Taiwan’s political cleavage structure was not critical for the NPP’s and SDP’s formation. Political parties formed even though existing parties already articulated their political stances and ideologies. I show that although the NPP and SDP considered working with existing parties, they ultimately did not trust these parties, seeing them as flawed or as incapable of becoming a legitimate opposition party to the KMT, even though they were ideologically aligned. Instead, the Sunflower Movement helped to create an environment conducive to movement party formation. I also argue that the behavior of existing parties matters. If movement party founders perceive an existing party to be corrupt, incompetent, or simply electorally unviable, they are more likely to attempt forming their own party. When activists have negative perceptions of existing political parties, even if they ideologically align, they will still break away and discontinue supporting the party (Michels 1960; Nachman 2018). This logic also applies to movement parties. The decision to create a new party starts with leaders first consciously choosing not to work with existing parties for the previously stated reasons. The NPP and SDP formed because their movement party founders did not see existing, ideologically aligned parties as electorally viable. Why, then, does sometimes only one movement party form while other times we see multiple parties forming? I argue that intraparty politics and personal relations between social movement organization (SMO) actors indicate whether multiple parties will form or not. When infighting and disagreements over tactics and organizational strategies become so drastic that no agreement is reachable, or if movement party actors simply do not like each other, multiple parties may form instead of one. I demonstrate that the NPP and SDP formed separately not because of ideological differences or disagreements in political platforms, but over disputes in how to run a political party and because the leaders of these two parties did not get along. I articulate these two claims by analyzing the case of the NPP’s and SDP’s formations in depth. I address a number of key questions: How and why did these two parties form? Why did they not work with existing political parties and instead form their own parties? And why establish multiple new parties instead of one party? I present my data in the form of a historical narrative detailing key events from 2013 through 2015. The story begins with the formation of relevant NGOs and SMOs, transitions into how these organizations functioned during the Sunflower Movement, and ends with the final formation of these two parties. By using data from

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Table 8.1 Actors and Their Roles in the Formation of the NPP and SDP Actor

Role

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) 國民黨

The formerly authoritarian, pro-China political party that governed Taiwan from 1945 to 1992.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) 民進黨

The main opposition, pro-Taiwan political party, formed out of the tangwai (literally “out of party”) movement that mobilized against the KMT in the late 1970s and 1980s.

New Power Party (NPP) 時代力量

One of the main Third Force movement parties that formed out of the Sunflower Movement.

Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) 社會民主黨

One of the main Third Force movement parties that formed out of the Sunflower Movement.

Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) 臺灣團結聯盟

One of the first alternative pro-Taiwan parties to form in the 1990s. Part of the pan-Green coalition, but significantly more outspoken on Taiwanese independence than the DPP.

Green Party 綠黨

Pro-Taiwan party started in the 1990s. Originally focused only on environmental issues, but today its platform includes other pro-Taiwan issues, such as independence and other social matters.

Taiwan Citizen’s Union (TCU) 公民組合

NGO that formed prior to Sunflower, eventually split into the NPP and SDP.

Lin Yi-hsiung 林義雄

Former head of the DPP, tangwai activist, and leader of Taiwan’s democratization movement. Founded the TCU in 2013.

Michael Lin 林世煜

Writer, democratization activist, cofounder of the NPP.

(continued)

over two dozen semistructured interviews with movement party founders, I describe the entire process that led to the formation of the SDP and the NPP and to what degree political cleavages and leadership clashes played a role. Table 8.1 lists the actors and organizations central to the formation of the NPP and SDP. The story of party formation involves dozens of individuals and groups, some of whom are commonly known and others who are not. All key actors are listed here, in no particular order.

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Actor

Role

Lin Feng-cheng 林豐正

Lawyer, cofounder of the NPP.

Fan Yun 范雲

Former Wild Lily activist, founder of the SDP, professor of sociology at National Taiwan University.

Chen Shang-chih 陳尚志

Cofounder of the SDP, professor of political science.

Huang Kuo-chang 黃國昌

Former research professor of law at Academia Sinica; one of the three key leaders of the Sunflower Movement, joined the NPP and serves as the party chair.

Lin Fei-fan 林飛帆

One of the three key leaders of the Sunflower Movement; following Sunflower he did not immediately join a political party and remains neutral toward both the NPP and SDP.

Chen Wei-ting 陳為廷

One of the three key leaders of the Sunflower Movement; later joined the NPP. He was a candidate for byelections in Miaoli, but dropped out of the race due to a sexual harassment scandal.

Lee Ken-cheng 李根政

Former head of the Green Party.

Miao Po-ya 苗博雅

Sunflower Movement and LGBTQ activist; joined the SDP.

Jennifer Lu 呂欣潔

Sunflower Movement and LGTBTQ activist; joined the SDP.

Freddy Lim 林昶佐

Well-known political activist and musician; one of the first members and elected officials of the NPP.

The Founding of the Taiwan Citizen’s Union Although the NPP and SDP became youth activist parties, their origin ironically does not begin with youth activists, but rather with activists from Taiwan’s democratization era. Lin Yi-hsiung, despite being the former head of the DPP, left the party in 2006. Since his early retirement as the party’s leader in 2000, his dissatisfaction with the DPP has been well known (Huang 2006). Lin was seen as an idealist, and when the DPP began

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to move away from its proindependence political stances in favor of more moderate ideals, he lost faith in the party. Since leaving, he has dedicated most of his effort to Taiwan’s anti-nuclear-power movement (Wang 2014). A well-known heroic and tragic figure, Lin was one of the leaders of Taiwan’s democracy movement during the martial law era. During the infamous Kaohsiung Incident, a prodemocracy rally that ended with the detention of dozens of prodemocracy activists, he was arrested and tortured by police. More tragically, his mother and six-year-old twin daughters were stabbed to death in his home; the police never conducted a complete investigation into these brutal murders and no suspects were ever charged.4 In 2013, President Ma and the KMT were in full control of Taiwan’s government, despite Ma’s record-setting low approval ratings (Wang 2013). Even though discontent with the KMT within Taiwan’s society was on the rise, activists on the far left were still extremely hopeless about Taiwan’s future. For them, the DPP was an incompetent opposition party that had no chance of beating the KMT in the 2016 election despite the KMT’s numerous blunders. As one founding member of the NPP put it: “It was a bad time for activists. . . . ​[T]he KMT was still seen as the dominant party, and the DPP was seen as incapable. We were honestly scared. If we lost the 2016 election, we believed there would be no 2020 election; the KMT would sell us out to China by then.”5 Lin was strongly against the KMT, but was also tired of the DPP being Taiwan’s only choice for opposition. For a long time, activists had wanted to create another opposition party separate from the DPP. Since the Anti– Media Monopoly Movement (2011), individual social movement activists and leaders had been loosely discussing the idea of creating their own political party. However, none of these discussions ever materialized into anything legitimate.6 Lin finally took it upon himself in the late summer of 2013, approximately six to seven months before the Sunflower Movement, to begin seriously discussing the possibility of creating an alternative opposition party. Lin’s plan was to create a group of like-minded pro-Taiwan individuals, who together would help foster a new opposition party. He invited NGO workers, academics, activists, lawyers, and some politicians from the Green Party to his home for weekly meetings to openly discuss the 4 

For more on the Kaohsiung Incident and its effect on democratization, see Rigger (2001) and Jacobs (2012). 5  Personal interview, 10 July 2018. Due to the sensitive nature of discussing internal dynamics between activists and organizers, subjects requested not to be identified by name and are therefore quoted anonymously. 6  Personal interview, 8 January 2018.

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idea of creating a new political party. No one agrees on exactly when the group became official, but sometime in late 2013 the Taiwan Citizens Union (TCU) formed. The group’s Facebook page was not started until 3 March 2014, a date many people mistakenly point to as the start of this organization. What Was the TCU? The TCU was not a political party, but it hoped to become one. Lin created it specifically with the goal of building a new opposition political party based on progressive Taiwanese politics. Although the group’s goal was clear, the TCU’s primary task was to figure out how to take this idea and materialize it into a real party. It was a loose organization with no formal membership. The group was not even publicly known until early 2014. At first, Lin personally invited people from the aforementioned groups to come to the TCU meetings, but eventually members would also bring new people to participate. Some people came to every meeting while others came only once or occasionally. No one agrees on an exact number, but somewhere between thirty to fifty people were at one time participating members of the TCU.7 Often meetings had different people with different agendas. Although everyone knew the eventual goal was to start a party of some kind, participation was so inconsistent that the same topics would get discussed week after week with no results. Eventually, two members who regularly attended TCU meetings became the figureheads of the organization: Michael Lin and Lin Feng-cheng. The most complete list of TCU members comes from its first Facebook post in March of 2014; however, even this list is incomplete. One of the most notable names missing from the public list is that of Lin Yi-hsiung, the group’s founder. Lin, although the one responsible for bringing people together, did not actively engage with the direction or actions of the TCU. The first reason for his distance was his personal desire to not be an active political entrepreneur in whatever the organization became. His goal was to help create a framework for the next generation, not to be an active member or organizer within it. Second, members of the TCU, including Lin, knew his name would overly politicize the group. Given his past connections with the DPP, he felt it better to play a less active role beyond initial organizer. Almost every member noted during interviews that the question of ideology was never an issue, because everyone within this group shared the 7 

For an incomplete public list of TCU members, see the appendix.

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same basic far-left pro-Taiwan ideals: anti-KMT, proindependence, proreform, socialist-leaning values, prolabor, progressive social issues, and so on. As one member put it, “we did not have time to worry about the specifics of ideological issues. . . . ​[W]e were all on the same side, we all were proindependence, we all hated the KMT, no one aligned with the DPP, but the specifics about what some of us meant about proindependence, about prosocial reform,8 we didn’t have time to figure these things out back then.9 We had more urgent problems.”10 The TCU, indeed, was full of problems. Everyone knew the TCU wanted a progressive political party as an alternative vote to the DPP that would advance progressive, pro-Taiwan issues. No one agreed on how the union was going to do it. The TCU was plagued with conflict over strategy, tactics, and clashing personalities. The TCU and the Green Party First was the issue of strategy. Was it really within the TCU’s best interest to create a new political party? Or would it be better for the organization to invest in reinvigorating a preexisting political party? In Taiwan, two main alternative leftist parties already existed, the Green Party and the TSU. The TSU was never considered a legitimate option to invest resources in because it was staffed and supported almost entirely by the deep green old guard from the 1990s. The TSU was largely nonresponsive to the TCU and made no effort to work with its members, nor did its members particularly want them involved. No one believed the TSU had a chance to become something new. As one member put it, “There is a serious generational gap between the TSU and every other activist, especially younger ones. We do not really have anything against them, we just know it is impossible for us to work with them.”11 A member of the SDP voiced a similar sentiment: “If you want to join a long-standing political party to change it, it is an exhausting and time-consuming process. You need to first fight internally with the party to change it, and once the fighting is over, if it manages to make it become your ideal party, you have to convince others the party has changed. . . . ​The TSU would never accept young people telling them how to act.”12 8  In Taiwan, social reform (shehui gaige 社會改革) typically includes LGBTQ rights, environmental reform, and labor reform. 9  For specifics about why activists were anti-KMT and opposed to working with the DPP, see Nachman (2018). 10  Personal interview, 15 July 2018. 11  Personal interview, 27 July 2018. 12  Personal interview, 21 June 2018.

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The Green Party was for a time seriously considered as a viable party vehicle for the TCU. Despite a history of mediocre performances in elections, it still typically gets more votes than any other non-DPP leftist party and maintains some support across generations of pro-Taiwan voters. The Green Party leader at the time, Lee Ken-cheng, was also a regular at TCU meetings. Some members of the Green Party advocated for the whole party to merge with the TCU, while others wanted the TCU to act as a base of support for them. This plan was problematic to Michael Lin and Lin Feng-cheng (now referred to as the “Lin faction”), neither of whom wanted the TCU to turn into a lifeline for the Green Party. Both Lins also had well-known personality conflicts with Green Party leader Lee Kencheng. Most recurring participants in the TCU at the time sided against the Green Party’s desire to become the TCU’s main focus. Others thought that the Green Party’s preexisting reliance on environmental frames and history of mediocre electoral performance would be too difficult to reform. Some also claimed the organizational structure of the Green Party was overly bureaucratized and dysfunctional. Finally, many TCU members were worried that citizens would not be able to change their preexisting notions of the Green Party. After an initial few months of heated clashes between the Green Party and the TCU, it was decided that a completely new political party would be the best option. After this initial dispute, many Green Party members, including Lee Ken-cheng, began to distance themselves from the TCU. Fan Yun, the eventual founder of the SDP, was not yet a member of the TCU during this initial clash. She was on sabbatical from National Taiwan University to focus on writing a book. However, upon her return, she was introduced to the group through Lin Yi-hsiung, who knew her as an activist from the 1990s Wild Lily Movement. By the end of 2013 or in early 2014, Lin Feng-cheng registered the TCU as a formal NGO. The group stopped meeting at Lin Yi-hsiung’s house and instead rented its own office space. Around the same time, Lin Yi-hsiung brought in Fan Yun to become a regular member of TCU with the hopes that she would join the core leadership. Once the group was officially registered, it began to meet more regularly and more seriously; however, regular meetings came to an abrupt end in March 2014. There are two critical takeaways from the TCU’s formation. First, Lin’s call for a new party and the subsequent formation of the TCU was not caused by a new political issue becoming salient in Taiwanese society. The anti-KMT sentiment and proindependence stances of Lin and the TCU have been around for decades. Their desire to form their own party first stemmed from dissatisfaction with the DPP for becoming a moderate party, and negative perceptions and relations with remaining proindependence

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parties. The second takeaway is said to be that existing proindependence parties, specifically the TSU and the Green Party, already articulated the TCU’s political platforms. The TCU did not want to form a party because there was a lack of political representation. Rather, the quality of political representation available to them was unacceptable. The TCU saw neither party as capable despite their decades of existence. According to current theories, particularly Hug’s 2010 argument, new parties form when existing parties fail to bring new salient issues into their platforms. However, in the case of Taiwan, existing parties already articulated the concerns and policy goals of the TCU. Everything Changed When the Sunflowers Bloomed In 2014, then President Ma Ying-jeou championed the passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA). The bill was controversial, for two main reasons. First, it made China a priority trading partner, specifically for Taiwan’s service sector, which makes up 70 percent of its GDP, giving China a disproportionate amount of control over Taiwan’s domestic economy. Second, it was rushed through the Legislative Yuan without formal review (Rowen 2015). The contents of the bill, and its hasty passage, prompted mass outrage across the island. Popular discontent with the Ma administration and KMT had been building for some time, and this bill was a catalyst for large-scale protest across the island. This protest came to be called the Sunflower Movement, and it mobilized thousands of people in every major city. Following three weeks of contention, including occupation of Taiwan’s capital district and parliament building, the Legislative Yuan, the movement was successful in convincing the KMT government to revoke the CSSTA. Central to the Sunflower mobilization was anti-KMT sentiment, proTaiwan advocacy, often direct advocation for Taiwan independence, and to a lesser extent anti–Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sentiment. All three of these political attitudes have been the cornerstone of the proindependence left since democratization. The Sunflower Movement did not mobilize because of new political issues or even unrepresented issues. Rather, the movement was based on the long-standing, salient, political cleavage of independence and unification. This matters, because unlike in della Porta’s study of European movement parties or Kitschelt’s study of green parties who did mobilize off new political cleavages, Taiwan’s new movement parties did not. Taiwan’s new movement parties formed around the same cleavages that have always been relevant in Taiwan.

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Although the TCU’s negative perceptions and relations with existing parties explains why they eventually decided to pursue party formation, it cannot explain why the organization eventually formed two parties instead of one. In order to understand this critical question, further exploration of the TCU’s specific strategies and tactics for party formation during and after Sunflower is required. The TCU during the Sunflower Movement The formation of the TCU, its initial factionalization and heated arguments, and the steady decline in the organization’s ability to successfully form a political party all began before the Sunflower Movement. One of the common errors in people’s understanding of how political parties formed out of the Sunflower is that disputes within the TCU occurred only during or after the movement ended. In fact, the TCU’s goal of party formation was an endeavor that began months before the Sunflower Movement. Although the main disputes between Fan Yun and the Lin faction occurred after the movement, the TCU had already met its fair share of challenges. No one in the TCU expected or anticipated the Sunflower Movement to occur. The catalyst—the events that occurred on 18 March 2014—and the subsequent movement developed as completely separate and detached from anything related to the TCU. However, it is widely accepted by both the NPP and SDP that Sunflower was the key to their success. As one TCU member put it, “It is likely that the SDP and NPP would have tried to form regardless of the Sunflower Movement. However, our success is entirely because of the Sunflower Movement.” Once the movement began, the TCU suddenly was able to reenvision how its political party was going to form. Finally, it is important to remember that when the Sunflower began in March, the TCU had not yet split, nor would it split until afterward. However, initial factionalization and clashes in leadership had already created a wedge within the TCU that would lead to its eventual end. During the Sunflower Movement, most members of the TCU tried to keep their distance. At first their decision was to strategically detach themselves from the movement in order to not give the impression that the old guard was trying to take over or exert influence. Since the Sunflower Movement used frames of “youth led” and “for the next generation,” some of the older TCU members thought it would look coercive to insert themselves into what was happening. The largest contribution made by the TCU during the movement was to offer its office for meetings. The TCU office was located close to the Sunflower occupation site and was used by Sunflower leadership from time to time. Most activists,

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however, did not know of its location, since a significant number of Sunflower activists did not even know of the TCU’s existence.13 The most notable breakaway distancing the TCU from the movement was Michael Lin’s infamous poem, posted online, in which he advocated the need to “harvest the power of this movement into real political power.” His post was met with strong negative backlash, not only from activists but also from Sunflower leadership itself. No one in the middle of the movement wanted to discuss political outcomes or political party formation, especially in a way that used such opportunistic language. By the end of the movement, activists ultimately forgot their negative reaction to Michael Lin. Since most Sunflower activists do not even know that it was Michael Lin who went on to found the NPP, his negative reputation during the movement ultimately had little effect on the NPP’s formation and growth. Fan Yun eventually held a mid-level role during the Sunflower Movement. While she was a member of the TCU, her role during the Sunflower Movement was to help represent an NGO focused on women’s rights in Taiwan. Like the other TCU members, such as Huang Kuo-chang, her membership in the TCU was separate from any responsibilities she had during the Sunflower Movement. Part of the movement’s leadership structure included over twenty NGO representatives who were allowed a voice in the decision-making process. While she herself was not the representative from her NGO in the leadership circle, she was still able to become a proactive member of the movement and was privy to the decisions being made. Factionalism within the TCU did not subside during the Sunflower Movement; however, infighting within the TCU did take a hiatus. During the movement, both the Fan Yun and the Lin factions actively recruited social movement activists and potential political entrepreneurs to be candidates for the political party they hoped to form. Neither faction actually established its own party; rather, both groups were feeling out whether or not they would be able to get support from activist circles. It was during the Sunflower Movement, however, that Michael Lin and Lin Feng-cheng first approached Freddy Lim about joining them. Freddy, although eventually present at Sunflower, was not a part of its leadership circle. He was already famous in Taiwan, both for his history of activism with Amnesty International and as the lead singer of Chthnoic, a death metal band famous for its 13 

This information came from dozens of interviews with Sunflower activists, the majority of whom did not know who or what the TCU was, and interviews with Sunflower leadership who also acknowledge that most activists would have no reason to know what the TCU was or what role it played in the formation of the NPP or SDP.

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pro-Taiwan independence politics. Although Freddy himself played little to no role in the Sunflower Movement, he was the Lin faction’s biggest recruitment goal at the time, because of the sheer amount of influence he had among youth activists and youth culture. They also recruited Taichung activist Hung Tzu-yung, who actually went to the Lin faction asking to join.14 It is important to note that although they approached these activists during the movement, Freddy and Hung did not formally join the Lin faction until much later. Meanwhile, Fan Yun began to reach out to members of some NGOs, including famous activists Miao Po-ya and Jennifer Lu. Both Miao and Lu were well-known feminist and LGBTQ activists who had a history of working with Fan Yun. They did not formally join her until long after the Sunflower Movement had ended in late 2014. Post-Sunflower Factionalization The end of the Sunflower Movement left activists across Taiwan in high spirits and extremely mobilized to take on the KMT in the 2016 election. The movement especially mobilized the TCU to create the political party it had set out to form months ago. The Sunflower Movement showed TCU members that they were not the only ones who felt Taiwan’s democracy was under dire threat, but that this sentiment was felt throughout Taiwan, especially within activist circles. Before the occupation of the Legislative Yuan began, the kind of party the TCU wanted to form was only a vague idea. The TCU had struggled to maintain its organizational structure and already risked breakdown, but the Sunflower Movement breathed new life into the organization. Without the Sunflower Movement, the TCU would likely never have been able to fulfill its mission of party formation. After the occupation ended, however, TCU members knew they could create a political party using the momentum that had built up during the movement. Fan Yun joined the TCU only a couple months prior to the occupation, and once the Sunflower Movement began the group stopped meeting. After they began meeting again regularly, however, tensions between Fan Yun and the Lin faction became apparent. Fan Yun was brought into the TCU with the intention of becoming one of its key leaders. She had heard of the various leadership issues within the TCU and felt she could help guide the group to party formation. During the Sunflower Movement, she began to envision what kind of party the TCU would eventually become. 14  Hung was a saleswoman turned activist after the mysterious death of her brother during disciplinary punishment while in the military. She has since become one of the core leaders of the NPP.

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The Lin faction, however, was also busy creating a vision of the TCU’s eventual party. Unfortunately, their two plans conflicted drastically with each other. Despite an increased frequency in meetings, the TCU quickly became stuck again. Members were faced with three fundamental tactical disagreements: how to run the party’s election campaign, how to select candidates, and whether or not to cooperate with the DPP. In order to understand why there were disagreements, it is important to understand who was disagreeing with whom. Following the Sunflower Movement, two main factions emerged. One was led by Fan Yun and Chen Shangchih; the other was the Lin faction. Not everyone was directly in one camp or another; however, these two factions became dominant and divisive voices within the TCU. Fan Yun’s camp held the following views on tactics: the party should not spend excessive money on campaign advertising and should avoid overcrowding public spaces with political ads. Her camp felt the party should run the most transparent campaign possible without relying on saturating society with political messages. Nominated candidates should not be the most famous activists, but rather the most qualified ones. Famous people, they argued, often make bad politicians. Instead, they would rather spend time investing in qualified social movement activists to make them become able politicians, even if these candidates might not win right away. Finally, their new political party should not cooperate with the DPP in any way, because to do so would put the DPP in a position of power. It would also go against the group’s fundamental ideal of giving citizens a progressive alternative to the DPP. Michael Lin and Lin Feng-cheng’s camp held views that were practically the opposite: the party needed to be focused on winning its first election. Campaign spending on advertising was crucial, and the TCU should engage in the same campaign tactics and strategies that other parties in Taiwan use, including public advertising, campaign cars, flyers, and so on. The new party should reach out to famous, well-known individuals within activist circles as a means of attracting support for the party, specifically people such as Freddy Lim and Huang Kuo-chang. Finally, along with the stance of willingness to do whatever it takes to win a first election, the TCU was willing to cooperate with the DPP. Besides fundamentally disagreeing on tactical decisions about campaigning and party organization, the two factions within the TCU did not work well together. Plainly speaking, they did not get along, personally or professionally. Both factions struggled for control over leadership and power within the group. The Lin faction constantly fought with Fan Yun,

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who they saw as ultimately counterproductive to starting a legitimate opposition party. Lin and Lin claimed Fan Yun was overly idealistic, while Fan Yun asserted that the Lins’ alternative, pragmatic strategy would never lead to the change they all wanted. While not every member of TCU was on a side, it was well known that these clashing personalities led to the eventual breakdown of the organization. Lin Yi-hsiung never formally sided with one group or the other. Along with being the organizer of TCU meetings, he also often played peacekeeper, attempting to keep the group together as long as possible. The End of the TCU, and the Formation of the NPP and SDP The TCU lasted almost through the end of fall 2014; however, the two factions within the organization had all but given up on creating a unified party long before then. Eventually, it became clear that the TCU was no longer a necessary organization, as the two factions had split from each other permanently. There are two versions of when the TCU officially split. One explanation is that after months of heated fights, a meeting was held at Lin Yi-hsiung’s house with the two factions. At the meeting, Michael Lin and Lin Feng-cheng formally left the TCU, “giving it to Fan Yun to run and manage.”15 Once the Lin faction was formally out of the TCU, both groups were free to officially start their own political parties as they saw fit. The other explanation is that there was no grand end to the TCU, but rather the organization just faded away as these two factions stopped interacting with each other. One member of the NPP recalled: “In late 2014, it was time for the TCU to reregister with the government in order to maintain its status as an NGO. But . . . ​we had not met in such a long time; we had all forgotten that it still existed. It felt . . . ​awkward.”16 Formally, the NPP became a registered party in January 2015 and the SDP in March 2015. However, these are only the dates of formal party registration. The actual start of these parties began months before, in the fall of 2014. Since there was no official end to the TCU, it is difficult to say exactly when the formation of the NPP and SDP began. The idea that the parties completely began in 2015, however, is misleading. The other key members of the NPP, such as Freddy Lim, only joined the Lins in December of 2014. Once official members, they began to take a more active role in forming the party and recruiting members.17 15 

Personal interview, 11 July 2018. Personal interview, 5 August 2018. 17  Freddy Lim was the one who thought of the name “New Power Party.” 16 

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Lin Yi-hsiung never took a side throughout the entire breakdown of the TCU. Even after the Lin faction left to form the NPP and Fan Yun and Chen Shang-chih went on to form the SDP, he encouraged both parties to maintain a professional attitude toward each other and not to fight publicly.18 Even during the 2016 election, he remained neutral and publicly endorsed candidates from both parties. Today, he remains a goodwill adviser for both parties. The NPP and SDP did not form separately because of differences in political ideologies or political stances. Nor did they become detached from one another because of a demand for multiple movement parties. The TCU subsequently split into two movement parties because of internal conflict, disagreement over organizational tactics and election strategy, and especially personal relations within the SMO. Gender as a Source of Conflict? “We used to joke that the NPP was for men and the SDP was for women,” said one NPP member laughingly. “Not in a serious way, but in the beginning it was not a good look that the NPP was run by only men.”19 Members of both the NPP and SDP admit that gendered conflict may have played a role in the breakdown of the TCU. While no one accused Michael Lin or Lin Feng-cheng of being sexist, some described their attitudes during TCU meetings and behavior toward Fan Yun as somewhat patronizing and chauvinistic. Others disagree, describing their behavior not as chauvinistic, but simply antagonistic, a tone both factions were guilty of employing. Leaders from both the NPP and SDP have also denied gender as playing a role at all, despite other TCU members’ descriptions. The conflict is described as such: Fan Yun, a long-time feminist activist, wanted whatever new political party that was created to have women’s rights and gender equality as core values. The Lin faction, while in support of these issues, did not see them as a priority over what they saw as the more urgent issue, voting out the KMT. Some TCU members describe this part of the conflict between these two groups as a non-issue, since no one really had a disagreement at the level of ideology, just about how it should be distilled into practical politics. Others remember this conflict as the men of the TCU dismissing women’s voices. Regardless of the specifics, based on interviews with both NPP and SDP members, gender may have been a point of tension between the two factions. 18  19 

Personal interview, 17 August 2018. Personal interview, 4 July 2018.

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The Case of Huang Kuo-Chang Huang Kuo-Chang is an important part of TCU, Sunflower, and NPP histories. He was the only key leader of the Sunflower Movement to be a member of the TCU as well, and the only Sunflower leader to become a key leader of the NPP also. Before the Sunflower Movement or the TCU, Huang was best known for leading the 2011 Anti–Media Monopoly Movement, the largest mobilization against the KMT prior to the Sunflower events. Before becoming a social movement leader and eventual politician, Huang was a practicing lawyer with a PhD in law from Cornell University and a research appointment at Academia Sinica. Huang was among those whom Lin Yi-hsiung reached out to when forming the TCU. In its early stages around late 2013, Huang was a regular member of the TCU. However, by the time 2014 arrived he had taken a more passive role in the organization. He was not a part of the internal disputes between Fan Yun, Lin Feng-cheng, and Michael Lin, but was well aware of their regularity. Seeing these disputes as trivial and distracting from the goal of party formation, he discouraged the other Sunflower leaders from becoming too involved with the TCU. By the time the Sunflower protests began, Huang was a member of the TCU only in name, despite being one of the original members. His involvement with the Sunflower Movement and eventual joining of the NPP was completely disconnected from his membership with the TCU. Huang became one of the three student leaders of the Sunflower Movement, along with Lin Fei-fan and Chen Wei-ting, for two reasons: first, he had an established reputation as a student leader, and second, when the protests broke out, he was at the right place at the right time. When activists first mobilized, there were several gathering points to which protestors flocked. Each of these three leaders became the de facto leader of one of these gathering points, both because they were among the first to arrive and because other movement activists perceived them as leaders. None actively sought out major leadership roles. As one leader frames their rise: “It just sort of happened.” However, their history and notoriety within activist circles also played a key role. Unlike the TCU, Huang was one of the key faces of the Sunflower occupation. However, he was completely detached from the TCU during his time as a student leader. He was still in touch with the two TCU factions, but only insofar as they were relevant to Sunflower, not in regard to anything related to building a political party. This is expected, as Huang’s leadership responsibilities prioritized anything related to the TCU at the time.

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When the Sunflower protests ended, Huang did not immediately join the Lin faction. After the Sunflower Movement, he and the other leaders all agreed not to join a specific political party. They did not want to give the impression they were acting opportunistically or abusing their power as movement leaders. Instead, the three leaders went on to found a new NGO, called Taiwan March. Taiwan March was focused on following up on Sunflower objectives, specifically mobilizing youth and campaigning for people to vote in 2016. Both Huang and Lin have since left Taiwan March, but the organization still exists, mobilizing around its original mission. Some months after the Sunflower Movement ended, around September 2014, Fan Yun called a meeting with the three Sunflower leaders and formally asked all three of them to join her new political party. Their answer was no, because they had just founded their new NGO and had agreed not to join a political party. Fan Yun subsequently requested that they not join Michael Lin and Lin Feng-cheng’s new party either. At the time, none of them had any intention of doing so. In November of 2014, however, Huang had a similar meeting with Lin Feng-cheng and Michael Lin. It was then they revealed their plans to form their own party and asked Huang to join and run as a candidate. Huang told them no. However, the Lin faction went on the offensive and tried to convince Huang to join. Hung Tzu-yung and Freddy Lim had already signed on with the NPP at this point; they both joined Lin Feng-cheng and Michael Lin in pressuring Huang. It took months, but eventually Huang made the decision that joining the NPP was the best way for him to make a political difference. He formally joined in March of 2015, two months after the party was officially registered. Since then he has served as chairman of the party. Three points can be taken from Huang’s eventual participation in the NPP. First, Huang played no role in the actual formation of the NPP. Huang, along with Freddy Lim, often gets misappropriated credit for founding the NPP. In reality, Huang had no role in the NPP’s formation. Meanwhile Lim, who quickly became a lead figure in the NPP, had joined the Lin faction only a month before the NPP was formally founded. Huang, meanwhile, joined the party months after it was formally founded. Although Huang has served as the NPP party chair since its inception, he was far removed from the formation process, despite also technically being a member of the TCU along with Michael Lin and Lin Feng-cheng. Second, Huang neither quarreled with nor has any negative relations with Fan Yun or anyone from the SDP. Huang’s participation in the TCU declined because he saw the constant infighting among its members and did not want to become a part of such disputes. Although relations

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between the NPP and SDP are often not on good terms, Huang, more than anyone else from the NPP, still has a good relationship with Fan Yun and the SDP. Third, it is important to emphasize that all three student leaders at one time had a standing invitation to join the SDP rather than the NPP. Their decision to say no to the SDP had to do with their pact at the time to not join any political parties and to focus on the recent founding of their new NGO, not because of any ideological issue or problem with Fan Yun. Huang eventually joined the NPP after spending months deciding whether or not it was his best option, while simultaneously being courted by the rest of the NPP. Who Joined Which Party? Huang was not the only Sunflower activist to be caught between joining the SDP or NPP. Most Sunflower activists did not formally join one party or another—rather, they supported both parties as evenly as they could. Previous interviews with post-Sunflower activists show that support for the NPP or SDP depends on whether they have candidates running in an activist’s voting district. One year, activists may identify with the NPP, while the next year they will pick the SDP, and then back to the NPP the following year (Nachman 2018). Other activists chose to look at specific politicians from within these two parties, rather than identifying strongly with a party itself. Even some politicians within the SDP and NPP have switched allegiances between the two parties. The most well-known case is that of Lin Yi-meng, one of Fan Yun’s protégés and an original member of the SDP. However, after the fallout with the SDP leadership, Lin switched parties and joined the NPP. She ran against SDP candidate Miao Po-ya in the 2018 district election. Dennis Wei, another leader from the Sunflower Movement, also historically has supported and campaigned for NPP candidates, despite being a member of the SDP. Since these two parties formed, activists’ support has been fluid. Although the NPP and SDP use different frames, they have the same ideological stances across Taiwan’s political spectrum. The reason an individual would support one party over the other has more to do with an individual politician’s behavior or tactics than any political issue. As one member of the NPP put it: “If we want to talk about differences between NPP and SDP from an ideological left-right perspective, there is not going to be a lot of difference. The actual differences between us two have more to do with how we pursue our political goals and strategies. Political stances and ideological approaches aren’t really all that different between

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us, it’s how we go about how we approach politics. For example, SDP more resembles a social movement organization, while we take a more typical political party approach.”20 What about the Other Sunflower Student Leaders? At first, Huang Kuo-chang was the only one of the three key Sunflower leaders to join a political party. Lin Fei-fan, left Taiwan in March 2016 and moved to London for his master’s degree at the London School of Economics. After the end of the Sunflower Movement, he remained neutral until he joined the DPP as Deputy Secretary General in July 2019. He maintains good relations with both the SDP and NPP. In December of 2014, Chen Wei-ting, following the founding of Taiwan March, decided to run for a by-election in his hometown of Miaoli. The NPP had not yet formed, so Chen ran as an independent. During his campaign, however, news broke that he had been found guilty of sexual harassment on multiple occasions while he was in high school. Although some Sunflower activists had long known of Chen’s past, most did not, and the story caused him to renounce his candidacy. Chen never denied his actions and publicly apologized to his supporters during the ordeal. However, it has since caused him to take a step back from the public spotlight. Following his scandal, Chen joined the NPP to help campaign for district elections. Since then he has become a staff member of the party. Based on interviews with activists, there are many rumors that Chen Wei-ting’s scandal played a role in the split within the TCU. However, no member of the TCU or founding members of the SDP or NPP corroborated this view. Although Chen’s scandal may have influenced some activists, his actions did not play a role in the formation of the NPP and SDP. Discussion Although the party formation process started before 2014, the Sunflower Movement itself served as a critical catalyst for the NPP and SDP. Without the mass mobilization of the Sunflower Movement, the TCU would not have been able to fulfill its mission of party formation. The role that TCU members played during the Sunflower protests gave them critical information that party formation was not only possible but that they would likely have the support of movement activists. Both parties were able to incorporate Sunflower activists not only as their base of support, but also within their leadership ranks. Despite the NPP’s eventual success in 20 

Personal interview, 4 July 2018.

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convincing two of the three main Sunflower Movement leaders to join the party, the SDP still was able to recruit well-known, influential activists. The NPP and SDP formed out of one original NGO, the TCU. Neither party was founded by youth activists, but by experienced activists with long experiences with social movement activity and party politics. Rather than work with or use an existing party, both new parties felt their odds of forming a legitimate opposition to the KMT were better by founding a new party. The formation of these parties began before and ended after the Sunflower Movement; however, the movement created the means for their parties to form. Although existing parties advocated the same proTaiwan ideals that they did, they saw existing parties as too difficult to work with, unlikely to win, and often clashing with the TCU. Even though they decided to form a new party, TCU members ended up splitting into multiple parties. This was due to clashes in party strategy, election tactics, and personal conflicts within the TCU. Such disagreements were so dire that two parties formed instead of one. I argue that the common wisdom explanation for party formation, a spatial opening, is not a necessary or sufficient condition for movement party formation in Taiwan. Although it may be an important condition elsewhere in the world, in the case of Taiwan, there was not a spatial opening for either the NPP or SDP to form. The Green Party and the TSU both existed within the NPP and SDP’s political space. No member from the TCU articulated a desire to form a party because of a lack of political representation; rather, it was because they were highly critical of the quality of existing representation. The TCU recognized that it shared a set of political stances and that existing parties already articulated these stances. If a spatial opening were a necessary condition for movement party formation, the NPP and SDP would not have formed. Instead, the TCU would have invested its time and energy into helping one of the existing leftist parties, either the Green Party or the TSU, become electorally viable. However, the TCU opted to form a new party anyway, and ended up with two parties, which exist within the exact same ideological space. Second, the likelihood of movement party formation increases when social movement activists have bad relations or bad perceptions of existing parties. If new movement party founders perceive existing parties to be dysfunctional, problematic, or incapable of winning elections, they are likely to end up forming their own party, even if they have the same ideological values. The TCU saw the DPP as a moderate, incapable party that had become electorally incapable of countering KMT. However, other proindependence parties already existed that could have better represented their political interests. Rather than form a new party, the TCU could have poured its recourses into an existing party, either the Green Party or the

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TSU, instead of forming a new party. However, negative perceptions and relations with both existing parties eventually led TCU members to form their own new organization. Finally, I propose that the likelihood of multiple movement parties forming increases when interpersonal relations within the SMO break down. There was not a demand for multiple new movement parties, yet after the Sunflower Movement multiple parties formed. What makes the NPP and SDP different is not their politics, but rather their strategies, tactics, and relations with existing political parties. In this case, the SDP and NPP were founded based on very different approaches to running a political party and to supporting candidates. They each also had a very different relationship with the existing main opposition party, the DPP. The NPP was willing to work with the DPP while the SDP was not. As one SDP member described these differences: “Variation in ideological stances within these parties would have been much more reasonable to deal with than to have such drastic differences in approach on how to run a party, especially during an election. If people cannot agree on how to run  a party . . . ​that is way more difficult to manage than simply not agreeing on certain issues.”21 Finally, the two factions within the TCU that formed these two parties did not get along, personally or professionally. A simple counterfactual scenario helps further demonstrate this argument: if the two factions within the TCU got along and were friendly with each other, would two parties have formed? Arguably, if the condition of bad interpersonal relations within the TCU were not present, we would have seen one party form instead of two. Reconceptualizing Spatial Openings The idea of a cleavage or spatial opening should not be abandoned. Rather, our understanding of what exactly is “open” ought to be expanded. Similar to the way Ming-sho Ho’s chapter in this volume on the Sunflower Movement recognizes political opportunity structure (POS) to be overly deterministic, spatial openings are also theorized to explain too much. An “opening” understood purely to be related to political cleavages cannot explain how movement parties in Taiwan formed. Just because an existing party advocates for certain political issues does not mean additional parties will not form that articulate the same stances. Political representation itself is not enough to explain party formation. The quality of existing parties, their ability to perform electorally, and their relation to SMOs was

21 

Personal interview, 21 June 2018.

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more important in Taiwan’s case than the position in Taiwan’s political cleavage structure.22 Existing literature on movement party formation places too much importance on political cleavages and political ideological gaps. The goal of this chapter is not to dismiss spatial analysis or cleavage politics, but rather to challenge their explanatory power. The case of Taiwan shows that movement parties can and do form regardless of whether or not existing parties already articulate their stances. If the concept of an opening is expanded to include other dimensions, such as social movement perception of the party, or relations between the party and the social movement, then the idea of an opening begins to become more helpful. For example, the TSU and Green Party, from a purely political perspective, promote the same values as the NPP and SDP. A traditional view of openings would then say that no movement parties should be able to form. However, if we add that social movement actors do not see these parties as viable opposition parties, nor do they have a good relationship with these parties, then there may be more of an opening than we perceive. The case of the Sunflower Movement and its subsequent political parties also demonstrates that the conditions for a movement party deemed necessary by Kitschelt and della Porta cannot account for Taiwan. Although some of their variables are helpful in analyzing Taiwan’s case, they cannot fully explain how and why the NPP and SDP formed. From analyzing the formation of these two parties, additional critical variables become apparent, including: the timing and mode of a social movement, its formation and organization, relations with preexisting parties, and leadership dynamics within social movement organizations. Each of these factors deserves additional inspection and analysis and will be the subject of future research. Conclusion Going forward, political sociologists should reconsider the importance of mass social movements and the role they can play in movement party formation. Movements are often undertheorized when it comes to political party formation theory; however, the case of Taiwan demonstrates that a movement itself can be one of the necessary conditions behind party formation. Had the Sunflower Movement never occurred, the TCU would likely have not been able to form a cohesive political party, let alone two parties. Additionally, the Sunflower protests mobilized young people not 22 

Quality here refers to perceived levels of corruption; a high-quality party is perceived as not corrupt while a low-quality party is seen as corrupt.

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just to vote, but also to actively support these two new political parties. The Sunflower Movement was heavily influential in the formation of the NPP and SDP and had an effect on the DPP as well, especially during the 2016 election. Both movement parties, and eventually the DPP, incorporated Sunflower rhetoric and frames to help their campaigns. The NPP also cooperated with the DPP, allowing for both parties to further succeed during the election (Nachman 2018). The effects of the Sunflower Movement will continue to have direct effects on Taiwan’s electoral landscape for years to come. How and why movement parties form is a complex process and can strongly vary depending on the country’s historical experience. Taiwan demonstrates how movement party formation in consolidating democracies, particularly those where identity is the salient political cleavage, differs from European cases. Although this chapter has identified the “how” and “why” of party formation, additional social scientific inquiry is needed to fully understand the puzzle of movement parties in Taiwan. Appendix TCU Members According to the TCU Facebook Page on 3 March 2014 (Note: This list is incomplete.) Name in Pinyin

Name in Characters Profession

Wang Junqi

王君琦

Professor at Dong Hwa University

Wang Jinshou

王金壽

Professor at Cheng Keng University

Ping Lu

平路

Writer, Cultural Critic

Zhu Malong

朱瑪瓏

Postdoc, Academia Sinica

Wu Yicheng

吳易澄

Psychiatrist

Li Xuanyi

李宣毅

Lawyer

Li Huiren

李惠仁

Documentary Film Maker

Zhou Fuyi

周馥儀

CEO, Laiho Foundation

Lin Renhui

林仁惠

Secretary General, Environmental Lawyers Association

Lin Shiyu

林世煜

Writer (continued)

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Name in Pinyin

Name in Characters Profession

Lin Jinli

林金立

NGO Worker

Lin Jinman

林金滿

NGO Worker

Lin Yurong

林郁容

Doctor

Lin Fengzheng

林峯正

Lawyer

Qiu Yubin

邱毓斌

Professor, Pingtung University

Qiu Liling

邱麗玲

NGO Worker

Qiu Xianzhi

邱顯智

Lawyer

Ke Shaozhen

柯劭臻

Lawyer

Fan Yun

范雲

Professor, National Taiwan University

Xu Shirong

徐世榮

Professor, National Chengchi University

Zhang Meihui

張美惠

NGO Worker

Guo Detian

郭德田

Lawyer

Chen Shangzhi

陳尚志

Professor, Chung Cheng University

Chen Huimin

陳惠敏

Professor, National Taiwan University

Zeng Weikai

曾威凱

Lawyer

Zeng Zhaoming

曾昭明

NGO Worker

Huang Guochang

黃國昌

Researcher, Academia Sinica

Yang Zongli

楊宗澧

NGO Worker

Liu Jiwei

劉繼蔚

Lawyer

Cai Zhongyue

蔡中岳

NGO Worker

Cai Hongzheng

蔡宏政

Professor, Sun Yat-sen University

Cai Peihui

蔡培慧

Professor, Shih Hsin University

Xie Shengyou

謝昇佑

NGO Worker

Xie Ruolan

謝若蘭

Professor, Dong Hwa University

Yan Wanling

嚴婉玲

NGO Worker

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Work Cited Achen, Christopher H., and Te-Yu Wang. 2017. The Taiwan Voter. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Cowell-Meyers, Kimberly B. 2014. “The Social Movement as Political Party: The Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition and the Campaign for Inclusion.” Perspectives on Politics 12, no. 1: 61–80. della Porta, Donatella, Joseba Fernandez, Hara Kouki, and Lorenzo Mosca. 2017. Movement Parties against Austerity. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Downs, Anthony. 1957. “An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy.” Journal of Political Economy 65, no. 2: 135–50. Fell, Dafydd. 2005. Party Politics in Taiwan. Oxford: Routledge. Harmel, Robert, and John D. Robertson. 1985. “Formation and Success of New Parties: A Cross-National Analysis.” International Political Science Review 6, no. 4: 501–23. Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng. 2002. “Continuity and Change in Taiwan’s Electoral Politics.” In How Asia Votes, edited by John Fuh-sheng Hsieh and David Newman, 32–49. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng, and Emerson M. S. Niou. 1996. “Salient Issues in Taiwan’s Electoral Politics.” Electoral Studies 15, no. 2: 219–35. Ho, Ming-sho. 2019. Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Ho, Ming-sho, and Chu-hao Huang. 2017. “Movement Parties in Taiwan, 1987–2016: A Political Opportunity Explanation.” Asian Survey 57, no. 2: 343–67. Huang, Jewel. 2006. “Former DPP Chairman Leaves Party.” Taipei Times, 25 January. www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/01/25/2003290603. Hug, Simon. 2001. Altering Party Systems: Strategic Behavior and the Emergence of New Political Parties in Western Democracies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Jacobs, J. Bruce. 2012. Democratizing Taiwan. Leiden: Brill. Kitschelt, Herbert. 1989. The Logics of Party Formation: Ecological Politics in Belgium and West Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 1993. “Social Movements, Political Parties, and Democratic Theory.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 528, no. 1: 13–29. ———. 2006. “Movement Parties.” In Handbook of Party Politics, edited by Richard S. Katz and William Crotty, 278–90. London: Sage. Lijphart, Arend, and Don Aitkin. 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies, 1945–1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Stein Rokkan, eds. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. Vol. 7. New York: Free Press. Ma, Ngok. 2015. “The Rise of ‘Anti-China’ Sentiments in Hong Kong and the 2012 Legislative Council Elections.” China Review 15, no. 1: 39–66. McAllister, Ian. 2016. “Democratic Consolidation in Taiwan in Comparative Perspective.” Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 1, no. 1: 44–61. Michels, Robert. 1960. (1915.) “The Iron Law of Oligarchy: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy.” Hearst’s International Library Company. Mosca, Lorenzo, and Mario Quaranta. 2017. “Voting for Movement Parties in Southern Europe: The Role of Protest and Digital Information.” South European Society and Politics 22, no. 4: 427–46. Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand. 1990. “Political Success of Green Parties in Western Europe.” In American Political Science Association Conference, San Francisco, vol. 30. Nachman, Lev. 2018. “Misalignment between Social Movements and Political Parties in Taiwan’s 2016 Election: Not All Grass Roots Are Green.” Asian Survey 58, no. 5: 874–97. Niou, Emerson M. S. 2004. “Understanding Taiwan Independence and Its Policy Implications.” Asian Survey 44, no. 4: 555–67. Rigger, Shelley. 2001. From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Rowen, Ian. 2015. “Inside Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: Twenty-four Days in a Student-Occupied Parliament, and the Future of the Region.” Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 1: 5–21. Sheng, Shing-yuan, and Hsiao-chuan (Mandy) Liao. 2017. “Issues, Political Cleavages, and Party Competition in Taiwan.” In The Taiwan Voter, edited by Christopher H. Achen and T. Y. Wang, 98–138. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. Strom, Kaare. 1990. “A Behavioral Theory of Competitive Political Parties.” American Journal of Political Science 34, no. 2: 565–98. Tse-Min Lin, et al. 1996. “Conflict Displacement and Regime Transition in Taiwan: A Spatial Analysis.” World Politics 48, no. 4: 453–81. Van Cott, Donna Lee. 2005. From Movements to Parties in Latin America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wang, Chris. 2013. “Ma’s Ratings Hit Rock Bottom: Poll.” Taipei Times, 9 November. www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/11/09/2003576479. ———. 2014. “Lin Starts Anti-Nuclear Hunger Strike.” Taipei Times, 24 April. www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/04/23/2003588668.

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NINE

The Plebeian Moment and Its Traces Post–Umbrella Movement Professional Groups in Hong Kong

NGOK MA The seventy-nine-day Umbrella Movement did not bring about institutional changes in Hong Kong. It was, however, a major political awakening experience and a massive explosion of participative energy, and it left traces on subsequent movements and political developments in the territory. The experience with this unprecedented movement affected people in different ways. Some were disillusioned with Beijing and “one country, two systems,” and switched to support self-determination or even independence for Hong Kong. For many disappointed participants, the futility of the Umbrella Movement brought helplessness and demobilization. For some people, the movement was just the beginning of their participation in political and social movements.1 This chapter analyzes the experience of new professional political groups formed after the Umbrella Movement, as a study of the “traces” it left. It shows that the Umbrella Movement politicized some of these professionals and their respective sectoral elections. The participation and success of these politicized professionals in the December 2016 subsectoral elections for the election committee, which elected the 2017 chief executive, reflected a generational change in the professions, with the young generation of professionals more politicized and mobilized. This change, however, is still small in scope, much constrained by the institutional structure, and is limited to low-threshold participation forms. Some of these professional groups went on to play important roles in the 2019 Anti–Extradition Bill Movement of Hong Kong. The Umbrella Movement 1  The author would like to thank the General Research Fund (GRF) of the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong (project no. 14607416) for support in funding this project.

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left traces that could have far-reaching effects on the future movements of Hong Kong. The Umbrella Movement as a Plebeian Experience In analyzing occupation movements all over the world in the last ten years, Krastev likened the protests to “plebeian experiences” (Krastev 2014; Breaugh 2013). Such an experience “is an eruption of civic energy that does not crystallize into political parties or organizations, but leaves traces and keeps alive the hope that the world can be changed as a result of the collective action of citizens. It is a moment, not a movement. It is an explosion of subjectivity, and like any explosion, it by nature cannot be sustained” (Krastev 2014, 18). I find this a very apt description and characterization of the 2014 Umbrella Movement (and maybe of Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement as well). Breaugh’s original thesis had the Roman plebs as the founding scene of the “politics of many.” Around 494 bce, the plebs, who were treated as the underclass, abandoned Rome and retreated to the Sacred Mountains, in the process paralyzing Rome. By rejecting the political domination of the patricians, the plebs asserted themselves as political subjects and demonstrated a form of radical equality (Breaugh 2013, 10–11). Breaugh pointed to similar incidents or movements in Western history, including the sans-culottes of Paris during the French Revolution, the London Corresponding Society and the English Jacobins in the late nineteenth century, and the 1871 Paris Commune. These experiences were common in that certain social elements had found themselves excluded from the exercise of collective power and rose to found a “common stage of political equality” (Breaugh 2013, 98). They affirmed a political identity that rejects the identity imposed by the existing “police” order. The power of the plebs did not lie in a monopoly of legitimate use of violence, but in a kind of power that arises when individuals act together in a concerted fashion. This power originates from a new kind of human bond, resisting a totalitarian logic that tries to destroy the relationships between individuals. In this light, this group of “plebeian experiences” arises when people excluded from the current political order manage to act in concert and transform themselves into political subjects. It attests to the presence of a communalist politics of the people based on the direct action of many. It also attests to a desire for freedom and equality, as opposed to domination. One common point for these plebeian experiences was that they were not able to found a sustainable new political order. By rejecting hierarchy, there was an inherent problem of leadership, as a leader designated during a carnival is by nature antihierarchical, playful, and egalitarian. The

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plebeian experiences led to either a new autocracy or a neutralization of this power (Breaugh 2013, 43). However, these movements leave “traces,” as the “plebeian memory” acts as a resource capable of reviving the plebeian principle to resist domination (Breaugh 2013, 241–42). In more ways than one, the Umbrella Movement resembled a plebeian experience. It was a concerted though spontaneous direct action of large masses of ordinary people, who rose to protest their disenfranchisement from the political order. The so-called 8.31 framework handed down by the Chinese government limited the nomination rights for the future chief executive elections to only 1,200 elite members in the nomination committee. This meant that almost all of Hong Kong was deprived of nomination rights and rendered second-class citizens. The imposed system allows Beijing to vet the chief executive candidates before they are put to popular vote, as majority support from the elitist nomination committee is required for candidates to stand in the election. For the protesters, this form of “popular election” after political screening is not a genuine democratic election. It made “I want genuine universal suffrage” (我要真普選) the rallying cry of the Umbrella Movement. The seventy-nine-day occupation was a plebeian experience akin to the examples mentioned by Breaugh in several ways. First, the movement was a resistance to an order imposed from above, by the Beijing powerholders and their allies sitting atop the unequal political-economic regime of Hong Kong. The most important drive for the movement was one for political equality. The demand for “genuine universal suffrage,” “civic nomination,” or an electoral formula consummate with the principles laid down in the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights was nothing more than a quest for political equality, a modest wish that all citizens in Hong Kong be treated equally in terms of political rights. Second, the Umbrella Movement did not have a clear reform blueprint or revolutionary program. Even for the original Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP) Movement, which spent more than one year on discussion and deliberation, the goal was no more than an electoral formula that guarantees equal political rights. It did not have a detailed political reform program. After the spontaneous outbreak on 28 September, the only two consensual positions for the occupiers were “genuine universal suffrage” and “C. Y. Leung stepping down.”2 The latter, of course, was hardly programmatic. The former was no more than a vague plea for an electoral 2 

Whereas the OCLP spent more than one year deliberating, mobilizing, and drawing up reform proposals, the outbreak of the Umbrella Movement was a spontaneous response to the detention of student leaders and police violence on 27–28 September. Many protesters did not come in response to the call of OCLP leaders.

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arrangement that fits general institutional requirements of free and fair elections. The movement was not based on comprehensive reform programs for the economy and society of Hong Kong. Third, the movement made for a new political identity. As Castells (2004) pointed out, in occupation movements the interplay of the occupied urban space and the digital space fosters a new political identity, in the case of the Umbrella Movement a “yellow ribbon” identity. This new identity embodies the love for autonomy, freedom, equality, democracy, peacefulness, and nonviolence. It seeks to capture the moral high ground of “living in truth,” with a purity of purpose and selfless devotion (Hui and Lau 2015). It is meant to fight against an autocratic and business-­dominated regime that is based on oppression, violence, and lies. It has a kind of David versus Goliath spirit, with tiny Hong Kong resisting the omnipotent Chinese partystate. The political awakening, and the spirit of perseverance and defiance against state violence and propaganda, made for a “new Lion Rock spirit,”3 which emphasized, “It is our Hong Kong—we’ve got to save it ourselves” (自己香港自己救), adopted from the Taiwan Sunflower Movement (Veg 2016; Cheng 2016; Hui and Lau 2015; Rühlig 2016). Fourth, the occupation was an emancipative experience of utopian nature. For more than two months, the occupiers experienced a selfmanaged community of freedom and equality. By occupying the busiest thoroughfares in the metropole, they wrestled control of the urban space from the political and economic patriarchs. They were temporarily free from the ordinarily jam-packed and exorbitantly priced homes in Hong Kong, which are products of the hegemonic neoliberal political-economic regime. The experience left an important plebeian imagination, concerning “what might have been,” if they could really take control of the management of the city space. This chapter is not going to recount the process of the seventy-nine-day Umbrella Movement as a plebeian experience. Rather, I am more interested in the traces it left. The movement failed to achieve its original goals. But, it was no doubt an awakening for many who had never or seldom participated in a social or political movement, let alone civil disobedience on such a massive scale. Days before the evacuation, huge banners cropped up at the sites, stating, “We’ll be back!” and “It is only the beginning.” These prompt one to ask in what form the explosion of energy and political awakening brought by the Umbrella Movement will transform 3  The traditional Lion Rock spirit, originating from a popular television series in the late 1970s, refers to a hardworking and self-reliant attitude for economic betterment in the refugee society, with little government help. The new Lion Rock spirit also emphasizes self-­ reliance and perseverance, but is more political and defiant, directed against the omnipotent party state.

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and sustain subsequent movements or moments. Just like the Freedom Summer leaving indelible marks on those who went to Mississippi in 1964 (McAdam 1988), the Umbrella Movement could change the life courses of many a participant. New Professional Groups as Traces Postmovement political participation, such as spin-offs or aftermaths, took place in many forms. A significant effect was the growth of a new self-determination or proindependence movement. This partly grew out of the new political identity after the Umbrella Movement, in the desire for citizens to have a say in deciding the destiny of Hong Kong. It was also partly due to the postmovement disillusionment with “one country, two systems” and the increasing hatred of and detachment from the Chinese government, with many young people believing that it was impossible to have democracy and autonomy under Chinese sovereignty (Kaeding 2017; So 2015). Political groups were formed by Umbrella activists as spin-offs of the movement. The most eye-catching was the one led by Joshua Wong, Demosistō, born from the Scholarism activist group. Other post-Umbrella groups participated in the 2015 district council election and the 2016 Legislative Council (LegCo) election. Some won seats and some lost, without affecting the power balance in Hong Kong. Other post-Umbrella groups vowed to go back to the communities to reactivate civil society, including Umbrella2Neighborhood (Sanluo shequ 傘落社區), Community Citizens Charter (Shequ gongmin yuezhang 社區公民約章), Fixing HK (Weixiu Xianggang 維修香港), Umbrella Parents (Sanxia bama 傘下爸媽), Community March (Shequ qianjin 社區前進), and the like. At the citizens’ level, the traces of the post-Umbrella energy can be witnessed in the record-breaking turnouts of the 2015 district council elections (47 percent) and the 2016 LegCo elections (58 percent). In both cases, young voters went out in droves to vote for prodemocracy candidates and other young and new candidates. In contrast, the turnout for mass rallies dropped dramatically after the Umbrella Movement, as a kind of helplessness set in. After the futility of the movement, people did not believe that putting bodies on the streets could change government decisions. This chapter focuses on the post-Umbrella political groups formed by professionals. I chose these groups to study the traces of the Umbrella Movement for special reasons. For years, the democracy movement of Hong Kong was led by middle-class or service professionals, but the degree of mobilization of middle-class professionals in general had not been high (So and Kwitko 1990; Lui 2003). The professional bodies usually

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adopt a principle of political neutrality and refrain from endorsing parties or candidates during elections. Additionally, professionals in Hong Kong are privileged. Politically, at least nine major professional groupings are protected by the functional constituency (FC) system and similar arrangements in the election committee (EC) that elects the chief executive.4 This guarantees them privileged access to power and seats in the committee and LegCo. Professionals such as lawyers, medical doctors, schoolteachers, engineers, social workers, architects, and accountants have each been guaranteed an elected seat in the seventy-member LegCo since 1997. These professionals are also well paid and well respected in Hong Kong society. However, the post-Umbrella professional groups listed in table 9.1, though usually small in size, were unequivocal about their prodemocracy political positions, and some of them played a major role in the 2016 election committee subsectoral elections. It is thus of interest to study how the Umbrella Movement politicized these professionals, and how their role in subsequent movements and elections would change politics in Hong Kong. In the 2016 LegCo election, the democrats took eight of the nine FC seats representing professionals elected by one-person-one-vote (compared to six of the nine in 2012). The new political groups did not actively participate in the election, with the exception of a couple of sectors. In the December 2016 subsectoral election for the EC for electing the 2017 chief executive, these groups actively mobilized and lined up a full list of candidates in most professions (e.g., thirty candidates for thirty seats in education, legal, health services, etc.), and almost swept all the professional seats in the EC subsectoral elections.5 The results of the election committee subsectoral elections were revealing. The professional subsectors had high turnouts, and the prodemocracy lists all enjoyed high vote shares and won comfortably. Past campaigns for the professional sectors were dominated by sectoral interests (Ma 2013). In this election, almost all the prodemocracy lists ran on a predominantly political agenda, including “genuine universal suffrage,” “anti-8.31,” and “ABC” (All-But-C. Y. Leung). Their remarkable victory more or less reflected a politicization of these elections and the professional voters. In the end, the prodemocracy camp won 325 out of 1,200 EC seats. It was 4 

For details of the FC system, see Ma (2009b). The 1,200-member election committee is made up of four major sectors containing numerous subsectors, divided along FC or sectoral lines. For example, medical doctors elect thirty representatives to the committee, decided by one-person-one-vote from medical doctors. The different professional sectors take up about 360 seats in the 1,200-member committee. The remaining seats mainly go to business, finance, and other pro-Beijing social and political groupings. 5 

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Table 9.1 Post-Umbrella Movement Professional Political Groups Chinese Name English Name

Date of Establishment

Origin of Members

法政匯思

Progressive Lawyers Group

27 Jan. 2015

Barristers, solicitors, and law students

放射良心

Radiation Therapist and Radiographer Conscience

28 Mar. 2015

Diagnostic radiographers and therapeutic radiographers

藝界起動

Artists Action

15 May 2015

Artists

杏林覺醒

Médecins Inspirés

21 Oct. 2015

Medical doctors

護士政改關 注組

Nurses Political Re­­ form Concern Group

2 Apr. 2015

Nurses

護政

Nurse Politik

13 Aug. 2016

Nurses

良心理政

HK Psychologists Concern

28 Apr. 2015

Clinical psychologists and educational psychologists

11 Feb. 2015

Information technology practitioners and university professors

前線科技人員 Frontline Tech Workers 保險起動

Insurance ARISE

25 June 2015

Insurance agents

進步會師

Action Accountants

2 June 2015

Accountants

思言財雋

Financier Conscience

18 Sep. 2015

Financial services professionals

精算思政

Act Voice

16 Apr. 2015

Actuarial professionals

思政築覺

ArchiVision

22 May 2015

Architects, designers and architecture students

量心思政

Surveyor Conscience

13 May 2015

Surveyors

規言劃政

Planners’ Voice

22 May 2015

Urban planners

園境願景

At-grade

22 May 2015

Landscape architects

19 Apr. 2016

Physical therapists

物理治療起動 PhysioAction 本草匡時

CM Doctor Care

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Jan. 2014

Chinese medicine doctors

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close to the maximum number of seats they could possibly win under the current system, as most of the seats were controlled by pro-Beijing business, social, or political groups. The landslide victory of the prodemocracy professionals was at least part of the reason why Beijing did not support C. Y. Leung for a second term in December 2016.6 The following analysis of the post-Umbrella participation of these groups was based on the author’s interviews with representatives of some of the groups, mostly after the December 2017 EC election.7 The focus is on how the Umbrella Movement affected their motivations for participation and the elections, and the thresholds and limitations exposed in the participation experiences. The Politicization of Professionals as Traces Quite a few interviewees admitted that the Umbrella Movement was a major awakening experience for them and their fellow professionals. Before that, some of them had had little political participation, or had not even bothered to register as FC voters or vote in past elections for the election committee or professional bodies.8 The medical doctors had been mobilized to join the movements before the Umbrella Movement. Au Yiu-kai is a doctor who had been participating in the democracy movement for some years but found it difficult to mobilize fellow medical doctors to join. The first breakthrough was the 2012 Anti–National Education Movement. When students from Scholarism started a hunger strike in Civic Square in early September 2012, he sensed a change among his fellow doctors. “A lot of doctors came from the grassroots and saw education as very important. They did not see the movement as a very ideological one, but were worried about brainwashing by the government.” Au sent an e-mail through the A&E Unit of Kwong Wah Hospital, asking for voluntary medical support for the hunger strikers, and got a very good response from the doctors. Two days later about a dozen doctors and several nurses were on standby at Civic Square. “The nurses were so important; they were experts at arranging shift schedules for everybody.” 6 

C. Y. Leung announced he would not seek reelection on 9 December 2016, two days before the EC subsectoral polling day. It was believed that the Liaison Office in Hong Kong had an accurate estimation of the election results. With many Hong Kong businesspeople and pro-Beijing elites privately not supporting a second term for Leung, a huge victory for the democrats meant that it would have been difficult for Beijing to get majority EC support for Leung for a second term. 7  See the appendix for the list of interviewees. 8  This low participation was expressed at least by interviewees R, U, and K.

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When the OCLP was first planned, initiator Reverend Chu Yiu-ming asked Au to help form an “OCLP medical team” (Zhanzhong yiliaodui 佔 中醫療隊) for emergency rescue or medical help during the occupation. At first Au thought it was unnecessary, since he expected the occupation to last no more than two or three days, but Reverend Chu was worried about the conditions of some older participants such as Cardinal Zen and Martin Lee. In July 2014 Au began to organize an OCLP medical team, with the 2012 supporting doctors as the core. He lined up about thirty doctors and about one hundred nurses and first-aiders. Many more came out of their own accord after the firing of tear gas and police beatings on 28 September. Another incident of politicization was the publication of a newspaper advertisement in October 2014 by about five hundred doctors supporting the government and criticizing the Umbrella Movement as a “tumor.” This provoked the younger doctors, who issued a six-hundred-doctor advertisement in support of the movement in response.9 Interviews with the younger professionals revealed the motives or sentiments behind their post-Umbrella participation. Two views were common: (a) something needs to be done if they want to change something, no matter how slim the hope; (b) they wanted to instill hope, especially amid the post-Umbrella helplessness. As professionals they felt the need to openly support democracy, participate in elections, and comment on political and policy issues. The following selected quotes from the interviewees may illustrate their sentiments. [During the Umbrella Movement] . . . ​I felt that if I did not do something, I would not be able to face my family in the future. (Interviewee B) I don’t want people to keep saying that the middle class are all politically apathetic. Somebody has to come out to do something. (Interviewee E) I just want to try to crack it [the Catering FC]. . . . ​If we want to change the political system we need to crack the FC, at least test the waters. (Interviewee I) After the Umbrella Movement, the young guys feel that when you face the injustice of the system, you have to do something. That’s what motivates them to run [in the election committee]. (Interviewee S) Before the Umbrella Movement, I didn’t care. I thought it was useless. The government may be wasting public money, but it was not directly from 9 

This experience was shared by other professions. For example, Interviewee U said that many fellow accountants were enraged by an advertisement issued by “Big Four” firms condemning the Umbrella Movement in October 2014. They were then ready to financially support (maybe not by name) an advertisement in retort.

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my pocket. . . . ​After the Umbrella Movement, the sentiment was changed. It’s not right. There is something unjust in society. If you haven’t tried your best to voice out, you haven’t done your part. If there is a way, you can take the extra step. (Interviewee R) After the Umbrella Movement, there is not much you can do. After largescale resistance, not much you can do. Write a [newspaper] article? Just run [for the election committee] and see what happens. (Interviewee M) We are all very rational. We knew that for a lot of things, even if you do it for a longer time, it may not help. But sometimes if you are too rational, you will just do nothing. (Interviewee C)

For a few candidates (FC and EC), an important motivation was to provide hope, to show that they had not given up trying after the Umbrella Movement. The best example may be Siu Ka-chun, an emcee for the “Big Stage” for many nights at Admiralty during the protests, who ran for and was elected as the Social Service FC legislator in 2016. KM [Chan Kin-man] always said to me: after we leave the sites, we Umbrella people need to instill hope. We cannot show defeatism, especially for those of us initiators. . . . ​To run in an election is to provide hope. Everyone is downtrodden but you would still come out and run for election. . . . ​This is to tell people that we lost but we do not collapse. That is how I designed my campaign slogan: “The Umbrella Movement: Lost but not collapsed; Resilient and strong, we’re back!” [雨傘運動，敗而不潰，繼續 頑強，We’re back!]. We are echoing the “we will be back” slogan during the Umbrella Movement. (Interviewee N) To provide a kind of hope. . . . ​Just like if you are terribly sick, and somebody tells you that there is a certain kind of alternative therapy, like drinking censer ash [香爐灰], you would try it. (Interviewee C, a medical doctor)

The Actual Effects As table 9.1 shows, most of the professional political groups were formed in early 2015. The original motive of these groups was to put pressure on their respective FC legislators to veto the government resolution on the 2017 CE election arrangements in June 2015. Since the government proposal based on the 8.31 framework needed a two-thirds majority to pass, and the progovernment bloc held forty-two of the seventy votes in the LegCo, a swing of five votes from the prodemocracy bloc would allow the “undemocratic” reform proposal to pass. The groups mobilized, including petitioning on the streets to stir public opinion, and demanded their

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legislators and professional bodies to poll their respective professional constituents before voting. For example, the several interviewees from the Health Service sector all had little confidence in their legislator Joseph Lee, and were afraid that he would betray the prodemocracy camp.10 In the end, the pressure paid off, and the government resolution was vetoed with no “democrats” defecting. With a few notable exceptions, the new political groups did not mobilize and had little effect on the course of the 2016 LegCo elections (Ma 2017). The post-Umbrella groups made a major difference in two sectors: the Architectural, Surveying, Planning, and Landscape (ASPL) and the Information Technology (IT) FCs. Professionally trained as an urban planner, Edward Yiu was a university professor. During the occupation he stayed at the occupation sites for numerous nights, taught at the Mobile Democracy Classrooms,11 and was a cofounder of the Community Citizens Charter (CCC; Shequ gongmin yuezhang 社區公民約章) in July 2015. As a post-Umbrella initiative, the CCC pledged to organize movements in local communities, including supporting people to run for the November 2015 district council election. At the Admiralty site Yiu met a group of residents from his own middleclass precinct, Chi Fu Gardens. He ran in the Chi Fu precinct in the 2015 district council election and lost, but got a decent number of votes and received a lot of media attention. Thereafter, he began to consider running for LegCo. After some coordination and deliberation, he was persuaded by other professionals, including those in the post-Umbrella architects’ group ArchVision (Sizheng zhu jue 思政築覺), that he should challenge the conservative incumbent Tse Wai-chuen in the ASPL FC. His campaign team was drawn largely from the post-Umbrella political groups, mostly young professionals in the field, which later formed the main crust of the CoVision 16 team that ran for the ASPL EC subsector. Yiu ran a rather nontraditional campaign. Instead of focusing on sectoral interests, such as how to get more jobs from the China market, he tried to project a vision of a less crowded city, better planning, more community space, and green construction—it was a vision for a more postmaterialist 10  Joseph Lee, who has served as Health Services FC legislator since 2004, was usually considered a “moderate democrat.” More than one interviewee from the sector, when asked what he or she thought about Lee, immediately uttered the term “fence-sitter” (qiangtoucao 牆頭草). 11  The Mobile Democracy Classrooms originated from the initiatives of a number of university professors, who offered free open lectures on democracy and social affairs during university students’ class boycott (22–26 September 2014), the prelude to the Umbrella Movement. These lectures continued at the occupation sites during the movement and up until 2015. See www.facebook.com/civileducationhk.

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profession. “I want to bring back a kind of dignity for professionals. That is, we don’t only serve the clients, but we also want the city to progress . . . ​ and the city’s progress does not only mean economic growth. You need to know how to grow harmoniously with nature.”12 Yiu won by a vote share of 43.4 percent, beating Tse’s 35 percent. He believed that he captured most of the young votes and prodemocracy vote. The IT sector is tricky. It is an FC with IT professionals as voters. Yet there is no clear legally binding criteria to define who an IT professional is. Voter eligibility for the IT FC is based on membership in about twenty associations in the IT sector. These twenty associations, however, vary greatly in nature. Some are professional associations or Hong Kong chapters of international professional associations (e.g., Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, IEEE). Others are loose groups of IT practitioners or groups of IT-related companies in Hong Kong (e.g., Hong Kong Computer Association). The key is that by acquiring membership in any one of these associations, a person is automatically eligible to vote in the IT FC. But the government, or even most of the associations, do not check whether that person is a practicing IT professional or the professional qualifications of the person. The system is thus liable to abuse: parties or candidates can help non-IT people to register and get them to vote. Charles Mok, prodemocracy incumbent legislator for IT FC since 2012, has long claimed that the pro-Beijing camp worked hard to register voters into the IT FC to boost their chances. Eyebrows were raised when voter registration figures for the IT FC were released in June 2016, three months before the election. The number of voters almost doubled from 6,716 in 2012 to 12,109 in 2016.13 The media in general hinted that it was the result of pro-Beijing mobilization. It turned out that a large part came from the voter registration drive by the post-Umbrella group Frontline Tech Workers (FTW; Qianxian keji renyuan 前線科技人員). Weeks before the voter registration deadline, they created a Facebook page explaining the importance of voter registration in IT FC, and urged followers to find one of the twenty associations to register as a member to make themselves IT voters. This message was shared by other post-Umbrella professional groups and their followers and was spread online. They also paid for ads on websites and Facebook pages that IT professionals commonly browsed to mobilize registration. They recommended a couple of associations that are the easiest (and cheapest) in which to register for membership, and provided a one-stop link on their 12 

Interview with Edward Yiu, 8 April 2017. The figures provided by the Vocational Training Council and the Census showed that there were roughly 80,000 to 100,000 IT workers in Hong Kong. 13 

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Table 9.2 Results of IT FC, 2008–2016 Charles Mok’s Vote

Vote Share

Opponent’s Vote

Vote Share

2008

1,982

49.6%

2,017

50.4%

2012

2,828

57.8%

2,063

42.2%

2016

6,253

64.6%

3,425

35.4%

Facebook page to help people register in just a few clicks.14 Charles Mok lost narrowly in 2008 and won in 2012, but in 2016 he won by a comfortable two-to-one margin (see table 9.2). The EC story was much different. Of the eleven professional subsectors that take up 360 of the 1,200 EC seats, some are prodemocracy strongholds that the democrats expected to sweep if they fielded a full list of candidates. These include Education, Social Services, Legal, and Higher Education (a total of 150 seats).15 The remaining sectors had seen mixed results previously, with the prodemocracy camp usually finding it difficult to field a full list of thirty candidates in the subsectors. In 2016, the post-Umbrella groups played an important role in mobilizing new and young professionals to run for the EC seats. The prodemocracy professionals formed an electoral coalition of “Democracy 300+” EC candidates, with common political campaign themes: “ABC” (All-But-C. Y. Leung), “Genuine Universal Suffrage,” and “Oppose 8.31 Framework.” The coalition appealed to the various professional sectors to vote for whole slates of prodemocracy candidates. Democracy 300+ scored a resounding victory, winning almost every possible seat in the professional subsectors. Their high vote share testifies to the politicization of the EC election and a newfound high level of support for democracy among middle-class professionals in Hong Kong (see table 9.3).

14  It is difficult to estimate how many registered because of this drive by FTW. The Charles Mok campaign team estimated it to be somewhere around two thousand. More than one thousand did it through the link on the FTW page (figure provided by FTW), but a large number of IT professionals could go directly to the association websites to register for membership. 15  The EC subsectoral elections adopt a “bloc vote” system. In a thirty-seat subsector, each voter can vote for up to thirty candidates. The logic of this electoral system is that if a camp or group can hold majority support in the subsector, that group can effectively sweep the seats if all their supporters vote for the designated list of candidates.

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Table 9.3 Vote Shares of “Democracy 300+” Candidates in Professional Subsectors Vote % for

Subsector

Total Seats

No. of Seats D300+ Won by Candidates D300+

Highest Lowest D300+ D300+ Candidate Candidate

Closest Loser

Accountancy

30

26

26

57.66

29.64

29.24

Architectural, Surveying, Planning, and Landscape

30

25

25

54.47

34.46

29.41

Chinese Medicine

30

3

3

37.93

34.07

32.28

Education

30

30

30

79.21

63.90

25.21

Engineering

30

20

15

44.13

38.39

38.85

Health Services

30

30

30

53.02

47.76

22.50

Higher Education

30

30

30

71.84

53.53

27.87

Information Technology

30

30

30

63.20

53.00

36.19

Legal

30

30

30

73.31

53.98

44.43

Medical

30

19

19

63.37

50.17

27.48

Social Welfare

60

83

60

76.65

26.78

37.67

Too Much Pragmatism The venture into the EC campaign and subsequent politicking during the chief executive nomination and election period was a baptism of pragmatism for the post-Umbrella professionals. Since 1997, there had been big debates within the prodemocracy camp on whether or not they should participate in this undemocratic form of election for the chief executive, which included fielding candidates for the EC seats and the eventual chief executive election. There have always been more radical elements who hailed a boycott strategy, as they believed participation would only legitimize the undemocratic election. Some saw participating in the chief executive election as a pragmatic strategy to use the very limited political

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space to exert political influence and possibly bring democratic progress. Over the years, the mainstream democrats went from boycotting in 1997 and 2002, to limited participation in 2007, to a higher level of mobilization in 2012 and 2016, to try their best to capture the professional EC seats. Chief executive elections in 2007 and 2012 showed clearly that Beijing could control more than half of the EC votes, as the democrats took about two hundred seats in the 1,200-person EC. The 2012 election, however, made the democrats fancy that holding a larger bunch of EC votes might make a difference. In the 2012 election, Beijing switched to support C. Y. Leung at the eleventh hour, due to major scandals involving the originally designated Henry Tang. The vote count was 689 to 295 in favor of Leung, with quite a few business-sector EC members daring to defy Beijing’s orders and voting for Tang.16 With the abysmal popularity of Leung by 2016, many democrats figured that if there was a split in the pro-Beijing camp, and they could put a larger bloc of EC votes behind a “less conservative” candidate, they could make a difference. This “lesser evil” logic remained the dominant strategy of most democrats up to election day in 2017. The interviewees mostly agreed that their EC candidates were pragmatists. Candidates from the Democracy 300+ covered a wide range of the democratic spectrum, but “localists” or radicals usually did not bother to run for the EC subsector election. The group Médecins Inspirés (Xinglin juexing 杏林覺醒) went through a partial split in 2016 as some more “radical” members disagreed over joining the EC contest and left the group. The general sentiment of the professional EC candidates was that after the Umbrella Movement, they needed to do whatever possible to crack the system, even if the electoral method was undemocratic. “Even within the CCC [社區公民約章] we have done away with the ideological baggage; we decided we have to grab every seat.”17 “My professional friends all hate the FC and EC, feeling that it is unjust, and would boycott and did not participate. But if you boycott, you are letting the system run amok” (Interviewee K). This is in line with the “do something” mentality revealed earlier. For some professions, especially those that had not been a democratic stronghold, a chief motive of the post-Umbrella groups was to not let the conservatives represent their professions. There were still radicals who urged a boycott in 2016. There were two major lists: one in the Social Service subsector (social workers) and one in 16  The democrats held about two hundred EC votes in 2012. With many boycotting voting at the last stage, the Democratic Party candidate Albert Ho in the end got about sixty votes. 17  Interview with Edward Yiu. This view is shared by other post-Umbrella candidates who ran in the traditional FCs that used corporate voting, such as Ng Wing-tak and Au Nok-hin, knowing that they had little chance of winning.

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Tertiary Education (university teachers). Both lists pledged to cast blank votes for the chief executive if they were elected as EC members. Although their candidates were clearly prodemocracy, both lists lost by quite a large margin, reinforcing the message of pragmatism that the professional voters wanted their representatives to use their votes for “a lesser evil.” This technically meant supporting former financial secretary John Tsang, who was regarded as more liberal, more willing to defend the autonomy and core values of Hong Kong, and less subservient to Beijing, and who enjoyed good popularity ratings by 2016. The major prodemocracy parties vested their hopes on Tsang and refrained from fielding a candidate themselves, counting on a possible split within the pro-Beijing camp. The landslide victory of the democrats in the subsectoral elections, which Beijing had accurately predicted before polling day, would be a crucial factor for their giving up on C. Y. Leung. Beijing turned to support Carrie Lam, chief secretary under Leung, whom many in the Hong Kong business sector saw as an acceptable choice. Lam was running against John Tsang and retired judge Woo Kwok-hing. Most prodemocracy ECs believed Tsang was the only hope of beating the Beijing-designated Lam, because of his high popularity and his better support from the business sector, even though Woo’s platform was closer to the democrats’. In the end, the “lesser evil” logic prevailed, as the issue of democratization was largely left aside in the actual chief executive campaign debates. It made little difference, though, as Lam won comfortably by 777 votes to Tsang’s 365, with Tsang’s votes coming mostly from the prodemocracy camp. Pragmatism also prevailed when it came to dealing with the chief executive candidates. Past chief executive campaigns were marked by sectoral bargaining, when sectoral representatives would use their votes to exchange with the prospective chief executive for sectoral benefits, subsidies, and policy help (Ma 2009a; 2016). As previously mentioned, the post-Umbrella professional groups ran on a mostly political platform. A common campaign theme across the sectors was “we will not sacrifice Hong Kong’s interests for sectoral interests”—“Hong Kong interests” meaning the agenda of democratization. However, after the three-horse race was set, some began to adopt a more pragmatic strategy when it became obvious that Carrie Lam had solid support from Beijing and did not need the professional EC votes to win. In closed-door meetings with the candidates, some professional ECs began to focus on sectoral issues. “You know it is meaningless to discuss the political issues with her. So the whole meeting was about two hours, we talked about political issues for the last 10 to 15 minutes, the rest were all about issues in medical health. . . . ​ You know she is going to be the CE, there is no need to pick a fight with her” (Interviewee D). The small-circle election with corporatist features

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has its own operation logic, and is not easily overturned just because of one politicized campaign. At some stage, the pragmatic professionals understood that they could not carry out much political change with their limited EC seats. They figured it was more realistic to fight for resources or policy changes during their valuable chance to talk with the prospective chief executive. Thresholds of Participation A key concept to explain participation in social and political movements is that of threshold (Verhulst and Walgrave 2009). There is a psychological barrier that individuals have to cross when they decide to pay the costs of joining a movement. The perceived or actual costs and risks of participation serves as an important determinant for participation, especially for newcomers (McAdam 1986). Whereas the Umbrella awakening provided the initial push to participate, there remain political and physical costs, as well as psychological barriers, that need to be overcome for these professionals to participate. Some costs and barriers were tangible and political in nature. Some participants talked about fellow “yellow ribbon” nurses being punished after the Umbrella Movement; their mistakes during work were picked on by their superiors and warning letters were issued. Some talked about the big firms or bosses clearly adopting a favoritist attitude toward the progovernment candidates. The favored candidates usually would have more freedom in campaigning or publicity in professional workplaces. Some had their firms or organizations define running for EC as “outside work,” which needed special approval from the employers. Of course, there were superiors making inquiries when they learned that their junior professionals were running on a democratic ticket for the EC. The more important threshold for participation, I argue, was psychological. In general, most of these professionals had well-paid, stable jobs, and indulging in politics was not a high priority for them. A good case in point is the Health Services subsector. This FC sector contains nurses, various therapists, pharmacists, opticians, and other healthcare professionals, with nurses taking up about 60 percent of the registered voters in the sector. In the past EC subsectoral elections, there were only one or two prodemocracy candidates for the thirty seats. It was also the professional sector that had the lowest voter turnout in past EC elections. In 2016, the several new professional groups in the sector managed to put together a list of thirty candidates, including representatives from various professional subsectors, and swept the thirty seats with a high turnout. The interviewees characterized their profession thus: “the pay is okay, extremely stable. . . . ​It is easy to find jobs after graduation, but

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the working hours are very long. Nobody is interested in politics” (Interviewee D). “The more established ones are about forty, pragmatic, stability-oriented. . . . ​[T]hey have a very low sense of crisis. . . . ​They may go to work by taxi every day, and never know how crowded it is in the subways.” “The whole sector is well-paid, like XXX, he is six-digits.18 If you are making six digits, you have no worries in life. So we people must be moderate” (Interviewee G). Several interviewees agreed to a “self-selection logic” in their professions. By nature, these professions are stable and well paid, working according to fixed procedures or codes of practice under highly specialized job types. These professions are well protected by a high entry barrier in Hong Kong, and from the very beginning they attracted people who are in-the-box, who crave stability, and who believe that their lives and jobs can be protected if they play by the rules. This means that these professions attract people, even as early as during college, who are less rebellious and even less likely to challenge the rules after they settle down.19 When I started my interviews, I had in mind one major puzzle: why did so few of these post-Umbrella groups participate in the FC election, and yet were more active and highly mobilized in the EC election? The voter bases and eligibility criteria were essentially the same, and the two elections were only three months apart. Interviewees from different professions mostly explained this by the different participation thresholds. To run for an FC seat, the candidate needed sufficient standing or seniority in the related professional field because of the hierarchy of authority in the professions. These post-Umbrella professionals were usually “too young.” Additionally, not many of them were ready to leave their professions to serve as a full-time politician or legislator. They were all at a developing stage of their professional lives and were hesitant to sacrifice their career development for political aspirations. A common and strong explanation was, ironically, “there is not much work in running for an EC seat.” Most interviewees said that it was much easier to convince fellow professionals to join their EC candidate lists. They would usually say: (a) there was not much campaign work; (b) the task was short term, practically from October 2016 to March 2017; (c) other than the election, there was no daily work. This contrasted sharply with running for the FC seat, which was at least a four-year commitment of full-time political work as a legislator. 18 

“Six-digits” means a monthly salary of at least HK$100,000 (approx. US$13,000). Interviewees from accountancy and various health services professions generally shared this view. They would contrast their training with that of lawyers, social workers, and other more “critical” professions. 19 

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The Generational Game The rise of these new professional political groups and their electoral victory represents a new generational challenge. First, these groups were formed and led by younger professionals (usually around thirty to forty years old), relatively junior in their professions. Second, their electoral success posed a challenge to the dominance of the more senior powerholders in the respective professions, reflecting the dissatisfaction of the young generation of professionals. As previously mentioned, in selected professions there was a significant hierarchy of authority. Senior professionals who have good “standing” are well-respected and influential. In some sectors, they usually come from the largest firms (e.g., engineering, ASPL, accounting) or are at management level (e.g., social welfare, medical and health services). Their defeat in the EC elections reflected a change in sentiment and structure of power in the respective professions. It was the result of the political action of a more politicized younger generation, who were more likely to vote by political standards than by the “standing” in the sector. It also means that the old formula of “sectoral interests” is gradually losing its appeal to younger professionals, with the change in attitudes and career opportunities. Most interviewees agreed that they got most of their support from “young” voters, with the age cutoff at about thirty-five or forty. In terms of attitude, the younger generation had a better political consciousness, partly triggered by the Umbrella Movement, were more postmaterialist, had a stronger feeling of social injustice, and were more conscious of societal problems. Joseph Ng, a university professor in his fifties who was running for EC for the third time, saw the generational difference. “The younger guys think we should talk about general principles, not sectoral interests.” Interviewees B and C were both young public hospital doctors. They experienced firsthand the population pressure and the immense burden posed by immigrants and visitors from China on public hospitals, which more or less turned them into “localists.” They believed that public hospital employees were a stronghold of prodemocracy support because they were usually younger and more politically oriented. Some of the young professionals now also adopted a different attitude to work. “As accountants we are used to working long hours. Seven days a week. Sometimes work until 3 or 4 a.m. Then come back to work again at 9 or 10. We were praised [as] ‘hardworking’ when we were young. . . . ​Now the young guys are different. They will say no OT, no OT even with extra pay. They will query: why should I do that? . . . ​Some said: we build our career at the expense of our fresh liver” (Interviewee U). If the young professionals

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are more postmaterialist, the materialist appeals of the professional leaders in elections will be weakened. The progovernment camp has always claimed that they can maintain a better relationship with China, bringing more jobs and business opportunities. This has gradually lost its appeal among young professionals. With the sectors becoming more monopolistic, it is more difficult for young professionals in Hong Kong to start up or serve as partners in a firm. As a result, they believe that more business opportunities for a sector will only benefit the big bosses or big firms, while employees themselves will not benefit much. “It is the bosses who are going to make more money, it is none of my business. . . . ​If you ask the big stars of the profession to endorse or campaign for a certain candidate, it is counter-productive for our generation. These are the guys we hate most; it is these guys who make us OT” (Interview K). This also happened in the service-oriented professions. As early as the 2004 FC election, following increased marketization of social services, the frontline social workers had turned more radical and voted against candidates representing the management level (Ma 2013). The changing professional training also led to changing power relations within the professions. Interviewee E said the older generation of nurses were trained in nursing schools, which were like apprentice systems; students were very obedient. Nurses under thirty-five were mostly university trained. The training was more evidence based and the graduates were more likely to question authority. The demographic change was also shaking the power balance in most professions. With the expansion of tertiary education in Hong Kong in the last ten to fifteen years, the number of professionals that entered the fields of practice increased rapidly.20 This means upward mobility is getting more difficult because of competition, as middle-aged professionals will invariably face bottlenecks in their career paths. It also means that as years go by, the more politicized younger generation will make up a larger and larger portion of the FC electorate, gradually changing the power balance of the FC electoral game.21 The Umbrella Legacy and the Anti–Extradition Bill Movement Selected professional groups played a significant role in the 2019 resistance movement that was triggered by opposition to the Extradition Bill. 20 

For example, the number of architects that graduate each year now may be three or four times as many as thirty years ago. 21  This provides an interesting contrast to the popular elections. With a low birth rate and longer life expectancy in Hong Kong, an aging population means that younger voters make up a smaller and smaller portion of the electorate in popular elections in Hong Kong.

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The new professional political groups were the first ones to voice opposition to the proposed bill, with nineteen professional groups issuing a joint petition as early as March 2019. These groups also helped to mobilize people to join the mass rallies in June and called for the abrogation of the bill in mid-June. Three professions played particularly significant roles in the 2019 Anti– Extradition Bill Movement. The politicization of the legal sector brought about the first crop of “human rights lawyers” in Hong Kong, who had set up a network for providing legal support to activists following the Umbrella Movement. As soon as violent confrontations started in June 2019, a network of about two hundred lawyers offered organized legal support for the arrestees. Most protesters would memorize by heart the two twenty-four-hour hotlines they could call to get legal support should they be arrested. In the first six months of the movement, the police made more than six thousand arrests. Lawyers, many of whom were working pro bono, would try to make sure that the rights of the arrestees were respected, and spent long hours in courts fighting for bail and better bail terms, and protesting against the abuse of process. Since some of the arrestees were denied access to phones to find a counsel when they were detained, on numerous occasions lawyers needed to run around to different police stations and waited for long hours before they could see their possible clients to try their best to protect the rights of the arrestees. Medical doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers were important actors in the 2019 movement. First of all, in months of frontline confrontation with riot police, the voluntary first-aiders were the ones who provided immediate treatment to injured protesters. After the police crackdown on 12 June, some of the injured protesters were arrested when they sought treatment in hospitals. In the months that followed, quite a few protesters would refuse to go to hospitals for treatment for fear of getting arrested. Some doctors set up “underground clinics” for treatment of these injured protesters. Escalation of police violence in August drove healthcare professionals to come out into the open against police abuse. On 13 August 2019, enraged doctors and nurses in thirteen hospitals staged rallies in their respective hospitals to protest undue police violence. They claimed that a lot of the arrestees sent from the police had severe injuries, such as broken limbs and internal bleeding, signs of serious beatings and ill treatment during detainment. There were more protests in hospitals and public rallies by healthcare professionals as police brutality mounted, making a powerful accusation against the regime’s inhuman treatment of protesters. Social workers had been at the frontline of protests since June, trying to negotiate conflicts and provide psychological support to the distressed

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protesters. This was a risky endeavor as they were as likely to be attacked by tear gas and rubber bullets as other frontline protesters. After August, the police increasingly saw all parties who tried to act as liaisons (including first-aiders, politicians, and social workers) as standing in their way of arresting and dispersing protesters. Scores of social workers, first-aiders, councillors, and even reporters were arrested, with some social workers charged with rioting. This, however, did not stop them from appearing on the frontline in the most confrontational of occasions. Conclusion This study shows the awakening effects of the Umbrella Movement on professionals and on the 2016 FC and EC elections. In 2016, the number of new participants was still small. The interviewees who had more movement experience admitted that the Umbrella Movement had mobilized only a few people. The ones who came out and formed the groups were politicized, but the growth was slow and small. The interviewees generally thought that the formation of these groups helped as the label of a professional group made it easier for them to get publicity and engage in political or policy issues. The twenty or so post-Umbrella professional groups could work together in movements and social actions, and learn from each other about sectoral issues and movement experiences. Yet most of the professionals still prioritized their own career development, and would choose participation forms of a lower threshold. For most professionals in the sectors, the participation level stops at voting—but this can nonetheless have an effect. If we see the 2016 EC subsectoral elections as a reflection of an ongoing generational challenge, then future elections for FC, EC, and professional bodies should favor candidates with prodemocracy inclinations.22 Over time, this nexus of professional representation can form an important core for defending Hong Kong’s autonomy, rule of law, and original way of life. It is not as easy for Beijing to control them as Beijing had imagined, despite the increasing economic strength of China in Hong Kong. The Umbrella Movement explosion left many traces in the community. The seeds were planted; they simply await new political opportunities and the accumulation of more resources and experiences to blossom and bear fruit. The hybrid nature of the regime somehow restricts the participation venues to the sectoral elections, which nonetheless make up only a minor 22  This claim was more or less supported by the victory of prodemocracy members in the elections of the Hong Kong Bar Association and Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants in 2017.

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part of the formal power structure. The explosion of dissent in 2019 showed how these awakening effects can be magnified. The new professional groups could make good use of their knowledge and institutional positions to play a proactive role in a new movement of unprecedented scale and energy. They could pose major nodes of resistance for some time to come. Appendix Interviewees and Their Backgrounds Code

Name

Profession

Political Status

Interview Date

A

Au Yiu Kai

Medical Doctor

EC member 2007, 2012, 2017

27 May 2017

B

Wong Yum-hong

Medical Doctor

EC member 2017, 12 July 2017 Médecins Inspirés founder

C

Kwong Po-yin

Medical Doctor

EC member 2017, district councillor, localist, former Youngspiration member

26 July 2017

D

Wan Hoi-wing

Physical Therapist

EC member 2017, from Physioaction

1 June 2017

E

Chik Nga-yin

Nurse

EC member 2017, Nurse Politik

31 May 2017

F

Ip Kim-ching

Clinical Psychiatrist

Active Umbrella Movement participant, EC member 2017

25 May 2017

G

Hung Chee-yin

Radiation Therapist

EC member 2017, from Radiotherapist and Radio­ grapher Conscience

2 May 2017

H

Kwan Ka-lun

Chinese Herbalist

EC member 2017, member of CM (Chinese Medical) Doctor Care

27 July 2017

I

Ng Wing-tak

Chef

Candidate for Catering FC 26 Aug. 2016 in 2016 LegCo elections, lost to incumbent Tommy Cheung

J

Edward Yiu

Professor, Urban Planner

Elected in ASPL FC in 2016 LegCo elections, seat forfeited in July 2017

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Code

Name

Profession

Political Status

K

Kwan Siu-lun

Architect

Member of ArchVision campaign team for Edward Yiu, EC member 2017

25 Apr. 2017

L

Paul Chan

Landscape Architect

EC member 2017

12 Apr. 2017

M

Chan Yin-lun

Landscape Architect

EC member 2017, localist

12 Apr. 2017

N

Siu Ka-chun

Social Work Lecturer

MC for the Big Stage at Admiralty during the Umbrella Movement, elected to Social Services FC legislator in 2016

30 June 2017, 20 July 2017

P

Chan Ching-wah

Social Worker

1989 student activist in Beijing, EC member 2012, 2017

16 June 2017

Q

Charles Mok

IT

Elected to FC for IT in 2012 8 Apr. 2017 and 2016

R

Ricke Hor

IT

Frontline Tech Workers member

28 Apr. 2017

S

Joseph Ng

Professor of Computer Science

EC member, 2007, 2012, 2017

28 Apr. 2017

T

Kevin Yam

Lawyer

Progressive Lawyers Group

30 June 2017

U

Accountants

Accountants Three accountants who were elected to the Institute of Certified Public Accountants; one EC member, supporter of the Democratic Action Accountants (民主進步會計師)

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Interview Date

21 Dec. 2017

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Works Cited Breaugh, Martin. 2013. The Plebeian Experience: A Discontinuous History of Political Freedom. New York: Columbia University Press. Castells, Manuel. 2004. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. London: Polity Press. Cheng, Edmund. 2016. “Street Politics in a Hybrid Regime: The Diffusion of Political Activism in Post-Colonial Hong Kong.” China Quarterly 226 (June): 383–406. Hui, Po-keung, and Kin-chi Lau. 2015. “‘Living in Truth’ versus Realpolitik: Limitations and Potentials of the Umbrella Movement.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16, no. 3: 348–66. Kaeding, Malte P. 2017. “The Rise of ‘Localism’ in Hong Kong.” Journal of Democracy 28, no. 1 (January): 157–71. Krastev, Ivan. 2014. “From Politics to Protest.” Journal of Democracy 25, no. 4 (October): 5–19. Lui, Tai-lok. 2003. “Rearguard Politics: Hong Kong’s Middle Class.” Developing Economies 41, no. 2 (June): 161–83. Ma, Ngok. 2009a. “Reinventing the State or Rediscovering It? From Low-­ Interventionism to Eclectic Corporatism.” Economy and Society 38, no. 3 (August): 492–519. ———. 2009b. “Twenty Years of Functional Representation in Hong Kong: Exclusive Corporatism or Alternative Democratic Form?” Representation 45, no. 4 (November): 421–33. ———. 2013. Gangshi fatuan zhuyi: Gongneng jiebie ershiwu nian [Corporatism in Hong Kong: Twenty-five years of functional constituencies]. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press. ———. 2016. “The Making of a Corporatist State in Hong Kong: The Road to Sectoral Intervention.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 46, no. 2 (February): 247–66. ———. 2017. “Functional and Sectoral Elections in Hong Kong: The Study of Corporatist Campaigns.” Paper presented at the International Studies Association in Hong Kong, June 16–18. McAdam, Doug. 1986. “Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer.” American Journal of Sociology 92, no. 1 (July): 64–90. ———. 1988. Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford University Press. Rühlig, Tim. 2016. “‘Do You Hear the People Sing’ ‘Lift Your Umbrella’?.” China Perspectives 4 (April): 59–68. So, Alvin. 2015. “The Making of Hong Kong Nationalism.” In Asian Nationalism Reconsidered, edited by Jeff Kingston, 135–46. London: Routledge, 2015.

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So, Alvin, and Ludmilla Kwitko. 1990. “The New Middle Class and the Democratic Movement in Hong Kong.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 20, no. 3: 384–98. Veg, Sebastian. 2016. “Creating a Textual Public Space: Slogans and Texts from Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.” Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 3 (August): 673–702. Verhulst, Joris, and Stefann Walgrave. 2009. “The First Time Is the Hardest? A Cross-National and Cross-Issue Comparison of First-Time Participants.” Political Behavior 31: 455–84.

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Contributors

Edmund W. Cheng is associate professor in the Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong. Thomas Gold is professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Brian Hioe is a freelance writer covering social movements and politics, and holds an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University. He is based in Taipei. Ming-sho Ho is professor in the Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University. Chun-hao Huang is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology, Tunghai University. Wai-man Lam is associate professor in the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Open University of Hong Kong. Liang-ying Lin is a master’s student in the Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University. Ngok Ma is associate professor in the Department of Government and Public Administration, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lev Nachman is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of California, Irvine. Judith Pernin is a researcher at the French Center for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC), Hong Kong. Ian Rowen is assistant professor of geography and urban planning in the School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Sebastian Veg is professor of the intellectual history of modern and contemporary China at EHESS, Paris.

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Index

1992 Consensus, 101 2016 LegCo election (Hong Kong), 10, 232–33, 238, 250. See also electoral politics 31 August Decision (of National People’s Congress Standing Committee), 8, 20, 28, 33, 76. See also 8.31 Decision 8.31 Decision, 23, 76, 79, 83. See also 31 August Decision Academia Sinica, 46, 135, 205, 217, 224, 225 activism: and electoral politics, 89–91, 131–35; and localism (Hong Kong), 68–70, 72, 74–76; and protest documentary, 187–88, 193; and social movements, 10–11, 49, 59, 122; assertive expressive, 79–83; cultural, 161, 164; digital, 25; in Taiwan, 42, 44, 99, 109, 114, 121–22, 200, 212; negotiative, 76–79; transnational, 53; yong mo, 83–89 Admiralty (Hong Kong), 2, 24, 33–35, 77, 107, 163–64, 238; and Occupy Central Campaign, 81–82; and protest documentary, 189–90; and protest music, 166; Lennon Wall, 46, 156; main stage (“big stage”), 30, 32, 158, 237, 251 Ah P (Lam Pang), 161 Ai Jing, 150 An Tu, 82 Anti–Extradition Bill Movement (2019),

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1n1, 12, 13, 14, 21, 36, 68, 80, 126, 169, 185n13, 194; and professional groups in Hong Kong, 247–50; and the Umbrella Movement, 37, 247–49. See also Extradition Bill Anti–High Speed Rail protest (2010), 152 Anti–Media Monopoly Movement (2011), 6, 6n7, 13, 120, 206, 217 Anti–Moral and National Education Movement (2012), 103. See also Anti– National Education Movement Anti–National Education Movement (2012), 6, 21, 27, 75, 152, 153, 235. See also Anti–Moral and National Education Movement April Fifth Action Group, 73 Arab Spring, 19, 49 ArchVision, 238 Article 23 (of the Basic Law), 33, 166, 187 Au, Nicole, 161 Au Yiu-kai, 235 aurality, 141 authoritarianism, 70, 81, 85, 115 Barriers Team, 35 Basic Law (Hong Kong), 8, 10, 108, 161, 165; and “one country, two systems,” 2–5; and the 31 August Decision, 76; and Article 23, 187 black box (politics), 51; and the Sunflower Movement, 4, 5n5, 52–53, 64, 100, 102; visuality of, 119–20, 124, 129

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256Index Black Island Nation Youth Front (Black Island Youth Front), 6, 63, 100 Cai Boyi, 192 Cantopop, 149; and Mandopop, 138, 158–61; and musical identity, 151, 168–70; and protests in Hong Kong, 12, 149–54 Castells, Manuel, 17, 18, 25, 231 Causeway Bay (Hong Kong), 2, 107, 190 Chan, Benny, 187 Chan Kin-man, 76, 78, 189n22, 237 Chan, Sanmu, 186 Chan Tze-woon, 188n20, 190 Chang Hsiao-hung, 46 Chang, Longson, 121n4, Cheang Shu-Lea, 183, 185 Chen Chieh-jen, 183 Chen Shang-chih, 205, 216 Chen Wei-ting, 205; and mainlandization, 108; and movement party formation, 220; and protest documentary, 192; and the Sunflower Movement, 97, 102, 116n2, 123, 217; as visual spectacle, 131 Cheng Chi-Hung, 185 Cheng, Edmund W., 10 Cheng, Joseph Yu-shek, 106 Cheng Nan-jung, 64, 142 Cheung, Leslie, 158 Cheung, Tammy, 186–87, 188n20 Chi, Robert, 165–66 Chin Wan-kan (Chin Wan), 83, 85–87, 105, 153 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 4; and Sunflower Movement, 3, 7–8, 210; and Umbrella Movement, 3, 7–8, 97, 102, 104–5, 107–9, 162 Chinese Nationalist Party, 202, 204. See also Kuomintang (KMT) Chinese tourism, 12; and Hong Kong, 96–97, 103–10; and Taiwan, 96–97, 101, 109–10 Chinese University of Hong Kong, 28, 60

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Chiu Yi, 129–30 Choi, Jimmy, 185n10 Choi Sai-Ho, 186 Chow, Alex, 11, 21, 81 Chow Lai-mau, 152 Chow Yiu-fai, 150, 154, 164 Chu, Birdy, 186 Chu, Stephen Yiu-wai, 151, 161n27, 167n42 Chu Yiu-ming (Reverend), 76, 189n22, 236 City University of Hong Kong, 106 Civic Passion, 22, 24, 33–34, 83, 89, 107 Civic Square, 23, 27, 28, 32, 79, 235 Civil Awakening (Taiwanese documentary): 190–91 civil disobedience: and the Umbrella Movement, 11, 23, 33–34, 60, 69, 76–81, 195, 231; and Yong Mo activism, 83; in Taiwan, 56, 181–82 civil society: in Hong Kong, 3, 68, 71, 80, 108, 232; in Taiwan, 97, 102, 110, 135, 179, 192, 194; and social movements, 6–7 civility: and Chinese tourism, 103, 107; and Hong Kong identity, 11, 33, 68–91 collective action, 7–8, 17–18, 20, 25, 37–38, 229 collective memory, 26–27, 147–54 colonialism, 11, 69 Community Citizens Charter (CCC), 232, 238, 242 Community Service (a Taiwanese band), 137 Concentric Patriotism Association, 102 connective actions, 17, 19–20, 27 constitutional reform, 5–8, 28–30 Cornell University, 217 Coulthard, Glen, 70 crony capitalism, 161–62 Cross-Strait Service and Trade Agreement (CSSTA), 4–6, 8, 42, 52–54, 58, 63–64, 97–102, 110, 120, 124; and

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Index Chinese tourism, 97–98, 102; and Ma Ying-jeou, 210 cross-strait tourism, 97, 99, 102, 106. See also Chinese tourism Cui Jian, 150 Cultural Revolution, 72 cyberbalkanization, 18, 33 decolonization, 70–71, 74, 79, 86, 88–89 Della Porta, Donatella, 42, 201, 210, 223 democratic nationalism, 11, 53–57, 64 Democratic Party (Hong Kong), 28, 84, 242n16 Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), 6, 10, 13, 42, 51, 63, 101, 110, 118, 178; and CSSTA, 97–99; and electoral politics, 132, 142, 202, 224; and movement party formation, 132, 134–35, 141–42, 204, 205, 208, 209, 214, 221; and Taiwanese protest documentary, 180 Demosistō, 83, 232 denationalization, 72 Deng Xiaoping, 151 depoliticization, 72–73, 76–78 District Council (Hong Kong), 10, 232, 238, 250. See also electoral politics Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), 4, 98 Eisenstein, Sergei, 176 Election committee (EC), 7n9, 13, 118, 228, 233–37, 243. See also Legislative Council (LegCo) electoral politics, in Hong Kong, 32, 237–44; in Taiwan, 114, 122, 131–32, 135, 140–42 Euromaidan Revolution (2013–2014), 19 eventful protests, 26, 42 Executive Yuan, 2, 51–52, 114, 130–31, 142 Extradition Bill (Hong Kong), 68, 70, 80, 82, 87, 89. See also Anti–Extradition Bill Movement (2019)

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257 extremism, 12, 70 Facebook, 17, 23–24, 33–34, 57n3, 63, 159; and FC elections in Hong Kong, 239; and TCU, 207, 224; and visual language, 103, 132n8, 159 Falun Gong, 102–3 Fan Yun, 135, 205, 209, 211–19, 225 Fanon, Frantz, 70 Fire EX (Taiwanese band), 136–37, 139–41, 159, 169 First Opium War (1840–1842), 2, 152 five-party platform (Hong Kong), 6, 23–4, 26–7, 35 Foreign Ministry (Beijing), 160 Free Taiwan Party, 133, 200 Freedom Summer (1964), 232 Freeman, Jo, 19 Frontline Tech Workers, 239, 251 Fu Yue, 189, 192–93 functional constituency (FC), 233, 235–40, 242, 244–45, 247, 249–51. See also Legislative Council (LegCo) Fung, Billy Jing-En, 81 Fung, Fiona, 158 Fung, Makin Bing-Fai, 185 Fung, May Mei-Wah, 185 Ghonim, Wael, 19 Godber scandal, 73 Gold, Thomas, 68n1, 151 Golden Bauhinia Square, 27–28 Green Citizen’s Action Alliance (GCAA), 137 Green Party (Taiwan), 202, 204, 206; and the Taiwan Citizen’s Union, 208–10, 221, 223 Green Team, 180–82, 185, 187 Grin without a Cat, 176–77, 190 High Court (of Hong Kong), 29 Hioe, Brian, 12, 123n5, 127, 134 Ho, Albert, 242n16 Ho, Denise, 151, 155, 158, 160, 166

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258Index Ho, Ming-sho, 11, 126, 222 Hong Kong Alliance (in Support of Patriotic and Democratic Movements of China), 152 Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), 6; and the Umbrella Movement, 24–26, 28–30, 32–34; and assertive-expressive activism 79–81; and yong mo activism, 84 87, 90. See also five-party platform (Hong Kong) Hong Kong independence, and Chinese tourism, 105–6, 108; and professional groups in Hong Kong, 228, 232; and yong mo activism, 11, 81, 83, 85, 87–88 Hong Kong Indigenous, 83–86, 107 Hong Kong National Party, 83, 86 Hong Kong Resurgence, 22, 24, 33–34, 83, 89 Hou Dejian, 150–51 Hsiao Chia-chi, 131 Hsu Hsin-liang, 180 Hu Tai-li, 181 Hu Yaobang, 151 Huang, Chun-hao, 11 Huang Kuo-chang, 205; and CSSTA, 100; and movement party formation, 212, 214, 217–20; and the Sunflower Movement, 123, 133, 217–88. See also New Power Party (NPP) Hung Tzu-yung, 213, 218 hybridity: of Hong Kong identity, 11, 68, 71, 74, 79, 83, 87, 157; of collective and connective actions, 20, 38 identity: and democratic nationalism, 56; and protest documentary, 179, 181, 193; and the Sunflower Movement, 22, 27, 45, 47, 49–50, 55, 101; Cantopop, 149, 151, 168–70; Chinese, 168; collective, 18–19, 25, 147; cultural, 150; Hong Kong, 11–14, 68–76, 79–80, 83, 86–90, 149, 154, 158, 160, 166, 169, 194, 229, 231–32; in Hong Kong and Taiwan, 5; local, 9, 177–78; musical, 147–70; national, 154; spatial, 37; Taiwan,

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58, 63, 117, 138, 182, 201, 224. See also nationalism International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, 230 Ip, Deanie, 166 Ip, Regina, 107 Jay, Martin, 124 Jones, Andrew, 147n1, 149–50, 168n44 June Fourth vigil, 148, 152–53, 166, 168 Kano (film), 117, 133 Kaohsiung Incident (1979), 206 Kenny G, 160 Ko Wen-je, 140, 142 Koo, Joseph, 167 Kuan, Hsin-chi, 73 Kuomintang (KMT), 3; and movement party formation, 202–10, 213, 216–17, 221; and social movements in Taiwan, 115, 117; and Taiwanese (language), 138; and the CCP, 4; and the DDP, 13; and the Sunflower Movement, 42, 51, 98–102, 109, 120; and visual language, 128–30. See also Chinese Nationalist Party Kwong, Chung-ching, 86 Lai, Michael, 161n27, 164 Lam, Carrie, 29, 243 Lam, Wai-man, 11 Lau, Andy Tak-wah, 150, 158 Lau Ka-yee, 108 Lau, Siu-kai, 73 Law Chi-kwong, 27 Law, Nathan, 108 leadership: of Huang Kuo-chang, 217–23; of the CCP, 101–3; of the DPP, 99; social movement, 5–6, 10–11, 17–38, 49, 53, 57–64, 79, 84, 123, 136, 138, 140, 194–95, 204, 209–14, 229 League of Social Democrats (LSD), 75 Lee Chien-fu, 150 Lee, Hacken, 166 Lee Ken-cheng, 205, 209

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Index Lee, Kevin, 182 Lee, Martin, 236 Lee Teng-hui, 54, 97 Legislative Council (LegCo), 3; and 2016 LegCo election, 232–35; and Donald Tsang, 162; and the Umbrella Movement, 27, 32–33, 37, 76, 89, 104, 192 Legislative Yuan, 96, 98; and the Sunflower Movement, 1–5, 8, 10–12, 52, 100–102, 114–42, 159; in Sunflower Occupation, 192; and movement party formation, 202n2, 210, 213 Lennon Wall, 37, 46, 156 Leung, Albert (Lin Xi), 158, 169 Leung, Brian Kai-ping, 89 Leung, Chun-ying (Leung, C. Y.), 75; and the Umbrella Movement, 5, 7–8, 28, 107, 118, 164, 230, 233–35, 235n6, 240, 242–43 Leung, Edward Tin-kei, 85, 88, 89, 170, 192 Leung, Kwok-hung (Long Hair), 75 Li Peng, 185 Liberation of Sheung Shui, 105 Lim, Freddy, 133, 140, 170, 205, 212, 218 Lin Fei-fan, 205; and Kano, 117n3; and movement party formation, 217, 220; and the Sunflower Movement, 50; and the Umbrella Movement, 109; and visuality, 123, 131 Lin Feng-cheng, 205, 207, 212–15, 218 Lin, Liang-ying, 11 Lin, Michael, 204, 207, 209, 212–18 Lin Sheng-xiang, 140–41 Lin Tay-jou, 183 Lin Yi-hsiung, 204–9, 215–17 Lin Yi-meng, 219 Lingnan University, 105 Lion Rock spirit, 166–68, 231 Liou, Johanne, 123 Lo, Lowell, 152 localism, 11, 68, 83 London School of Economics, 220 Lu, Jennifer, 205, 213 Lung Ying-tai, 135

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259 Luo Ying-shay, 118 Ma, Ngok, 13 Ma Ying-jeou, 2, 4, 7, 42, 52–53, 58–59, 64, 118, 128; and Chinese tourism, 96–98, 110; and movement party formation, 210 Maher, Ahmed, 19 mainland China, 8, 99; and Chinese tourism, 97, 104, 106; and protest documentary, 178, 182, 192; and protest music, 159–60, 162; and Taiwan, 43; and the Anti–Extradition Bill Movement, 5n4; and the Umbrella Movement, 28; Cultural Revolution, 72 mainlandization, 23, 105–6, 108–10 Mak, Anson, 179 Mandela, Nelson, 84, 152 Mandopop, and Cantopop, 137–38, 158–61 Marker, Chris, 176, 190 May Day (Taiwanese band), 137, 159–60 Médecins Inspires, 234, 242, 250 Miao Po-ya, 205, 213, 219 Minato Chiriho, 46 Ministry of Public Security (Beijing), 108 Mok Chiu-Yu, 186 Mongkok (Hong Kong), 2, 6, 24, 29, 32–34, 35, 107, 142; “Shopping Revolution,” 32, 34; and protest documentary, 192; and protest music, 155, 163–65; See also Mongkok Unrest (2016) Mongkok Unrest (2016), 75, 85, 89 movement party formation (Taiwan), 200–201, 203–4, 211–13, 220–24; and factionalization, 213–15; and Huang Kuo-chang, 217–19 My Little Airport (MLA), 161–65, 169–70 Nachman, Lev, 13 National Anthem Law (Hong Kong), 88, 139, 165, 169 National League of Workers of Closed Factories (Taiwan), 57

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260Index National People’s Congress (NPC): and Hong Kong, 10; the 31 August Decision of, 4–5, 8, 20, 23, 28, 33 National Taipei University, 44, 47 National Taiwan University, 205, 209, 225 nationalism: Chinese, 71, 73, 83, 149–50, 166; cultural, 149–52, 166; democratic, 11, 53, 56, 64; ethno-, 105; Hong Kong, 89, 186; musical, 150; Taiwanese, 11, 55–57, 64, 138 New Party (Taiwan), 202 New People’s Party (Hong Kong), 107 New Power Party (NPP), 13, 133–34, 140–42; and movement party formation, 200–224; and Social Democratic Party, 203–24 New Territories, 2, 106–7, 163 New York Times, 29, 132 New Youth Barbershop, 161, 163 Nie Er, 166 Nieh, Aaron, 132 North District Parallel Imports Concern Group, 105 Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), 6, 11, 23, 27–30, 60, 75–81; and protest music, 156–57, 163; and protest documentary, 189–91; and professional groups in Hong Kong, 230–31, 236–37 Occupy Trio, 76, 79, 80, 82, 189 Occupy Wall Street Movement, 8, 49, 117, 122, 125–26, 139 Ogawa Shinsuke, 187 “One China” principle, 101 “one country, two systems” (policy), 2, 4, 28, 88, 178, 228, 232; and Taiwan, 103, 109 Orange Revolution, 49 Our Youth in Taiwan, 189, 191–92, 194 Overseas Taiwanese, 11, 47, 51, 53, 59, 98 pan-democrats (Hong Kong), 22, 26–29, 32, 86 Pariah Liberation Area, 6, 44, 57, 123–24, 136, 138–43

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participative performance, 9, 14, 161–65 passionate politics, 57 Pau, Ellen, 185 peaceful resistance, 34, 56, 84, 86 People’s First Party (Taiwan), 202 People Power, 24, 75, 83 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 1–4; and cross-strait tourism, 102–4, 109–10; and protest documentary, 177–78, 184, 186–87, 192–94; and protest music, 149–50, 162, 165–66; and Taiwan’s political spectrum, 202; nationalism, 73 Pernin, Judith, 12 plebeian experience, 13, 228–32 political culture: and social movements, 5, 8, 10, 12–14, 56; of Hong Kong, 68–69, 79, 82, 84, 89–90, 148–49 political opportunity structure (POS), 222–23 political theater, 142–43 protest documentary, 13, 176–80, 187–95; Hong Kong, 184–87; Taiwan, 135, 180–84 protest music, 147–49; and Hong Kong identity, 165–70; and participative performance, 161–65; and the Sunflower Movement, 159–60; and the Umbrella Movement, 154–60; in Hong Kong, 149–54 public space: and occupations, 9–10, 20–21, 26, 36, 38, 90; in Hong Kong, 104; in Taiwan, 116, 183, 214; textual, 45 public sphere, 82, 150, 154 Radical Wings (a political party in Taiwan), 133, 200 radicalism: and political activism, 90; assertive-expressive, 82; in Hong Kong, 70, 72–75, 88 Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), 166, 184 Red Guards, 73 referendum, 32, 75, 77–78, 80, 127, 129

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Index Republic of China (ROC), 3; and crossstrait tourism, 99, 102; and protest documentary, 177; and protest music, 139, 149–50; and Taiwan’s political spectrum, 201; visuality, 127–28 resistance subjectivity, 88–89 River Elegy, 150 Rowen, Ian, 12 Rühlig, Tim, 155, 164 rule of law: and Hong Kong identity, 70–79, 90; and the Sunflower Movement, 135; and the Umbrella Movement, 8, 11, 83, 249 SAR government (Hong Kong), 2, 27, 30, 36, 106 Scholarism, 6, 24–29, 32–34, 79–84, 90, 235; and Demosistō, 232. See also five-party platform (Hong Kong) self-determination, 64, 83, 99, 228, 232 Shopping Revolution, 32, 34 Shu Kei, 184 Siu Ka-chun, 237 slacktivism, 18 Social Democratic Party (SDP; Taiwan), 133, 200–202; and Fan Yun, 135, 205, 209, 211–19, 225; and NPP, 218–20 social media: and activism in Hong Kong, 75; and protest documentary, 177–78, 182, 186; and social movement leadership, 37–38; and social movements, 9–10, 17–8, 22; and the Sunflower Movement, 63; and the Umbrella Movement, 24–25, 33–34; and visual spectacle, 114, 121–24, 135. See Facebook, Twitter social movement(s): and electoral politics, 140–41; and movement party formation, 200; and professional groups, 223; and protest documentary, 177–82, 184–88, 191–95; and protest music, 147–48, 154, 158, 161n30; as visual spectacle, 122; in Hong Kong, 79, 81; in Taiwan, 42, 50, 98–99, 108; leadership, 19–20; organizational

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261 structure, 17–19; Sunflower and Umbrella Movements, 1, 4, 6, 13–14; theories of, 7–10; visual language, 130–32, 134–35; visuality, 114–15, 119–20, 124–25, 135, 137–38, 142–43. See Anti–Extradition Bill Movement (2019), Anti–High Speed Rail Protest (2010), Anti–Media Monopoly Movement (2011), Anti–Moral and National Education Movement (2012), Anti–National Education Movement (2012), Sunflower Movement (2014), Tiananmen Movement (1989), Umbrella Movement (2014), Wild Lily Movement (1990), Wild Strawberry Movement (2008) social movement organization (SMO), 18, 203, 220, 223 Sorry Youth, 137, 140 Star Ferry, 76 Straits Exchange Foundation, 98–99 student movement: and protest music, 149–50, 164; and Sunflower Movement, 49–50, 63; in Hong Kong, 73–74; in Taiwan, 116 Sunflower Movement (2014): and black box (politics), 4, 5n5, 51, 52–53, 64, 100, 102; and Chinese tourism, 96–97, 100–103; and democratic nationalism, 11, 53–57; and Hong Kong, 59–60, 109–10; and Huang Kuo-chang, 123, 133, 205, 217–18; and Lin Fei-fan, 50, 123; and movement party formation, 13, 200–206, 210–14, 219–24; and protest documentary, 12, 177–78, 182, 188, 192; and protest music, 148, 156, 159–60; and social movement theories, 7–10; and the Umbrella Movement, 1–2, 4–6, 9, 13, 27, 38, 229, 231; and Chen Wei-ting, 97, 102, 116n2, 123, 205, 217; and the Wild Lily Movement, 114–16, 131–32; as “eventful protests,” 42; grassroots participants in, 43–53, 57–58, 62–65; namesake, 5n5; visuality in, 12, 116–43

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262Index Sunflower Occupation, 177, 188–89, 192–93 Tai, Benny Yiu-ting, 23, 76–78, 189n22 Tainan National University of the Arts, 183 Taiwan Citizen’s Union (TCU), 204, 207–22; and Lin Yi-hsiung, 205–8; and the Green Party, 208–10; and the Sunflower Movement, 211–13 Taiwan Documentary Film Union, 188 Taiwan independence, 201–2; and Chinese tourism, 102–3, 109; and movement party formation, 204, 206, 208–10, 213, 221; and the Sunflower Movement, 42, 44, 55, 64 Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival (TIDF), 176n1, 181, 187n17 Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), 202, 204 Tam, Roman, 167–68 Tamanaha, Brian, 78 Tang, Henry, 7, 242 Telegram, 23–24, 36 Tian Han, 166 Tiananmen Movement (1989), 3, 11, 26, 170; and Hong Kong, 74, 149, 178; and Hou Dejian, 150–51; protest documentary, 183–85; protest music at, 150 Tien, Michael, 107 To Yeuk, 186 Treaty of Nanjing (1842), 2 Trees Party (Taiwan), 133, 200 Tsai Ing-wen, 97, 101; and the Sunflower Movement, xii, 118, 132, 140, 142, 178–79. See also Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Tsang, Donald, 161–62 Tsang, John, 243 Tse, Kay, 158 Tse, Nicholas, 151 Tsui Hark, 151, 166 Twitter, 17 Umbrella Movement (2014): and assertive-expressive activism, 79–83; and Chinese tourism, 96–97, 103–10;

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and electoral politics, 89–91; and Hong Kong identity, 11, 71; and negotiative activism, 76–79; and political culture, 13–14, 68–69; and professional groups in Hong Kong, 232–51; and protest documentary, 12, 176–80, 186–89, 192–95; and protest music, 12; and social movement theories, 7–10; and textual public space, 45; and the Sunflower Movement, 1–2, 4–6, 13, 27, 38, 229, 231; as a “plebeian experience,” 13, 228–32; as hybrid collective and connective actions, 20, 38; development, 75–76; leadership, 23–25; Lennon Wall, 46; major claims, 22–23; namesake, 5n5; organizational structure, 25–31; protest music, 147–49, 151–70; repercussions, 35–38; spatial contingencies, 31–35; visuality, 118, 125–26, 138, 142; yong mo, 83–89 University of Hong Kong, 29, 81 Vakarchuk, Svyatoslav, 170 Veg, Sebastian, 12, 68n1, 138 Victoria Park, 26, 152 Video Power, 185 visual language, 116–17, 120, 132–34 visual spectacle, 114, 122, 124, 141 visuality, 120, 123–24, 127, 131–36, 141 Wang Jin-pyng, 2, 100–101 Wang Jun-Jieh, 185 Wang Xizhe, 152 Wei, Dennis, 219 WhatsApp, 23–24, 28, 33 Wild Lily Movement (1990), 50, 108, 114–16, 128; and movement party formation, 209; and protest music, 138; and visuality, 131–32, 134 Wild Strawberry Movement (2008), 6, 50, 108, 115–16, 128, 131 Wing of Radical Politics (Taiwan), 44, 64 Wong, Anthony Yiu-ming, 155, 158–61, 166 Wong, Faye, 158

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Index Wong, James, 151, 167–68 Wong, Joshua, 79, 81, 232; and the Umbrella Movement, 11, 21, 25, 29 Wong, Kacey, 186 Wong Ka-kui, 152–53 Wong, Ray Toi-yeung, 84–85 Wong, Raymond Yuk-man, 75 Wu Den-yih, 117, 128 Wu Nien-jen, 184

263 Yiu, Edward, 238–39, 242n17, 250–51 yong mo (valiance): activism, 11, 68–69, 80–90; and civil disobedience, 83; and electoral politics, 89–91; and Hong Kong identity, 88–89; as a “no-leader movement,” 84; the cultural origin of, 87 Youngspiration, 83, 89, 250 youth movement, 56–57, 73, 125 Yuan Goang-Ming, 135, 188n21

Xi Jinping, 4n4, 8 Yao Ta-kuang, 99 Yau Wai-ching, 192 Yellowing, 190–91

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Zen, Cardinal, 236 Zheng Zhihua, 152 Zhu Rongji, 167

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES The Institute of East Asian Studies was established at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall of 1978 to promote research and teaching on the cultures and societies of China, Japan, and Korea. The institute currently unites several research centers and programs, including the Center for Buddhist Studies, the Center for Chinese Studies, the Center for Japanese Studies, the Center for Korean Studies, the Center for Southeast Asia Studies, the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, and the Berkeley APEC Study Center. Director: Associate Director:

Kevin O’Brien Dylan Davis

CENTER FOR BUDDHIST STUDIES Chair: Robert Sharf CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES Chair: Sophie Volpp CENTER FOR JAPANESE STUDIES Chair: Junko Habu CENTER FOR KOREAN STUDIES Chair: Jinsoo An CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ASIA STUDIES Chair: Pheng Cheah P.Y. AND KINMAY W. TANG CENTER FOR SILK ROAD STUDIES Chair: Sanjyot Mehendale BERKELEY ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION STUDY CENTER Director: Vinod Aggarwal

KOREA RESEARCH MONOGRAPHS (KRM)

24. Lancaster, Lewis R., and Richard K. Payne, eds. Religion and Society in Contemporary Korea. 1997. 25. Shin, Jeong-Hyun. The Trap of History: Understanding Korean Short Stories. 1998. 26. Pai, Hyung Il, and Timothy R. Tangherlini, eds. Nationalism and the Construction of Korean Identity. 1998. 27. Hesselink, Nathan, ed. Contemporary Directions: Korean Folk Music Engaging the Twentieth Century and Beyond. 2001. 28. Choi, Byonghyon, trans. The Book of Corrections: Reflections on the National Crisis during the Japanese Invasion of Korea, 1592–1598. 2002. 29. Dilling, Margaret Walker. Stories inside Stories: Music in the Making of Korean Olympic Ceremonies. 2007. 30. Kim, Hyuk-Rae, and Bok Song, eds. Modern Korean Society: Its Development and Prospect. 2007. 31. Park, Hun Joo. Diseased Dirigisme: The Political Sources of Financial Policy toward Small Business in Korea. 2007. 32. Finch, Michael, trans. Min Yŏnghwan: The Selected Writings of a Late Chosŏn Diplomat. 2008. 33. Pettid, Michael. Unyŏng-jŏn: A Love Affair at the Royal Palace of Chŏson Korea. 2009. 34. Park, Pori. Trial and Error in Modernist Reforms: Korean Buddhism under Colonial Rule. 2009. 35. Patterson, Wayne. In the Service of His Korean Majesty: William Nelson Lovatt, the Pusan Customs, and Sino-Korean Relations, 1876–1888. 2012. 36. Yeh, Wen-hsin, ed. Mobile Subjects: Boundaries and Identities in the Modern Korean Diaspora. 2013. 37. Kwon, Youngmin, and Bruce Fulton. What is Korean Literature? 2020. RESEARCH PAPERS AND POLICY STUDIES (RPPS)

41. Wakeman, Jr., Frederic, and Wang Xi, eds. China’s Quest for Modernization: A Historical Perspective. 1997. 42. West, Loraine A., and Yaohui Zhao, eds. Rural Labor Flows in China. 2000. 43. Sharma, Shalendra D., ed. The Asia-Pacific in the New Millennium: Geopolitics, Security, and Foreign Policy. 2000. 44. Arase, David, ed. The Challenge of Change: East Asia in the New Millennium. 2003. 45. Kang, Sungho, and Ramón Grosfoguel, eds. Geopolitics and Trajectories of Development: The Cases of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and Puerto Rico. 2010. 46. Lee, Hong Yung, ed. A Comparative Study of East Asian Capitalism. 2014. SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS

Scalapino, Robert. From Leavenworth to Lhasa: Living in a Revolutionary Era. 2008. Zhan, Kaidi. The Strategies of Politeness in the Chinese Language. 1992. TRANSNATIONAL KOREA (TK)

1. Lie, John, ed. Multiethnic Korea? Multiculturalism, Migration, and Peoplehood Diversity in Contemporary South Korea. 2014. 2. You, Clare, and Yangwon Ha, eds. The Spread of the Korean Language: Through the Korean Diaspora and Beyond. 2018. 3. Lie, John, ed. Zainichi Literature: Japanese Writings by Ethnic Koreans. 2018. 4. Choo, Hae Yeon, John Lie, and Laura C. Nelson, eds. Gender and Class in Contemporary South Korea: Intersectionality and Transnationality. 2019. For a complete catalogue and current prices, see http://ieas.berkeley.edu/publications/catalogue.html

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“The chapters in this volume illuminate two important new social movements by focusing on their cultural and symbolic dimensions. Expertly edited by two distinguished scholars of youth, intellectuals and political activism, this book makes an important contribution to the meaning of media and political culture in contemporary social movements.” —Guobin Yang, University of Pennsylvania

INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

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INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ● BERKELEY

Sunflowers and Umbrellas Social Movements, Expressive Practices, and Political Culture in Taiwan and Hong Kong

Gold and Veg

“This volume showcases fascinating new work by an engaging mix of established and junior scholars of the social sciences and humanities. The book opens with an exemplary introduction by the editors and is especially good at highlighting the expressive and symbolic sides of struggles for change. Sunflowers and Umbrellas shows how valuable it can be to place the 2014 events in Taiwan and Hong Kong side-by-side in a way that, while acknowledging the differences between the movements, points out their similarities and connections.” —Jeffrey Wasserstrom, University of California, Irvine

Sunflowers and Umbrellas

“A fine and welcomed collection that sheds new lights on two iconic popular movements in contemporary Asia. Capturing the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements’ organization dynamics, expressive politics and political outcomes in granular details, this volume advances a much needed comparative agenda for social movement studies.” —Ching Kwan Lee, University of California, Los Angeles

Edited by Thomas Gold and Sebastian Veg CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 76

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