EATS Young Scholar Awards – Tommy Kwan

Pursuing an academic career has never been easy: from applying for a PhD programme to writing up the thesis, it has been a journey of fighting down “bosses” and every next mission represents a steeper hurdle. Luckily though, seeing familiar faces and meeting new people every year in different European cities in the always cosy and welcoming EATS conference, is the best reminder to researchers, especially to junior researchers, that we are not alone. Thus, I cannot be more grateful to the EATS conference for awarding me the Young Scholar Award this year as it means a very encouraging boost for me to continue my academic exploration.

In the past decade, the Sunflower Movement has been arguably the most discussed and researched topic in the field of Taiwan studies and it can certainly be reflected in the EATS conferences. There is no doubt that the historic occupation of the Legislative Yuan in 2014 has fundamentally changed the politics of Taiwan. Yet, what is left to be studied and researched after a decade of hard work from scholars around the world about the Sunflower Movement? In the YSA presentation, I talked about the transformation of social movement activists into politicians, which is one of the chapters in my PhD thesis. In addition to the many legacies left behind in Taiwan’s political scene by the Sunflower Movement, we should also shed light on what the activists who initiated and drove the activism did and how their activism developed in the aftermath of the movement.

Earlier this year in the event of the 10th anniversary of the Sunflower Movement, Lin Fei-fan, the former movement leader, openly apologised to the public, saying that “[O]ver the past ten years, we have disappointed everyone in different ways, so I want to say sorry to everyone.” While the exact meaning of “disappointment” and “apology” in Lin’s speech is open for interpretation, it can easily be seen to reflect the growth and change of the activist himself. Similar to many other activists who switched their track and entered into institutional politics, Lin joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 2019. Unlike most of the activists who became elected representatives at the local or national level, Lin first became the party deputy secretary general and is currently the deputy secretary general of the National Security Council under Lai Ching-te’s government. It is a remarkable political career.

The change from being a social movement activist to a political party member might appear to be a natural transition for people who care about public affairs. In Taiwan, it is not rare to find politicians with a social movement background. Large-scale social movements like the Wild Lily Movement in 1990 and the Sunflower Movement in 2014 gave birth to groups of politicians who have played significant roles within institutions. Nevertheless, it in fact represents a significant transformation to a lot of social movement activists, who used to keep a distance from, if not reject, political parties. It is a question of whether or not they forgo their values and make compromises in order to become part of the political mainstream.

Although the change from pursuing political goals on the streets to entering political institutions can always be explained from a utilitarian perspective, it represents, in part, a change in political beliefs which require convincing justifications. In part, it compounds with the growth of the activist. For instance, the thinking and pressure of being a student in your early 20s versus being an adult in your early 30s are already very different. As I am a similar age to these Taiwanese activists, I can always empathise with them as I have shared the anxieties of growing up at the same time. Moreover, the change from being a social movement activist to a party politician has also led to close scrutiny from outside. I remember there was a newspaper report, released shortly after Lin Fei-fan was appointed as the DPP deputy secretary general, saying that, “Receiving a salary of ninety thousand per month, Lin happily ate big shumai in Keelung”. As trivial as it seems, the report implied that now that Lin was in the DPP, he was earning a high salary and living a luxurious life. At the same time, other former movement activists also faced fierce competition to obtain the nomination from the party. In a nutshell, we should never underestimate both the inside and outside difficulties faced by the former activists when they decided to change their political career. Understanding the complexity of the decision is therefore the raison d’être of this research. All in all, I would like to thank EATS again for the award. Although my current postdoctoral research engagement is less Taiwan focused, my research interests on Taiwan will continue in different research projects.