Who Was The Organized Opposition To The Sunflower Movement?
The majority of organized opposition to the Sunflower Movement came from members of the pan-Blue political camp
Apart from ordinary members of society who may not have approved of the Sunflower Movement or disagreed with the aims of the movement, it is not politically biased in any way to point out that the majority of organized opposition to the Sunflower Movement came from members of the pan-Blue political camp, particularly at the “deep Blue” end of the spectrum. Large-scale demonstrations drawing tens of thousands were held, as organized by organizations with a history of fulminating against the DPP and the specter of Taiwanese independence.
These included groups such as the Oppose Taiwanese Independent History Front (抗獨史陣線), founded in 2012 to support high school textbook revisions by the Ma administration which would have taught Taiwanese history as part of Chinese history and to undo textbook revisions passed under the Chen administration. Other groups included the Citizen Justice Alliance (公民正義聯盟), the Taiwan Forward Youth (台灣向上青年陣線), and the White Justice Social Alliance (白色正義社會聯盟), which was founded specifically to oppose the Sunflower Movement. The largest rally held by these groups occurred on 329, with a rally which drew 20,000.
But these groups do not evidence the spontaneous organization of Sunflower Movement groups. One observes this, for example, in that there is a lack any substantial social media presence for these groups. This is not claim that demonstrators against the Sunflower Movement did not genuinely oppose the movement to mobilize, such as in claims that demonstrators were paid to protest. Nevertheless, it is clear that they mobilized along far different lines than Sunflower Movement activists, with organization probably more occurring through organization networks rather than spontaneous participation, and probably an overall older demographic than Sunflower Movement activists, who are mostly products of the Internet age.
More dangerous still were members of the Chinese Unification Promotion Party (中華統一促進黨) affiliated with former gangster and killer of political dissidents “White Wolf” Chang An-Lo (張安樂), who did engage in political violence against students during the movement. Chang was notably a close associate of Ma Yi-Nan (馬以南), the sister of Ma Ying-Jeou (馬英九).
Read More About Social Responses To The Sunflower Movement:
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Was all of Taiwanese society supportive of the Sunflower Movement?
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Why were accusations of “populism” made against the movement?