Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: 秋鬥：左派力量/Facebook
AUTUMN STRUGGLE, one of Taiwan’s longest-running labor protests, demonstrated late last month on November 10th. As in past years, participants were mainly left-wing labor organizations. Around two hundred participated in the rally.
Autumn Struggle is traditionally one of the two major annual labor protests in Taiwan outside of May Day. As Autumn Struggle takes place in the fall or winter, the two events are usually held half a year apart from one another.
Nevertheless, past years have seen controversy for Autumn Struggle, with the drift of the protest toward the pan-Blue camp.
Internal disputes about what stance to take ahead of the 2020 presidential elections led Autumn Struggle to not take place in 2019. Then, in 2020, Autumn Struggle saw mass participation by KMT members, primarily deep Blue individuals who had been supporters of Han Kuo-yu during the 2020 elections.
Instead of focusing on a labor demand, Autumn Struggle switched its focus to that of US pork imports, seeing as the Tsai administration had lifted long-standing barriers to US pork imports in Taiwan–a demand long resisted by Taiwanese farmers. Likewise, while Autumn Struggle traditionally emphasized its independence from political parties and politicians, in 2020, Autumn Struggle saw the participation of KMT politicians including then-KMT chair Johnny Chiang, former President Ma Ying-jeou, Eric Chu, who is now KMT chair, and others. The 2021 iteration of Autumn Struggle proved similar, featuring not only luminaries of the KMT but also key figures of the TPP.
Photo credit: 秋鬥：左派力量/Facebook
Though the organizers of Autumn Struggle still claimed to be independent of the KMT participants, what was clear was that the event was flooded with KMT supporters and members of the pan-Blue camp. Pan-Blue media trumpeted the event as the largest iteration of Autumn Struggle in history, with over 50,000 in attendance, though Autumn Struggle had seen declining attendance in the second term of the Tsai administration.
This year, Autumn Struggle called for an increase in salaries, as well as a focus on people’s livelihoods rather than war. The re-election victory of Donald Trump in the US was raised as possibly meaning that Taiwan pays protection fees to America, though issues of unaffordable housing, long hours, and low salaries have not been resolved in Taiwan. The DPP was criticized as a pawn of the US, with the extension of the military draft criticized. Similarly, organizers claimed that the DPP intended to use temples, schools, and other sites for munitions–something that the government has denied.
This year’s Autumn Struggle, then, continues the anti-war framing embraced by some Taiwanese leftists in past years–usually of a pro-unification slant. This has particularly been the case after the publication of a manifesto by a group of left-wing academics who termed themselves the Anti-War Working Group.
Though such leftist academics themselves were not necessarily pro-unification, the anti-war discourse they drew on was largely from the US, and it has been also embraced by active members of the pro-unification left. To this extent, while a marginal force in society at large, the pro-unification left continues to be a sizable presence in Taiwan’s labor movement. Though stalwart labor groups were among those that participate, their messaging ends up being overshadowed by that of the pro-unification left as a result.
Indeed, the framing of Autumn Struggle criticized the US for aggravating tensions in the Asia Pacific, largely without calling out China. Ukraine and Gaza were cited as examples of what could occur to Taiwan through closer ties with the US.
Autumn Struggle’s pivot toward the pan-Blue camp continues, then. But without the active participation of the KMT, this year’s rally was much smaller than in 2020 and 2021.