In the evening of March 18, 2014, hundreds of students stormed into the legislature and took over the main chamber. The event was sparked by a ruling Kuomintang lawmaker’s move on the previous day to send to the legislative floor the controversial trade in services agreement with China. The lawmaker, Chang Ching-chung, passed the agreement in 30 seconds in a joint legislative committee meeting. He also claimed that the agreement cannot be amended, and must be passed as is.

Taiwan signed the controversial agreement with China last June, but there has been criticism that the agreement was reached by keeping the public and the legislature in the dark. While supporters of the agreement say that it will help Taiwan further liberalize its economy, critics fear that it will give China too much influence over Taiwan.

Seeing what they believed was a violation of due process, students occupied the legislative chamber and prevented the police’s repeated attempts to expel them. The students issued several demands: they want the agreement to be sent back to the Cabinet before a law that allows systematic oversight of cross-strait agreements is enacted. They also demanded a clause-by-clause review of the agreement, and they want the government to convene a constitutional assembly to bring in people from all sectors of society and to allow their voices to be heard.

Five days into the student sit-in, Premier Jiang Yi-huah went to the legislature complex to talk to the students. But the two sides could not find common ground and the dialogue ended before it even started. Later on, student protestors also rejected President Ma Ying-jeou’s invitation for dialogue and called for a mass rally in front of the Presidential Office to increase pressure on the president to meet their demands.

The mass rally on March 30 was attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Organizers put the figure at half a million, while the police put it at 116,000.

Just when there seemed to be no resolution in sight, on April 6, President of the Legislature Wang Jin-pyng visited the occupied legislative chamber and promised to postpone cross-party negotiation on the trade pact until an oversight law is passed. Wang’s own party, the ruling Kuomintang, immediately said that Wang had not consulted the party before making the promise. But after Wang reached out to them, student protestors agreed to leave on April 10.

On April 10, holding sunflowers that are the symbol of their movement, student protestors emerged from the legislature and were warmly welcomed by tens of thousands of people outside. The protestors vowed to take action if the legislature president’s promise is not kept.