From April 22 to August 14, 2013, the special exhibition “A Retrospective of Taiwan's Post-War Student Movement” is held. The exhibition demonstrated the history of Taiwan’s social movement after the end of the WWII and Japanese colonial era. Starting from the 228 incident in 1947, the exhibition goes through the history of the White Terror in 1950s, the collective silence after the crack down on the Free China Journal in 1960s, the emergence of Baodiao movement in 1970s, and the succeeding incidents including debates over Taiwan nativist literature, Zhongli incident, and Kaohsiung Incident. The exhibition also showed how students broke through the political surveillance in campuses and participated in these movements, which finally led to the Wild Lily Movement. Later in 1991, after the Taiwan Independence Association Incident and the abolition of the 100th article of the criminal law, student movement has deeply intertwined with other social and political movements. Nevertheless, after the former opposition party, the DPP, taken to the power, social movements began to distance themselves from politics to avoid being co-opted by the ruling party, while student movements continued to focus on issues related to social justice. After 2008, with the impact of the authoritarian reemergence, globalization, neo-liberalism, and the rise of China, new waves of social movements once again arose. The encroachment of the Chinese government on Taiwan triggered the Sunflower Movement, in which people occupy the congress and protest against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement. Beyond such politicized movement, there are still many activists struggling on other issues.

Source：Institute of Sociology