Students who have occupied Taiwan’s Legislature to oppose the governing party’s efforts to approve a trade deal with China said Saturday that they would escalate their protests after President Ma Ying-jeou declined to meet with them.

The number of protesters in Taipei has grown dramatically since late Tuesday, when several hundred stormed the legislative chambers and barricaded themselves inside. Outside, thousands more supporters line the streets around the Legislature, and many of those Saturday had slept outside overnight.



The protests were set off by efforts by Mr. Ma’s governing party, the Kuomintang, or K.M.T., to push through an agreement with China that would lower barriers for the two sides to each other’s service sectors. Lawmakers had previously agreed to a detailed review of the pact, which was signed in Shanghai in June 2013 by two semiofficial organizations representing China and Taiwan.

Opponents of the trade deal say it will harm businesses in Taiwan and will allow China to greatly increase its economic influence over the self-governed island.

A K.M.T. legislator, Chang Ching-chung, advanced the measure to the floor on March 17, skipping over the promised review, which incited the student-led protests. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party says that move broke an agreement to hold an itemized review of the trade deal. The K.M.T. said the move was necessary because the opposition was blocking the progress of the measure’s review.

On Friday, students occupying the Legislature called for Mr. Ma to meet with them and discuss their demands that the service trade agreement be blocked and that cross-strait trade agreements be more closely monitored by the Legislature. The president declined, and the students announced that they would continue their occupation of the Legislature and called for protests at governing party offices.

Prime Minister Jiang Yi-huah met with demonstrators outside the Legislature on Saturday afternoon and told them that the executive branch had no intention of dropping the trade pact.

The students call their protests the Sunflower Movement, and say the flower is symbolic of the light and transparency they want to bring to the government.

“When I saw that the trade services bill had advanced without any review, it seemed like an authoritarian technique,” said Sam Wu, a 33-year-old clinical psychologist who joined the protests on Friday. “I thought it was unjust. That’s why we’re upset.”

An official from Mr. Ma’s office told the Central News Agency that the president was willing to discuss the trade deal but wouldn’t be forced into talks. The K.M.T, holds 65 of 113 legislative seats, versus 40 for the Democratic Progressive Party, giving the governing party the votes to push through the measure.

The opposition has endorsed the protests, calling on its members to support the students and activists occupying the Legislature. The student leaders, for their part, have sought to distance themselves from the opposition.

“This is not a party movement,” said Shih I-lun, a spokesman for the students. “This is a movement of the whole society.”

The Legislature’s speaker, Wang Jin-pyng, has said that he does not plan to have the students removed by force, local newspapers reported Friday. There were attempts to oust them in the hours after the occupation began Tuesday, and students barricaded the chambers with chairs.

Workers have placed barbed-wire barriers around nearby buildings. Large groups of police officers, some holding riot shields, have been stationed around the Legislature. As speakers alternate between lectures on economic matters and rallying songs, volunteers pass out food, water and blankets, clear trash and try to keep lines of supporters moving through the crowded, narrow streets.

“I’m not sure what result this will have in the end,” said Mr. Wu. “But we should use every means to let our government know what we want.”