In an east Asian version of the Occupy movement, over the past week about 20,000 students and workers have taken over Taiwan's parliament building and protested outside. The immediate cause is a free-trade agreement signed with China. The students believe the trade deal, backed by the ruling Kuomintang party (KMT) and to be ratified by legislators without public consultation, will make life much tougher for working-class people and bring greater control from China over the island's economy and its media.

When a group of students stormed the government headquarters on Sunday, over 100 people were injured in a crackdown by the police.

The deal will give China's large media and publishing companies far greater access to Taiwan. The island's China Times Group, for instance, was bought in 2008 by the pro-China Want Want Holdings, one of the largest food manufacturing conglomerates in Asia. Given Taiwan's history – it split from China in 1949 after the KMT retreated to Taiwan – the fears are that there will be many more China Times-type takeovers. And, further, that economic dominance will lead to political dominance, under which the gains made by Taiwan's people over the past two decades – such as a multi-party parliamentary democracy and press freedom – will be lost.

Bread and butter issues are also at the centre of the struggle as young people say they will bear the brunt of the impact. A statement by the protesters, who call themselves the Sunflower Movement, said: "Regardless of the political division between pro-unification with China and those pro-independence for Taiwan, this trade agreement will allow large capital to devour the majority of small peasants, labourers and small businesses, not to mention the difficulties the future generation of Taiwan will face."

Academics at 25 universities have also come out to support the students. "We are not paper tigers!" Yu-ze Wan, sociology professor at National Sun Yat-sen University, said. There have been street lectures, debating China's state capitalism and "what does free trade do to free speech?"

During the cold war, Taiwan was economically and politically bonded to the west, whereas in the past two decades the island's economy has been caught between competing capitalist powers, China being the most powerful in the region.

Taiwan's trade unions believe that free trade agreements are bad for workers. The Taoyuan Federation of Trade Unions says that 16 years ago, when the government opened the island to free trade, it left "waves of Taiwan's workers laid off without redundancy and pension… This will happen again with the trade agreement today".

Wages in Taiwan, particular in service industries (in which 60% of Taiwan's working people are employed), have been on the decrease, by 6% in the past decade. Under the trade agreement, China's larger service businesses can enter and compete with the smaller service businesses in Taiwan, which will likely lead to the lowering of wages and worsening of conditions.

Taiwan's unions are supporting the Sunflower Movement, supplying water and food provisions to the occupiers.

Neither students nor workers want to leave their future in the hands of the ruling elites, or see their jobs controlled by conglomerates on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. If the KMT president doesn't meet their demands that the trade deal be returned to cabinet and a national citizens' conference called, his party will very soon find its own legitimacy to rule being questioned.