On the other hand, 43.9 percent answered "No, because I did not support him in the first place," and 0.9 percent indicated that "I did not support him in the first place, but now I have decided to support him." All together, 33.5 percent of the interviewees support Chen when we add the first group with the fourth group. Interestingly enough, the figure is greater than the percentage of people who initially said would vote for Chen, 24.20 percent, by a margin of 9.3 percent. Since 0.3 percent of the interviewees had initially indicated that they would vote for Chen, but subsequently changed their mind, we conclude that China's white paper has the potential to help Chen win over an additional 9 percent of supporters.
This poll demonstrated that China's conduct had in fact shot herself in the foot. If the People's Liberation Army were to come out even less ambiguously, it would only further benefit Chen. To all the candidates and to the international community, the message is clear. The popular will in Taiwan is not extreme: pursuit of a stable and peaceful cross-strait relationship is the mainstream view. At the same time, people will definitely not give in to Chinese coercion.
Hsu Szu-chien is an assistant research fellow at the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University.
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