The people have spoken on nuclear power

According to the 1993 report, Nuclear Hazard (核殤), by the Taipei Society (澄社), "Throughout the entire process of planning, review and policy adoption for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四), there were obvious displays of domineering and technological authoritarianism, behavior that doesn't conform with the spirit of democracy and the rule of law." Basically, the decision-making process in respect to the plant failed to regard the will of the people, technological expertise or ethics. Popular opinion was appropriated as a tool to show support for the policy only after the decision to build the plant had been made. This was done, moreover, after political force had railroaded a decision in favor of the project through the legislature.

Building the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant was opposed by a majority of legislators in the Legislative Yuan. In May 1996, the legislature passed a resolution to stop construction of all nuclear power plants. Only after the Executive Yuan had raised the issue again for reconsideration, did it come back to life. The legislature's original resolution was a rare achievement for that era and it reflected popular opinion. The KMT, however, used its superior political power and resources to overturn the resolution.

Taipower (台電) went even further, using this reversal to make the excuse that there was popular support for building the plant. Taipower's Web site, which still has not been revised to reflect the halting of construction, states, "The reconsideration of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project represented popular opinion." The company argues that, "On October 18, 1996, the Legislative Yuan reversed its previous decision to discontinue building the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. This is sufficient to show that the plan to build the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant once again passed the test of popular opinion."

Taipower never mentions that the legislature passed a resolution to stop construction of all nuclear plants. Instead they interpret the forcible exercise of political power as the will of the people.

Looking at the overall trend in popular support for building the plant, we see that prior to November 2000, supporters of the plant outnumbered opponents. A second important trend is that the ratio of supporters to opponents grew smaller year by year. Finally, a third important discovery is that in November, after the government announced the scrapping of the plant, popular support in favor of halting construction surpassed that opposed to doing so.

Regarding popular opinion in 2000 for and against construction, the transformation of supporters of the plant into the minority was a key change. On May 8, an opinion poll by the China Times (中國時報) showed that 50 percent of respondents supported continuing construction and 25 percent were opposed. The United Daily News (聯合報) and TVBS got similar results in surveys done about the same time. The results announced by the United Daily News on Sept. 20 showed 54 percent in favor of building the plant and 23 percent opposed. Supporters of nuclear power had grown in number and opponents had diminished.

On Sept. 30, when the Executive Yuan was deciding whether or not to construct the plant, a great dispute broke out because then premier Tang Fei (唐飛) and the Minister of Economic Affairs and ultimately the rest of the Cabinet were at odds. At this time, the numbers of those who were undecided about the matter grew dramatically, increasing by 7 percent. Supporters of the plant dropped by 8 percent. The dispute over whether or not to build continued to grow. Tang's resignation had a serious impact. In early October, support for building rose again to 55 percent. After the Executive Yuan announced the scrapping of the plant, popular opinion began to change quickly.