Support for "one country, two systems" in polls in which the questions are presented in this manner is low, largely concentrated between 10 and 16 percent.
When studying these surveys in depth, it is not difficult to see the tendency toward higher levels of support when the definition of "one country, two systems" is limited to economics or lesser aspects; but when it involves political aspects, we begin to see a strong tendency toward saying no. This view is supported by results from another poll, which shows 71.4 percent still say they want Taiwan to continue to develop foreign relations even if this means cross-strait relations will become tense. In other words, if we view "one country, two systems" from two respects -- with politics as the superstructure and non-political (economic) issues as the substructure -- public opinion will not lightly compromise on the former, while it leaves more room for compromise on the latter.
Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen (
Basically, apart from not having distanced itself from the nine points proposed 20 years ago by Ye Jianying (葉劍英, former chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress), Qian's elements stop at guaranteeing the economic benefits that the people of Taiwan already enjoy. Not one word is said about how to maintain Taiwan's political, religious and other freedoms. If we examine the polls sponsored by the MAC over the years from the above dual view of "one country, two systems," we can perhaps understand why public opinion against "one country, two systems" has remained around 70 to 80 percent for so long. If China does not want to come up with an answer more in line with democratic values when it comes to the question of the "one country, two systems" superstructure, it will have no market to speak of in Taiwan.
Jeff Wu is CEO of the Taipei-based Decision Making Research Center.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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