President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) support ratings fell through the floor in last year’s local elections, but they bounced back in just a few months to put her in the lead again. This is unprecedented in Taiwan.
Most people say it was a result of the protests in Hong Kong, which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has used to accuse the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of creating “a sense of the nation’s impending doom.”
The Hong Kong protests have helped the DPP campaign gain momentum, but they were not enough on their own to turn the situation around. Hong Kong’s problems are nothing new; there had been other protest movements, and the DPP has long warned that today’s Hong Kong could be tomorrow’s Taiwan, without seeing any positive effects on its campaigning.
In other words, Hong Kong is not the main reason that the DPP has gained momentum — other factors have also played part.
One important factor is the “Internet army.” Both major parties have such “armies,” but the DPP’s is stronger. The DPP’s main focus is the country, while the KMT’s is political ideology. Today’s young people have strong national awareness, but lack political ideology, so many of them lean toward the DPP.
Another even more important factor behind the DPP’s improved fortunes is that it has developed a better understanding of opinion polls. When Tsai took over the presidency, the main policies she proposed were in line with opinion poll results.
However, while US voters vote for policies they identify with — which means that if the government implements policies that most voters approve of, it will gain majority support — most Taiwanese only care about their own benefit and interests, and do not care much about public affairs.
This means that what they think about such policy would not influence how they vote, and only policies that directly affect their immediate interests would have an effect on how they vote.
The policies the Tsai administration introduced when it came to government were supported by a majority of voters. The administration thought that would translate into majority voter support. In practice, the opposite happened, as the policies did not have a direct effect on the people who supported them.
Instead, the policies had a negative effect on a minority of voters who, for that reason, opposed Tsai. In total, this meant that a lot of people opposed Tsai and her government, which was why her support rating fell through the floor. Following the local elections last year, the government finally understood this situation and changed tack.
The policies already put in place could not be changed, so instead a host of new policies were introduced. Each of these policies were beneficial to a small group of voters, but in the aggregate, they created strong majority support for Tsai.
Although most people did not agree with each individual policy, these policies did not have an immediate effect on their lives, and therefore did not matter to them.
There are basically two kinds of opinion polls: the ones concerned with individual politicians, and the ones concerned with policies. Polls concerned with politicians are often in step with election outcomes, while polls addressing policies often are not.
Since Taiwanese only care about their own direct interests and do not pay much attention to public affairs, only policies that affect voters directly would be reflected in election results. Alert politicians would not be confused by policy-oriented opinion poll results.
Chen Mao-hsiung, a retired National Sun Yat-sen University professor, is chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Taiwanese Security.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
Out of 64 participating universities in this year’s Stars Program — through which schools directly recommend their top students to universities for admission — only 19 filled their admissions quotas. There were 922 vacancies, down more than 200 from last year; top universities had 37 unfilled places, 40 fewer than last year. The original purpose of the Stars Program was to expand admissions to a wider range of students. However, certain departments at elite universities that failed to meet their admissions quotas are not improving. Vacancies at top universities are linked to students’ program preferences on their applications, but inappropriate admission
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) took the stage at a protest rally on Sunday in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei in support of former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who has been sentenced to 17 years in jail for corruption and embezzlement. Huang told the crowd that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) had sent a message of support the previous day, saying she would be traveling from the south to Taipei: If the protest continued into the evening, she had said, she would show up. The rally was due to end
RSS