`Anti-Secession' Law opposed: survey

A vast majority of Taiwanese disapprove of China's bid to change the cross-strait status quo by passing its "Anti-Secession" Law two years ago and believe that the people of Taiwan should be the only ones to have a say in determining the nation's future, a new think tank survey shows.

More than 90 percent of respondents disagreed with China's attempts to change the cross-strait status with the law, while nearly 80 percent think the Taiwanese should be the only decision makers in determining Taiwan's future, the survey found.

The Taiwan Thinktank conducted the poll from last Friday through Sunday to see if there had been a change in opinion since Beijing enacted the law two years ago today and gathered a total of 1,067 valid responses.

According to the results, 91.2 percent of respondents said they opposed the enactment of the "Anti-Secession" Law, 80.2 percent disagreed with China's claim that the law met the interests of Taiwanese and 79.5 percent said it was up to the people of Taiwan to determine the nation's future.

Only 14.5 percent of respondents believed that the people of China should also have a say in Taiwan's future.

"The result showed that the `Anti-Secession' Law has not alienated the people of Taiwan, it has provoked Taiwan to have a more consolidated consensus on its attitude toward China," said Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), director of Soochow University's department of political science, at the press conference to announce the results yesterday.

"Beijing got the reverse of what it wanted from the legislation," Lo said.

Tung Li-wen (董立文), deputy executive director of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, said the law had bogged China down in a "war of laws," especially in terms of international law, which was China's weak point.

"This law was in response to internal pressure in China on the `Taiwan issue' yet Beijing has been unable to define what [Taiwan's] independence is," he said.

The poll found 67.1 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that China had actively contacted Taiwanese opposition parties while refusing to talk with with Taiwan's government.

Almost half of respondents, 47.2 percent, said the law had a bad influence on cross-strait relations, while 33 percent said it had not had any influence.

"This is a result of China using the carrot and the stick at the same time," said Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), a research fellow in political science at Academia Sinica.

Meanwhile, a second opinion poll released by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday said about half of its respondents want to see Taiwan independent.

The poll was conducted last Wednesday and Thursday and received 1,034 valid responses.

It found that 50.4 percent of respondents favor independence while 33.9 percent support unification with China. Those were the only two options offered.

As for national identity, 68 percent said they considered themselves Taiwanese while 16 percent said they identified with China.

"This is a `gift' to China from the Taiwanese people on the eve of the second anniversary of the `Anti-Secession' Law," DPP Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said at a press conference.

Additional reporting by Flora Wang