A majority of Americans appear to support Taiwan becoming a member of the UN, a new opinion poll commissioned by the Government Information Office shows. But the poll, conducted earlier this month, also showed a widespread ignorance of Taiwan among interviewees.
The poll, conducted by Zogby International, questioned 1,205 adults across the US between Sept. 6 and Sept. 10. The results were released on Friday.
Asked whether Taiwan should be offered UN membership, 55 percent of respondents agreed and 27 percent disagreed. When asked a similar question in connection with the US' support for UN membership for Kosovo, 61 percent said the Bush administration should support Taiwan's campaign for UN membership and 33 percent said it should not.
When asked whether the US "should not oppose" Taiwan's UN bid if "the people of Taiwan pass a referendum" for UN membership, the positive figure jumped to 70 percent, with only 17 percent disagreeing.
"A majority of respondents support Taiwan's membership to the UN, especially if that membership petition is backed by a referendum of the Taiwan people," Zogby concluded.
However, in response to a question that specifically mentioned China's opposition to Taiwan's membership, only 52 percent of respondents favored Washington helping Taiwan establish UN membership and 34 percent opposed such US help.
None of the questions made reference to Taiwan's international status or the background to the Taiwanese government's bid to join the UN.
The poll's margin of error was 2.9 percent.
Respondents also showed a broad lack of familiarity with Taiwan.
Only 39 percent said they were "familiar" with Taiwan and 61 percent said they were unfamiliar with the nation. Only 6 percent said they were very familiar, while 34 percent were "not at all familiar."
Only 3 percent had ever visited Taiwan.
When asked about Taiwan's democracy, 35 percent of respondents described Taiwan as "moderately democratic," while 14 percent thought the nation was not democratic and 42 percent were not sure.
However, when the question turned to whether the US should oppose China's position on the issue and help Taiwan, the results were reversed and conservatives were more supportive of Taiwan's cause than were liberals. Among the very conservative, 72 percent agreed the US should help Taiwan, while just 48 percent of the very liberal agreed.
Respondents to the poll held an overall favorable opinion of Taiwan's relationship with the US. Participants were asked to evaluate the relationship between Washington and five Asian countries -- Taiwan, Japan, China, the Philippines and South Korea. Taiwan came third behind Japan and the Philippines. China came last.
Fifty-two percent said US-Taiwan relations were favorable, while 22 percent rated them as unfavorable. The corresponding figures for Japan were 79 percent and 13 percent, while only 46 percent saw US-China relations as favorable and 46 percent saw them as unfavorable.
In Taipei, President Chen Shui-bian (
Saying the planned referendum on Taiwan's UN membership is important, Chen called on the public to support the second petition of Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) referendum proposal so it could be held in conjunction with the presidential election on March 22 next year.
The DPP must collect more than 800,000 signatures to allow the referendum to take place, under the Referendum Law (公投法).
While the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has suggested its own referendum on "rejoining" the UN using the country's official name -- "Republic of China" -- Chen urged the public to vote in favor of the DPP's referendum proposal.
"The United States is watching and so is the world," he said while visiting a temple in Taoyuan County yesterday morning. "It will help expedite Taiwan's UN campaign if the DPP's referendum passes."
Thirty-nine percent of respondents viewed Taiwan as a moderately developed country, while 18 percent considered it highly developed. Nearly one-third were not sure.
The questions about UN membership exposed some interesting differences of opinion among Americans, as interpolated from the survey.
On the basic question of whether the UN should offer Taiwan membership and the US should back Taiwan, liberals and conservatives disagreed.
"Perhaps seeing it as a matter of consistency in dealing with allies around the world, American progressives [were] very supportive of this stance [support for UN membership] for the US. However conservatives were not so sure. Among the very liberal, 77 percent said the US should go to bat for Taiwan membership, compared to just 52 percent of those who considered themselves very conservative," Zogby said.
Additional reporting by Ko Shu-ling
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