An instant poll conducted by the search engine Yahoo-Kimo, the Taiwan unit of Yahoo, yesterday found that 38 percent of respondents thought Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had performed best in the first televised presidential debate.
Thirty-one percent of respondents favored People First Party presidential candidate James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) performance, while 29 percent said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) performed better.
Two percent said they were undecided or had no opinion.
Yesterday’s first televised presidential debate took place from 2pm to 4:30pm.
The online poll was conducted from 2pm to 6pm on the question: “Whose performance in the presidential debate did you find the most satisfactory?”
According to Yahoo-Kimo, a total of 12,406 people voted during the four hours. Among them, 4,762 voted in favor of Tsai’s performance, 3,785 in favor of Soong’s performance and 3,629 in favor of Ma’s performance.
At the post-debate press conference, Ma declined to comment on his own performance in the debate, but praised both Tsai and Soong for their performances, promising to value their advice and criticisms.
Ma, in his opening remarks in the debate, used “Taiwan” for the first time when referring to the nation, but later declined to confirm that his recognition of Taiwan as the nation’s title represented his agreement with Tsai’s rhetoric that “the Republic of China [ROC] is Taiwan.”
“When we say ‘Taiwan,’ most of the time we are referring to the ROC. ‘Taiwan’ is the common title for the nation,” Ma said.
On his position on future visits to China if re-elected, which he failed to answer during the debate, Ma said he would not visit China if he could not make the trip as the nation’s leader.
Tsai said at her post-debate press conference that she was glad her proposed “Taiwan consensus” was discussed in the debate and that it would serve as a notice to Beijing, “because China has to realize that if I am elected in January, I would be able to represent the mainstream public opinion.”
Tsai said she also welcomed a surprising remark by Ma, who said in his opening remarks that “Taiwan is also my country” — the first time he has done so in a public setting.
When asked whether she would make a “no independence” pledge, Tsai said the so-called independence is not an issue for the DPP because the party has made it clear that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country with the current name of the ROC.
It is Ma who has to ask himself where the issue of unification comes from if Ma now views Taiwan as a sovereign country, Tsai said, “and if Taiwan is his country, does the ‘three noes policy’ still mean anything?”
When asked to comment on her debate performance, Tsai said: “Overall, I think I did pretty well.”
Meanwhile, Soong, at his post-debate press conference, when asked by the press whether he felt he seemed to be ignored by Ma and Tsai during the debate, said he was happy to be marginalized “because they both engaged in trivial issues rather than ideas to rule the country.”
While giving high praise for Ma and Tsai for their performance, Soong added that he also put a lot of effort into the debate.
Soong pledged to establish a “Two Rs” government — Responsible and Responsive — if he is elected, to embody the value of the country’s democracy.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS