A poll by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) found 55 percent of respondents favor perpetual maintenance of the cross-strait “status quo,” a rise of 8 percent from last year.
According to the poll released yesterday, 16 percent of the respondents said that they would like Taiwan to declare its formal independence as soon as possible, while 12 percent of respondents said that they would prefer to maintain the “status quo” now and declare independence later.
Four percent said they would like Taiwan to be reunified with China as soon as possible, while 9 percent said they would prefer future reunification.
Four percent said they had no comment or declined to answer.
Perpetually maintaining the “status quo” enjoyed the highest support since the UDN began conducting the surveys in 2000.
Meanwhile, support for “independence as soon as possible” and “reunification as soon as possible” both dipped by 3 percentage points from last year.
Although a large percentage of the respondents believe that China will become the world’s strongest nation and eventually lead the world, more than 50 percent said they do not have a good impression of China.
The poll found 59 percent of respondents think that China will become the strongest nation in the world, while 32 percent disagree.
However, for six consecutive years, more than 50 percent of the respondents — 58 percent this year — said they have a negative image of the Chinese government, while only 28 percent said they have a positive image of the Chinese government.
Although a slightly lower number of people said they have a “bad impression” of Chinese people, the figure — 51 percent — is still far higher than those who have a “good impression” of Chinese people, which is about 28 percent.
Asked what impression they have of the Chinese government, most of the respondents answered “corruption,” “dictatorship” and “non-democratic.”
Most of the respondents said that their impression of Chinese people include “uncivilized behavior,” “inconsiderate,” “law violations” and “showing off their wealth.”
Although a majority of the respondents believe that China might become the strongest nation in the world, less than 50 percent of the respondents said they worry that China’s threat against Taiwan would intensify.
The poll showed that 34 percent of the respondents said they are worried that a strong China would have a negative impact on Taiwan’s development, while 62 percent said they are not.
The poll was conducted in the evenings from Wednesday to Saturday last week, with 1,042 valid adult samples randomly selected by telephone across the nation.
Responding to the poll results, the Presidential Office yesterday said the “status quo” refers to the cross-strait peace and prosperity since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office seven years ago.
The Democratic Progressive Party said the results show that its presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) cross-strait policy of maintaining the “status quo” is gaining the trust of the public.
The US Department of State yesterday criticized Beijing over its misrepresentation of the US’ “one China” policy in the latest diplomatic salvo between the two countries over a bid by Taiwan to regain its observer status at the World Health Assembly, the decisionmaking body of the WHO. “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to publicly misrepresent U.S. policy,” Department of State spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter. “The United States does not subscribe to the PRC’s ‘one China principle’ — we remain committed to our longstanding, bipartisan one China policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, Three Joint Communiques, and
FATES LINKED: The US president said that sanctions on Russia over Ukraine must exact a ‘long-term price,’ because otherwise ‘what signal does that send to China?’ US President Joe Biden yesterday vowed that US forces would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack in his strongest statement to date on the issue. Beijing is already “flirting with danger,” Biden said following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, in which the pair agreed to monitor Chinese naval activity and joint Chinese-Russian exercises. Asked if Washington was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, he replied: “Yes.” “That’s the commitment we made,” Biden said. “We agreed with the ‘one China’ policy, we signed on to it ... but the idea that it can be
SUBTLE? While Biden said the US policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ on Taiwan had not changed, the group targeted China and Russia without naming them Leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US yesterday warned against attempts to “change the status quo by force,” as concerns grow about whether China could invade Taiwan. The issue of Taiwan loomed over a leadership meeting in Tokyo of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) nations — the US, Japan, Australia and India — who stressed their determination to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region in the face of an increasingly assertive China, although Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the group was not targeting any one country. The four leaders said in a joint statement issued after their talks
Nearly half of Taiwanese believe President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has not done enough to prepare the nation against Chinese aggression, the a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation showed. Asked whether the Tsai administration’s military and non-military preparations to defend Taiwan are adequate, 30.6 percent said they were “mostly inadequate” and 18.9 percent said they “very inadequate,” while 25.7 percent said they were “mostly adequate” and 7.1 percent said they were “very adequate.” Another 17.6 percent had no opinion or did not know enough to form a judgement. Still, 51 percent of respondents approved of Tsai’s national defense policy,