Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (
In the poll, conducted on randomly selected adults around the nation on April 21-23 by Focus Survey Research at the commission of the Taiwan Thinktank, 45 percent of the respondents said they approve of Lien meeting with the Beijing leadership during his visit in China, while 42 percent said they disapprove.
Seventy-one percent of respondents said it would be "inappropriate" for Lien to reach a consensus or enter any kind of agreement with Beijing without the authorization of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), according to the think tank.
Sixty-four percent of respondents said they think Lien does not have the authority to represent the people of Taiwan, the think tank reported. Even some 40 percent of supporters of the "pan-blue alliance" of the KMT and the People First Party (PFP) had the same opinion, the pollsters said.
Asked whether Lien and PFP Chairman James Soong (
About 54 percent of respondents said they approve of Soong talking with Beijing about the 10-point consensus that he reached with Chen recently, compared with 30 percent who disapproved.
Meanwhile, the poll found that 50 percent of respondents think that China's communist regime is now more hostile toward Taiwan than a year ago, while only 20 percent think the opposite is true.
A total of 39 percent think that cross-strait relations will turn for the worse this year, while 31 percent think the opposite will occur.
Commenting on the poll findings, Chen Ming-tong (
Hung Yu-hung (洪裕宏), chairman of the private think tank the Taipei Society, said that the results of the poll revealed that the people of Taiwan identify strongly with their country regardless of their political affiliation, and that they have a highly-developed sense of democracy and political reasoning.
The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.99 percentage points.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS