A majority of respondents agree that any important agreements signed by Taiwan and China must obtain the approval of the Taiwanese public, a poll released by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday showed.
The poll, conducted by the party’s Poll Center on March 26 and March 27, questioned 1,043 adults. More than 69 percent of the respondents said any major accords signed between Taiwan and China must be put before the people of Taiwan in a national referendum. Only 26 percent said the accords did not need the approval of the people.
DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday called on the incoming Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration to respect public opinion and let the people of Taiwan have the final say on significant cross-strait policies.
The poll also found that more than 88 percent of respondents agreed that Taiwan and China are two sovereign nations independent from each other, while only 8 percent of respondents said they were not.
Citing the poll, Hsieh yesterday dismissed president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) claim that Beijing and Washington both recognized the “1992 consensus” as “misleading.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office has publicly opposed the “1992 consensus” and the only consensus it agrees with is its “one China” policy, Hsieh said.
The “1992 consensus” refers to an agreement that says both sides of the Strait agree that there is “one China,” but each has its own interpretation.
The poll also discovered that nearly 82 percent of the people surveyed disagreed that the result of the March 22 presidential election indicated that the majority of Taiwanese were now more likely to accept unification with China.
Only 13.7 percent agreed with the claim.
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
COVID-19 infections have climbed for three consecutive weeks and are likely to reach another peak between next month and June, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Weekly hospital visits for the disease increased by 19 percent from the previous week, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said. From Tuesday last week to yesterday, 21 cases of severe COVID-19 and seven deaths were confirmed, and from Sept. 1 last year to yesterday, there were 600 cases and 129 deaths, he said. From Oct. 1 last year to yesterday, 95.9 percent of the severe cases and 96.7 percent of the deaths
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
RSS