Nearly 70 percent of respondents to a recent poll expressed approval of institutional cross-strait negotiations, saying they are helpful to forging peace and stability between Taiwan and China.
The survey, conducted by the poll center of the Taipei Municipal University of Education and commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council, found that 65 percent of respondents agreed that the establishment of communication channels between government agencies will help solve problems resulting from increased cross-strait exchanges.
On a proposed agreement on the avoidance of double taxation that was not signed as scheduled in the latest round of cross-strait talks that concluded last week, 58 percent of those polled said they supported the government’s decision to postpone the signing of the pact.
With regard to the agenda for the next round of talks — scheduled for the first half of next year in China — 73 percent of those surveyed said the issue of intellectual property rights protection should be included, while 55 percent said they favored discussion on the proposed cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).
The survey also found that after the latest talks, there was no apparent change in the percentage of people who categorically support either Taiwan’s unification with or independence from China.
Those who were broadly classified as supportive of maintaining the “status quo” — including those who favor maintaining the status quo forever and those who would prefer maintaining the status quo now and then moving toward either unification or independence — accounted for 88 percent of respondents, with those who support the “status quo” forever increasing slightly to 30 percent.
The percentage of those who are broadly classified as favoring unification — including the “status quo” and then unification — and those broadly classified as favoring independence — including the “status quo” and then independence — remained unchanged at 10 percent and 20 percent respectively, the survey found.
The survey, conducted between Friday and Sunday with 1,092 valid samples collected, has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
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