A poll released by the Chinese-language Global Views magazine showed yesterday that a majority of Taiwanese said Taiwan must not stop purchasing weapons from the US even if China decides to remove missiles aimed at the country.
The poll, conducted by the Global Views Survey Research Center, showed that 65.7 percent of respondents disagreed that Taiwan should stop buying military weapons from the US if China -removes missiles targeting Taiwan, while only 18.6 percent said it should stop and 15.6 percent did not express any opinion.
Pollsters said the findings reflected public desire to strengthen the nation’s self-defense capability because of a sense of insecurity and in hopes that the military equipment would enhance the country’s leverage at the negotiating table.
The poll followed a remark made by Chinese President Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) in New York City last month vaguely referring to the possibility of the missile question being resolved at some point.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in his Double Ten National Day address on Oct. 10, called on China to remove the more than 1,000 missiles aimed at Taiwan, saying he hoped it would become a reality as soon as possible.
ELECTION
The survey also found that 62.5 percent of respondents said China was unlikely to remove the missiles before the presidential election in 2012, against 17 percent who said it was possible and 20.5 percent who did not express an opinion.
Despite talk of a cross-strait detente, the poll indicated that most Taiwanese still kept a wary eye on China. More than 77 percent of the respondents said they were most displeased about China’s efforts to prevent Taiwan from participating in international organizations, followed by China’s undemocratic system that suppressed freedom of speech (68.4 percent), the missiles aimed at Taiwan (67.6 percent) and its “Anti-Secession” Law (53.7 percent).
The poll showed that 45.3 percent of the respondents thought the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) that was signed with Beijing in June was more important than the removal of missiles. Only 30.5 percent said the removal of missiles was more important.
Cross-analysis discovered that 41.3 percent of the respondents identifying themselves as pan-green supporters said they would be more supportive of the ECFA if Beijing removed the missiles.
PRESIDENT’S STANDINGS
Meanwhile, the poll indicated that Ma’s level of public trust and popularity increased slightly this month, although they were still below 50 percent.
The survey put Ma’s popularity at 38.2 percent, up 8.1 percentage points from last month, the -highest level since July last year. His disapproval rating also dropped 6.5 percentage points, but remained high at 49.1 percent.
His public trust level increased 6.3 percentage points to 46.1 percent against a 37 percent level of distrust, a drop of 4.4 percentage points.
Pollsters attributed the growth in his popularity and public trust to the recovery of public confidence in the economy, which the pollsters said also inspired more backing for the ECFA.
The poll, conducted between Oct. 14 and Oct. 17, questioned 1,007 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching