Nearly 70 percent of Taiwanese are satisfied with President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) inaugural address, with a majority of them supporting her plan to further cross-strait ties based on the historical fact of the 1992 cross-strait talks, according to a poll released by the broadcaster TVBS’ poll center late on Saturday.
The telephone survey, which was conducted from Friday evening through Saturday afternoon, sought to gauge opinions on Tsai’s speech, which covered a wide range of issues from the transformation of Taiwan’s economic structure and long-term care policies, to pension reform, transitional justice, judicial reform, cross-strait relations and regional development.
The poll found that 68 percent of respondents were content with Tsai’s speech, 10 percentage points lower than the 78 percent satisfaction rate expressed by respondents in a similar survey in 2000 of then-president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) inaugural address, the center said.
Only 8 percent of respondents expressed an opposite view and 23 percent said they had no opinions.
Sixty-six percent said Tsai’s speech was a success, compared with 16 percent who thought otherwise.
Despite China’s unhappiness with Tsai’s failure to mention the so-called “1992 consensus” and its ensuing move to suspend cross-strait communications until Tsai toes Beijing’s line, a majority, or 62 percent, of respondents supported her policy of maintaining cross-strait ties based on four political foundations, including the historical fact of the 1992 talks between officials from the Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits in Hong Kong, and the Republic of China’s (ROC) constitutional order.
Chinese officials on Saturday said cross-strait exchanges can only continue if the “1992 consensus” is reaffirmed.
About 54 percent of respondents believed that cross-strait relations would remain about the same as before, though 17 percent thought they could worsen and 11 percent thought they would improve.
The “1992 consensus” — a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted to making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Respondents also appeared to take an optimistic view of Tsai’s potential performance over the next four years, as 56 percent were confident that Tsai would steer the nation in the right direction. Eight percent were pessimistic and 36 percent said they could not yet to make a judgment.
The poll collected 826 valid samples from people aged 20 or above. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of errors of 3.4 percentage points.
Additional reporting by CNA
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