Nearly 80 percent of Taiwanese regard Beijing as being hostile to Taiwan since President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) inauguration in May last year, a sentiment that appears to transcend political boundaries, according to a survey released by the Cross-Strait Policy Association yesterday.
The poll found that 77.2 percent of respondents think China has been unfriendly to Taiwan since Tsai was sworn in, of which 43.8 percent believe it is “extremely inimical.”
A mere 15.3 percent of those polled considered Beijing as being amiable, while 7.5 percent declined to give an answer.
Photo: courtesy of the Cross-Strait Policy Association
An analysis of the results showed that Beijing’s hostile perception is shared by the public, regardless of their political affiliation, with 89.2 percent, 71.8 percent and 63.7 percent of respondents who identified themselves as pan-green supporters, pan-blue sympathizers and nonpartisan feeling that way respectively.
Conversely, 43.3 percent of respondents said that Tsai has demonstrated “just the right amount” of goodwill toward Beijing, followed by 38.1 percent who think she has shown “too little,” 10.1 percent who declined to answer and 8.5 percent who believe she has shown “too much.”
Responses to this question are closely related to respondents’ political inclinations, although those who identified as nonpartisan were divided between “too little” at 38.7 percent and “just the right amount” at 35.2 percent, the association said.
However, nearly 70 percent of those polled expressed support for Tsai’s cross-strait policy, which is centered on her pledge to maintain the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait and forge a relationship with Beijing that is “consistent, predictable and sustainable,” while 24 percent were against the policy.
As for Beijing setting Tsai’s acknowledgement of the so-called “1992 consensus” as a nonnegotiable precondition for cross-strait exchanges, 67.8 percent of respondents said that it is unacceptable, while 25.3 percent felt otherwise.
Beijing has imposed a number of punitive measures against Taipei over the Tsai administration’s refusal to accept the “1992 consensus,” including the suspension of cross-strait dialogue and a cut to the number of Chinese tourists to Taiwan.
Few improvements in cross-strait ties have been seen, despite the president’s repeated reassurances that her government would not renege on its promise to maintain the “status quo.”
The “1992 consensus” refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means. Former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted that he made the term up in 2000.
On domestic issues, 74.6 percent of respondents said that the Cabinet’s eight-year “Forward-looking Infrastructure Construction Project” is conducive to the nation’s development and economic growth, while 19.6 percent expressed opposition.
The initiative, unveiled earlier this month, calls for the government to spend NT$880 billion (US$29.1 billion) to improve five aspects of the nation’s economy: “green” energy, water resources, railways, digital infrastructure and urban and rural development.
The telephone-based survey collected 1,086 valid samples from Taiwanese aged 20 or older on Monday and Tuesday. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.97 percentage points.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods