The nation’s youth have a strong Taiwanese identity and favor a pragmatic policy approach toward China, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy president Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) said yesterday.
There is little evidence that Taiwanese youth are highly satisfied with President Tsai Ying-wen’s (蔡英文) policy, he said.
Hsu made the remarks at a Global Taiwan Institute conference chaired by its executive director, Russell Hsiao (蕭良其), which International Republican Institute president Daniel Twining and Sunflower movement leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) also attended.
Photo: Nadia Tsao, Taipei Times
Citing a poll by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center commissioned by the foundation, Hsu said Taiwanese youth have a strong commitment to democratic values and national defense.
While Taiwanese aged 20 to 29 are highly nationalistic in their identification with Taiwan, they are also more strongly committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” than those in other age groups, he said.
Their support for maintaining the “status quo” is stronger than their support for Taiwanese nationalism, he added.
The attitude of Taiwanese youth, often described as “congenital pro-independence,” is more accurately described as “anti-unification,” he said.
The general impression in Washington of Taiwanese youth has been that they mostly lean toward independence, but lack the commitment to militarily defend the nation, leading to accusations that they provoke China recklessly, Hsu said.
The foundation commissioned the poll to investigate the veracity of such claims, he added.
The poll, which was conducted from February to last month, gathered 825 valid samples from respondents 39 or younger and 747 valid samples from respondents 40 or older, he said.
Various polls conducted since 2011 have shown that respondents aged 20 to 39 are more likely to agree — by a margin of more than 86 percent — with the statement that although democracy has its flaws, it is the best of all political systems, Hsu said.
This level of support for democracy is greater than that of any other age group, he said.
Optimism for Taiwan’s democracy over the next decade has declined within this age group, from 58 percent in 2001 to 41.1 percent this year, but Taiwanese youth are still more optimistic about democracy than other age groups, Hsu said.
Taiwanese youth have demonstrated far less support for dictatorships or authoritarianism than people in the same age group in European countries or the US, he added.
Among people 39 or younger, 65.5 percent support maintaining the cross-strait “status quo,” 10.4 percent support unification and 23.5 percent support independence, Hsu said, adding that among people 40 or older, support for these positions are 59.3 percent, 20.1 percent and 14.7 percent respectively.
A total of 63.4 percent of respondents 39 or younger expressed a willingness to go to war should China declare war on Taiwan following a declaration of independence, while 32.6 percent were opposed, he said.
Should China preemptively attempt to annex Taiwan by force, the number of people 39 or younger willing to fight increased to 70.3 percent, while those unwilling decreased to 26.5 percent, he added.
Identification with democratic values is helpful to increasing Taiwan’s national will to resist Chinese aggression, Hsu said.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
The Taipei District Court today ruled to extend the incommunicado detention of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) for two more months as part of an ongoing corruption trial. Codefendants in the case — real-estate tycoon Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) and Ko's former mayoral office head Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗) — were granted bail of NT$100 million (US$3.4 million) and NT$20 million respectively. Sheen and Lee would also be barred from leaving the country for eight months and prohibited from contact with, harassing, threatening or inquiring after the case with codefendants or witnesses. The two would also be