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.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS