Most Taiwanese do not agree with China’s “one country, two systems” formula for unification and believe the nation’s future should be decided by its people, a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday showed.
In the survey, which was conducted by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center from Wednesday to Sunday last week, 79 percent of respondents rejected the “one country, two systems” concept, which would make Taiwan a special administrative region of China.
Only 10.4 percent of respondents accepted the formula, while 10.5 percent said they had no opinion.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The government has already taken countermeasures against a five-point proposal announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Jan. 2, council spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said, adding that the results of the survey proved that Taiwanese oppose China’s propaganda and divisiveness.
Meanwhile, 83.9 percent of respondents rejected the use of force by China against Taiwan, while 87.7 percent said that Taiwan’s future and cross-strait relations should be decided by Taiwan’s 23 million people.
The survey also found that 83.9 percent support exchanges between Taiwan and China being undertaken on the basis of equality and mutual respect, without political preconditions and based on the law.
Eight out of 10 respondents said that the government should have better legislative and monitoring mechanisms before engaging in political negotiations or signing agreements with China.
Almost 90 percent of respondents said that the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait should be maintained.
The telephone survey collected data from 1,093 people aged 20 or above. It has a margin of error of 2.96 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent.
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