President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) approval rating is 41 percent, while 57 percent approved of her performance in protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty, a Cross-Strait Policy Association survey showed yesterday, the third anniversary her inauguration.
The survey showed that 53.2 percent of respondents disapproved of Tsai’s general performance in the past three years and 5.8 percent were undecided or did not answer, while 36.6 percent disapproved of her protection of national sovereignty, with 6.7 percent undecided or not answering.
Asked about Tsai’s efforts to counter false news reports, 56.6 percent approved, 29.6 percent disapproved and 13.7 percent were undecided or did not answer.
The survey asked people about their opinion of China’s attitude toward Taiwan after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Jan. 2 introduced his “five conditions” in a speech touted by Beijing as the “guiding principles for a new era of China-Taiwan policy.” The survey showed that 59.9 percent disapproved, 15.6 percent approved and 24.5 percent were undecided or did not answer.
“Tsai takes a tough stance on cross-strait relations, but with some moderation to avoid creating more conflict, so she has received a positive evaluation,” National Taiwan Normal University professor Fan Shih-ping (范世平) said.
With Xi promoting the “one county, two systems” formula as a model for unification, Tsai was the only politician who took a firm and persistent stance against it, which earned recognition from Taiwanese, Fan said.
The Hong Kong Security Bureau’s proposed amendments to the territory’s Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, which would allow Hong Kong suspects to be extradited to China, has sparked fear among Taiwanese, so more people hope that the government maintains its tough stance to protect the nation’s sovereignty, Fan said.
Disapproval of Tsai’s general performance is mostly due to her internal affairs policies, association deputy secretary-general Lin Ting-hui (林廷輝) said.
While people used the metaphor “accidentally picked up a gun” to describe Tsai’s quick response to Xi’s speech, it shows that her administration “had prepared a gun,” Lin said.
If next year’s presidential election is focused on cross-strait relations, Tsai’s high approval rating on this issue would likely reflect in voting, Lin said.
The telephone survey was conducted on Thursday and Friday last week, collecting data from 1,069 people aged 20 or above. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and margin of error of 3 percentage points.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not