There are more people who do not want President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to serve another term than those who do, according to a poll released yesterday by the National Policy Foundation, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) think tank.
Of the respondents, 45.5 percent said they do not support her re-election, 38.1 percent said they did and 16.4 percent said they were undecided, the poll found.
Half of the respondents said they were dissatisfied with the performance of Tsai’s administration, compared with 42.9 percent who said otherwise.
Photo: CNA
While 24.4 percent said they were “extremely dissatisfied,” 8.7 percent said they were “extremely satisfied.”
The number of people who said they were “somewhat satisfied” and “somewhat dissatisfied” was 34.2 percent and 24.4 percent respectively.
Asked which party they would support in next year’s elections, 27.8 percent said they would vote for the KMT, 24 percent said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), 8.2 percent said the Taiwan People’s Party and 4.7 percent said the New Power Party.
Fifteen point three percent said they did not support any political party, while 13.6 percent abstained. The remainder supported other parties.
Almost half the respondents, 47.1 percent, said they supported work being resumed on the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), compared with 41.5 percent who were against it and 11.4 percent who abstained.
Asked if they supported the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong, 54.5 percent said “yes.”
The think tank asked whether they would still support the rallies if protesters paralyzed the airport and rioted on the streets, obstructing traffic.
To that question, 42.5 percent answered “yes,” while 43.4 percent said “no.”
Asked whether they agree with the statement: “Today’s Hong Kong is tomorrow’s Taiwan,” 47.2 percent said they do not, while 44.2 percent that said they do.
The think tank asked respondents whether it was because Hong Kong belongs to China and Taiwan belongs to the Republic of China.
To that, 60 percent said “yes,” while 28.5 percent said “no” and 11.4 percent abstained.
The majority of people, 56.9 percent, said they were not convinced that the Tsai administration raising the minimum wage would help mitigate the unemployment rate and low wages, while 29 percent said otherwise and 14.1 percent abstained.
Regarding the government’s investigation into the duty-free cigarette smuggling scandal and the punishments it had meted out so far, 53.5 percent said they were not satisfied, while 22.9 percent said they were.
Most respondents were averse to having the Theory of the Undetermined Status of Taiwan taught in high-school history classes, with 50.6 percent of respondents opposing it, 26.6 percent welcoming it and 22.8 percent abstaining.
In addition, 43 percent of people said they lacked confidence in the curriculum guidelines for the 12-year national education system published earlier this year, while 41.6 percent abstained and 15.4 percent said they had faith in them.
The survey, conducted by Taiwan User Friendly Services & Technologies Co and commissioned by the foundation, had 1,070 valid samples and a margin of error of 3 percent.
Foundation research division director Huang Hsin-hua (黃心華) said the Tsai administration faltering in every category of the poll showed that it lacked credibility, adding that voters should decide carefully when casting their ballots in next year’s elections.
Citing the survey, KMT Taipei City Councilor Yu Shu-hui (游淑慧) said that despite Tsai having support, only 20.8 percent of people aged 20 to 29 said they backed the DPP.
This shows that the DPP is a one-person show and if Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), whose support base is similar to that of Tsai’s, throws his hat in the ring, it would surely deal a blow to Tsai’s support rating, she said.
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