The most recent My Formosa opinion poll was released on Dec. 1, outlining findings of opinions last month on issues such as the level of trust in President William Lai (賴清德) and Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), as well as the degree of satisfaction with their performances, the state of the nation’s economy and perceptions about the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s handling of cross-strait relations.
The poll also looked at the public’s evaluation of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), and perceptions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the political intentions of KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文).
The details and the cross-referenced analyses are interesting in their own right, but another level of analysis can be made on what the poll, and the ways in which it might be interpreted, are a reminder about the very nature of democracy, including its weaknesses and how caution is needed to preserve its strengths.
On this page, Yang Chih-chiang (楊智強) sounds a word of warning about a worrying trend revealed by the poll: a significant increase in the percentage of Taiwanese who believed that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong under one China,” together with a roughly corresponding drop in respondents who believed that Taiwan and China are separate, sovereign countries.
Yang puts this down to the influence of Cheng, who the majority of respondents believe stands for eventual unification of the two nations. Cheng has only been KMT chair since Nov. 1. Yang suggests that her election has “consolidated the party’s base,” and that her influence has facilitated the fracturing of Taiwan’s social and psychological defenses.
Both might be true, and yet another reading is that Cheng’s election, which was quite an upset for the party establishment, represents a consolidation among KMT supporters of affinity with the position that she espouses.
That is, the trend is less a symptom of her victory than her victory was a symptom of the trend. If the trend is real, then in a democracy it is potentially a reflection of a growing desire within the country, and so must be respected.
Yang characterizes the trend he has identified with a fracturing of resolve in resistance against an influence campaign at the hands of the CCP. He is probably right in this. The inherent weakness of democracy is that it only makes sense and can only operate efficiently within the context of the public’s universal access to reliable information. Without it, the freedom to choose is distorted beyond any meaningfulness.
The job of political leaders is to persuade voters to see things from their point of view, having provided the pertinent information. If the trend Yang identified is real, then the CCP and the KMT are doing their job well, while Lai and the government are not.
This goes beyond theoretical approaches to the value and strength of democracy. In her article on today’s page, “Uninformed, high emotion voters,” Lo Ming-cheng (駱明正), a professor of sociology at the University of California, writes that the ongoing standoff between Cho and the opposition parties over the former’s refusal to countersign amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) could lead to the dissolution of the legislature and new elections for every legislative seat.
If such a scenario comes to pass, the levels of trust in Lai and the government and the assessment of their performances would become all the more crucial.
Trust in Lai’s leadership last month fell almost 14 percentage points to 42.3 percent from 55.8 percent at the same time last year, the poll showed. That is a problem not only for the government, but for Taiwanese who disagree with Cheng’s position that unification with China is a desirable outcome.
Lo writes that it is crucial for Lai and the government to more effectively engage with what political scientists refer to as “low-information voters,” those who are unable to process complex debates and default instead to party lines, responding more to fear, anger, frustration and hope. In Taiwan, one manifestation of this “high emotion” aspect is the fracture of resolve that Yang identified. Lo warns that Lai and the DPP have “fallen short in speaking to the emotions of these voters.”
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