Prior to Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) trip to the US today, a survey released yesterday showed that 66.1 percent of Taiwanese believe that her policy of maintaining the “status quo” in cross-strait relations corresponds to the US’ cross-strait policy.
The poll released by the Cross-Strait Policy Association showed that only 13.2 percent of respondents held the opposite view.
Cross-Strait Policy Association president Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said he expected the US would want Tsai to clarify her views on her “maintaining the status quo” remarks and to know how she would go about doing so.
Photo: CNA
The poll showed that 37.1 percent of respondents believe that her trip would not affect her presidential campaign, while 32.3 percent said it would.
The poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, with 1,171 valid samples from people randomly selected from telephone books.
The poll found that Tsai led over all her potential Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rivals, even in northern Taiwan — notably Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung — which have traditionally been a stronghold for the pan-blue camp.
Whether against KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) or Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), Tsai would win by a large margin, even in the north, the poll showed.
Facing Chu, Tsai would have 57.1 percent support over Chu’s 33.8 percent nationwide, while 14.2 percent of respondents said they were undecided. Against Wang, Tsai had the support of 51.3 percent of respondents nationwide, while Wang had 31.7 percent of the support, with 16.8 percent of the respondents saying they are still undecided, the poll found.
Breaking down the figures geographically, even in Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung, Tsai garnered the support of 57.4 percent of respondents against Wang’s 28.4 percent; and when running against Chu — who is serving his second term as New Taipei City mayor — Tsai still has 52.1 percent of support against Chu’s 36.3 percent in the three cities, the poll found.
Jet-Go Consulting Group (戰國策顧問) chairman Wu Chun-cheng (吳春城) said the poll might indicate people are tired of the KMT.
“When Tsai first announced her presidential bid [last month], a poll conducted without identifying her rival showed that she only had a little over 30 percent support,” Wu said. “However, if you compare Tsai against other KMT rvials, she immediately has more than 50 percent support.”
“This shows that the 20 percent growth might come from people who simply do not like the KMT,” he said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
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