With President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) set to embark on her first overseas state visit today, a survey published by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation yesterday showed that more than 60 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with Taiwan’s international status and diplomatic situation.
The survey, conducted from Sunday to Tuesday, sought to gauge public opinion on the nation’s foreign relations since former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) left office.
Of those polled, 61.4 percent said they were not content with the nation’s current global status and diplomatic situation, compared with 31.6 percent who expressed the opposite opinion.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
While the majority of Taiwan’s 22 diplomatic allies are small countries in Africa, the Southern Pacific or Central and South America, the majority, or 56.3 percent, of respondents said that the number of diplomatic allies Taiwan has plays a significant role in the nation’s survival and development.
About 38 percent said the figure was of little importance, while 5.4 percent had no opinion, the poll found.
“It means that should Beijing decide to launch a diplomatic war, it would still strike a nerve with most Taiwanese,” the foundation said.
With regard to Ma’s oft-touted “viable diplomacy” policy, which essentially required Taiwan to obtain approval from China before making any diplomatic efforts, 54.4 percent of respondents said they did not support such a policy, while 35.1 percent said otherwise.
Amid Beijing’s persistent attempts to isolate Taiwan in the international arena, 61.6 percent of those polled said that the nation should aggressively fight for more international space, regardless of China’s reactions, with 33.8 percent opposing such an approach.
The poll found that 78.2 percent of respondents disagreed with Ma’s perceived prioritization of cross-strait ties over foreign relations, saying that Taiwan should not suspend its efforts to improve its international status, such as joining the UN and encouraging the president to make overseas state visits, simply to avoid irritating China.
On the politically sensitive issue of Taiwan’s long-term goal of joining the UN, between 76.8 percent and 84.8 percent of the respondents supported the nation’s continued endeavors to join, regardless of opposition from China, the US or both.
Nearly 50 percent of respondents found use of the nation’s official title “Chinese Taipei” in the international community acceptable, compared with 45.4 percent who disliked the appellation.
Should the nation be given the opportunity to choose its title in the international arena, 53.4 percent of those polled preferred the name Taiwan, followed by the Republic of China (ROC) at 31 percent and Chinese Taipei at 8.7 percent.
The telephone-based survey collected 1,077 valid samples. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
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