Nearly half of Taiwanese believe President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has not done enough to prepare the nation against Chinese aggression, the a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation showed.
Asked whether the Tsai administration’s military and non-military preparations to defend Taiwan are adequate, 30.6 percent said they were “mostly inadequate” and 18.9 percent said they “very inadequate,” while 25.7 percent said they were “mostly adequate” and 7.1 percent said they were “very adequate.”
Another 17.6 percent had no opinion or did not know enough to form a judgement.
Still, 51 percent of respondents approved of Tsai’s national defense policy, while 35 percent disapproved, the poll showed.
Of the respondents, 46.2 percent approved of Tsai’s policies in general, while 39.5 percent expressed disapproval.
Asked about Tsai’s handling of cross-strait relations, 35.3 percent said they “mostly approve” and 14.2 percent said they “highly approve” of her performance, while 20.2 percent said they “highly disapprove” and 19 percent said they “mostly disapprove.”
The approval rating for Tsai’s overall foreign policy was 56.7 percent, while the disapproval rating was 33.9 percent. Of the respondents, 47.4 percent approved of Tsai’s economic policies, while 44.8 percent disapproved.
Regarding the promotion of judicial reforms by the Tsai administration, 37.4 percent said they approved of the efforts and 43.9 percent said they disapproved.
The results suggest that Taiwanese are anxious about the nation’s defense preparedness and highly disappointed with judicial reform, the foundation said.
The poll collected responses from 1,077 Taiwanese aged 20 or older by landline. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
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