More than half of Taiwanese approve of president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) objection to the so-called “1992 consensus” and “one country, two systems,” a Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation poll showed yesterday.
The landline and mobile phone survey was conducted after the Jan. 13 election from Monday to Wednesday last week, collecting 1,083 valid responses from Taiwanese aged 20 or older.
The poll showed that 53.5 percent of respondents said they agree with Lai’s stance, while 33.6 percent disagreed.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The so-called “1992 consensus” — a term that former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
The majority in all age groups supported Lai’s position, although younger respondents were more likely to agree, the foundation said.
Asked whether they feared China would take military action against Taiwan after Lai’s election, 69 percent said they were not concerned that his election would cause China to expedite any potential invasion plans, while 27.3 percent said they were worried.
The results show that suggestions by KMT candidates that a vote for Lai would provoke China did not hold much sway over the public, the foundation said.
Meanwhile, three-quarters of respondents said they disagreed with former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) statement before the election that Taiwanese “must trust” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) when it comes to cross-strait issues.
Only 12.5 percent agreed with Ma’s statement.
The poll also showed that 44.2 percent of Taiwanese support independence, 10.9 percent support unification with China and 33 percent support maintaining the “status quo.”
On post-election governance, nearly 60 percent said that the government should form a coalition Cabinet since no party received a majority in the legislature, while 22 percent disagreed.
The poll had a confidence level of 95 percent and margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
Taiwan’s economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter, as booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove a surge in exports, spilling over into investment and consumption, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. GDP growth was 13.69 percent year-on-year during the January-to-March period, beating the DGBAS’ February forecast by 2.23 percentage points and marking the most robust growth in nearly four decades, DGBAS senior official Chiang Hsin-yi (江心怡) told a news conference in Taipei. The result was powered by exports, which remain the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, Chiang said. Outbound shipments jumped 51.12 percent year-on-year to
RSS